Warriors Grappling Academy Report
Swallows Leisure Centre, Sittingbourne, Kent
February 6th 2005
Kurash is a style of jacket wrestling from the former
Soviet republic of Uzbekistan – its literal translation simply means wrestle.
Kurash has been widely practiced for over 3500 years in its traditional form
throughout Uzbekistan and Central Asia at open-air festivals, weddings and
celebrations.
Kurash is a throwing style of jacket wrestling. There is no
ground fighting unlike Judo and Sombo. The object of Kurash is to throw the
opponent cleanly onto their back.
Any grip above the waist including belt grips are
allowed and, unlike Judo, there are no restrictions on stance, double sided
grips etc thus allowing wrestlers more freedom to adapt their own style of upper
body gripping strategies and throws. The prohibition of grips below the belt
does, however, rule out the use of leg grabbing attacks and leg pickup counters
thus making Kurash a highly spectacular and spectator appealing style of
wrestling.
Martin Clarke has been a great influence in promoting different styles of Wrestling in Great Britain he was the person who revived Sombo Wrestling in the UK and Western Europe and Kurash was the latest style of wrestling he and his club “The Warriors”. The British Kurash Association was formed in 1999 by Tim Thomas, who now teaches at the Warriors Combat Wrestling Club and Young Judo Club at East Street sports Centre, had taken part in the first major international tournament for the President’s Prize in Tashkent in 1998. The first ever Kurash Tournament was held at Clarkes Sports Studio Milton Regis some years ago with just a few entries, the Sport has now developed to such a degree there was over 250 people at the event on Sunday. Tim approached Martin Clarke and Keith Costa he they would help organise the 2005 event and they jumped at the chance. To hold yet another major international event in Sittingbourne was great honour for the town and the Club.
With this being the Uzbeks national sport it was taken very seriously and not only did they send a top Kurash Team and lot of dignitaries were also present. The Uzbeks Ambassador and their Minister of Sport attended a meeting with the Mayor of Swale where both he and his wife were presented with a ceremonial coat and honour normally give to Kurash Champions plus an invitation to Uzbekistan. On the Sunday the Ambassador and the Minister of Sport gave a speech welcoming every one to the competition, we were then treated to some National Music sung by a leading Uzbek singer.
The competition it self was very well run by Keith Costa and proved to be a very exciting day, it attracted players from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Uzbekistan and Moldova The main difference with Kurash and other wrestling sports you see some really spectacular high throws and the Uzbeks made some really marvelous moves but our own Nationals should not be forgotten some really good performances were shown by James Waithe, Ashley Costa, Wayne Couzen, Kieran Daniels to name but a few . The audiences darling of the day was Sittingbourne man John Clarke who trains at the Warriors and Young Judo Club. John a top Judo and Sombo players had trained really hard for this event realising the high standard of the people attending. A lot of John’s pupils were in the audience, John is a member of the PE staff at the Sittingbourne Community College his speciality is naturally enough self defence, so he had a lot to lose. John had a really rough draw with the Uzbek being his first fight, this is what the club did not want one of the hardest fights first, this did not deter John where in just a minute of bout he threw the Uzbek with a outer hook throw for a total victory. He went on to reach the final against a Moldavian this proved to be a very tough match with the Moldavian being as strong as John, after a minute of battling for dominant grips, John tried a suplex throw both crashed to the floor with most people thinking the score should have been awarded to John but the referee had his own ideas and awarded the ˝ point to the Moldavian this had the audience in up roar and after (although John’s mother Valerie, no stranger to these events thought he landed on the ground first) much discussion the scored stayed but not for long John tore into the fight to win the match with a perfectly timed drop shoulder throw to score a total. This victory had the very partisan audience cheering plus lots of congratulations from the Uzbeks a honour in its own right.
This was a tremendous day and Kurash is a terrific sport we look forward to the next one