Episode 7: Great Giants of the Middle World: Sakha Khapsagai
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
The Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, is the coldest place on Earth outside of Antarctica. A 3-million-km2 expanse of unforgiving taiga and tundra, where winter temperatures can plunge to lethal lows of -67°C, over the ages it has nonetheless been home to scattered groups of hardy peoples. The largest such group, the Sakha, arrived in the 13th century after a long migration out of Central Asia, and quickly established themselves as the predominant power in the region. This period of kyrgys uyete (the age of battles and massacre), during which time the Sakha found...
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White Rhino Speaks
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
The two primary martial arts of Burma are Lethwei (a form of bare-knuckle kickboxing featuring headbutts) and Naban, a grappling style that allows palm strikes, and with a focus on ferocious pressure and unforgivingly applied submissions. Phil Dunlap has a lifetime of experience in both of these Burmese arts, with a lineage that stretches back to his grandfather's time in Kachin State during World War II. In this episode, I talk with Phil about how these two seemingly divergent combat styles actually complement each other remarkably well, the cultural factors that influence how martial arts...
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Episode 1.5: Irish Collar and Elbow Remastered
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
As the modern revival of the Irish national wrestling style continues, it's time to lay old myths to rest. To mark the 2-year anniversary of The Hero with a Thousand Holds, I've re-written and re-recorded the very first episode, on the subject of Irish Collar and Elbow. Not only to enhance the story with newfound historical discoveries, but to vigorously dispute one particular source (Charles Wilson's "The Magnificent Scufflers") that has unfortunately led to the spread of many misconceptions about the style over the years. Most meaningfully of all, thanks to the truly staggering amount...
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A Phone Call to the Inner Mongolian Steppe
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
Lavell Marshall is a world champion and 5-time US national champion in Shuai Jiao, a form of Chinese jacket wrestling. For the past year, he’s been living in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China, training and competing with the local Mongol people in their own native wrestling style – Bökh. In this episode, I talk with Lavell about the culture and techniques of Bökh, the differences between Inner Mongolian wrestling and that of Mongolia proper, the strategies he uses to face off against 130 kg giants on a surface of bare grass and rock, and recent measures that the Chinese...
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Episode 6: The Roar of the Rain: Ritualized Jaguar Combat in Guerrero, Mexico
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
The region of the world stretching from Mexico to Costa Rica – traditionally referred to as “Mesoamerica” – was, in its pre-Columbian heyday, home to empires that mapped time, carved words out of mid-air, and raised some of the most magnificent cities on Earth. And from the Olmec to the Toltec, from the Aztec to the Maya, one element of their shared regional culture we can clearly discern was their deep reverence for the local apex predator – the jaguar. Whether as a symbol of imperial authority, death, storms, or individual martial might, the jaguar has been an omnipresent element...
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Episode 5: By Law Shall Land Be Built: Icelandic Glíma
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
One of the last major landmasses to be settled by human beings, Iceland is nowadays a thriving modern nation that boasts a highly educated populace and one of the highest standards of living on Earth. The world of the earliest Icelandic settlers, however, was significantly different – one of endless, back-breaking agricultural work carried out amid brutal North Atlantic weather and the constant threat of violent family feuds. Their wrestling matches could often be similarly wild and injurious, often barely distinguishable in motivation or consequence from a duel fought with sword or axe. As...
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Episode 4: “O Sword, Forged in Khevsureti”: Georgian Chidaoba
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
The Caucasus mountains, a 750-mile-long chain of rock and ice stretching between the Black and Caspian seas, have traditionally been regarded as one of the great cultural boundaries between Europe and Asia. Nestled among its towering peaks and valleys are a tapestry of diverse peoples, many of whom speak languages unrelated to anything else on Earth. And stretching out on the southern side of these mountains lies Georgia – an ancient nation at the crossroads of East and West, with a history rooted in the earliest days of Christianity, in the movements of empires and armies, and in their...
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The Kimura Traps of Angkor
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
The traditional wrestling of Cambodia, Bok Cham Bab, has a history stretching back to the days when the Khmer Empire was the undisputed lord and master of the Southeast Asian mainland. At the height of the empire’s power, wrestling contests held a sufficiently meaningful role in their society that they chose to enshrine it in stone at the site of their greatest lasting achievement – the temples of Angkor. This episode takes a closer look at some of those engravings and, inspired by the presence of some distinctly modern-looking submission holds among them, asks the question: have we really...
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Episode 3: Killing Sharks in the Open Sea: Vietnamese Đấu Vật
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
In the western world, our conceptions of Vietnam are often limited to the Vietnam War – that prolonged and devastating conflict in the mid-20th century that resulted in the deaths of anywhere up to 4.2 million people. As undeniably ruinous as that war was, it was ultimately just two decades in the history of a nation and a people that stretches back to the first millennium BC. Conquered and ruled by the first Chinese Empire, winning their freedom and taking their first steps as an independent nation, waging their own wars of expansion against the other kingdoms of Southeast Asia; the story...
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Chipewyan Wrestling - A Grappling Isolate?
The Hero with a Thousand Holds
The Chipewyan (Dënesųłı̨né), a First Nations people of northern Canada, historically had a deeply ingrained – and in many ways highly unique – wrestling tradition that was remarked upon by almost all of the early European settlers that they encountered. In this short episode, I briefly discuss the things that made Chipewyan wrestling so unusual, and explore some of the possible reasons behind its drastic divergence from many global grappling norms.
info_outlineThe two primary martial arts of Burma are Lethwei (a form of bare-knuckle kickboxing featuring headbutts) and Naban, a grappling style that allows palm strikes, and with a focus on ferocious pressure and unforgivingly applied submissions. Phil Dunlap has a lifetime of experience in both of these Burmese arts, with a lineage that stretches back to his grandfather's time in Kachin State during World War II.
In this episode, I talk with Phil about how these two seemingly divergent combat styles actually complement each other remarkably well, the cultural factors that influence how martial arts are practiced among the different ethnic groups of Burma, the past and potential future of Burmese grappling, and how his combat base in Naban still sees him medalling at high-level BJJ tournaments well into his 50s.