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Martial Arts Of The World - Webs

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Alireza Dabir of Iran waves his country’s flag after winning the gold medal for freestyle wrestling at the Sydney<br />

Olympics, October 1, 2000. (Reuters NewMedia Inc./Corbis)<br />

grations westward, possibly influenced by shuaijiao (shuai-chiao) and<br />

other sources of Chinese and Mongolian wrestling. Turkey was overrun by<br />

the Persians in the sixth century B.C., remained under Persian domination<br />

until the invasion of Alexander (334 B.C.), and was a part of the Roman<br />

Empire (through the Byzantine period) until the eleventh-century invasions<br />

of the Seljuk Turks. Even today, in the former “Turkish” republics of the<br />

former Soviet Union, such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, local<br />

wrestling traditions influenced by both classical European and Asian<br />

styles survive among the local populations and nomads. History provides<br />

various glimpses of Turkish wrestling, and gymnasiums for wrestlers<br />

(tekke) began to appear by the fifteenth century.<br />

Today, Turkish wrestling, known as Yagli-Gures, is one of the nation’s<br />

most popular sports, and there is evidence that this is a form related to Persian/Iranian<br />

koshti. Similarities abound. Wrestlers wear trousers only; they<br />

otherwise are naked and do not wear shoes. Turkish wrestling is unique in<br />

that the competitors, known as pehlivans, oil themselves down completely before<br />

a match. Note that the name pehlivan resembles the term for traditional<br />

Iranian wrestlers (pahlavani). <strong>The</strong> foregoing characteristics argue for a strong<br />

link between this system and Iranian systems, as do many of the techniques.<br />

Middle East 341

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