Podcast on Inner Mongolian Bökh Wrestling

[Charliex]

Fascinating podcast on the culture of Inner Mongolian Bökh - described by Lavell Marshall, an American who has been living in the Inner Mongolian grasslands for a year and taking part in the competitions there. Mongolians have a reputation for being some of the toughest grappling competitors across the grappling arts (judo, sambo, sumo). Lavell himself is a Shuai Jiao champ - so hearing his take on what makes the Mongolian culture of wrestling so special is really interesting. 

I particularly liked his description of the culture of play in wrestling training and the importance of feeling and connection to the land as a factor in wrestling performance. 

Here's the link to the podcast: https://thousandholds.net/a-phonecall-to-the-inner-mongolian-steppe/

Sidenote: The Hero with a Thousand Holds is a an excellent project documenting folk wrestling styles. He's done great work on researching Irish Collar and Elbow - a  European folk wrestling style that was once incredibly popular.

[AndyMaBobs]

Lavell Marshall is a great interesting guy and his video tutorials were real good too. I wondered what happened to him! I guess now I know. Cheers for sharing!

[Charliex]

Very interesting guy. Didn't know much about him aside from that one video of him ragdolling a whitebelt in a bjj comp!

Sounds like Inner Mongolian wrestling doesn't allow leg grabs - so I'm interested to see how the ties and locks contrast with the Thai Clinch.