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Huka Huka (Wrestling in the Amazon) - Ep9 - Archaic Wrestling
81 Plays1 year ago
The guys learn what they can about one of the most obscure folkstyles in the world.
Music by Josh Kasen
Twitter: @ArchaicWrestle
ArchaicWrestling@gmail.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Updates
00:00:18
Speaker
Welcome back to Archaic Wrestling, folks. My name is Evan, and I also am joined by Sasha. How you doing, Sasha? Hello, everybody. Doing good today. You sound fine. You were a little worried. You were doing a lot of yelling earlier today, but you sound good. Yeah, a little bit hoarse, but voices same as ever. Exactly, sultry. Sultry with just the right amount of gravel and...
00:00:46
Speaker
And, uh, I don't know something, something that's just purity or essence, Sasha.
Feedback and Future Movie Reviews
00:00:52
Speaker
Well, you know what? I think we got some really good feedback from our last episode, uh, with the vision quest. Um, we're, I think we're really excited to do another film, a review after that. Uh, that was a good one. Yeah. From here on. Yeah. We, from here on it's gotta be all stupid, very stupid movies.
00:01:13
Speaker
I mean, there's other good ones, but I don't know if they're good. I mean, I know there's a couple that are okay. But there's plenty that are just garbage. So just awful, terrible movie looking forward, looking forward for sure.
Coaching Changes at Stanford and Princeton
00:01:27
Speaker
So quick update, we were a little disappointed, I would have to say with Rob Cole's exit from Stanford. You know, we really feel like Stanford deserves a good coach and Rob Cole is a good coach. You know, there's other other things out there and that's okay. And
00:01:43
Speaker
Chris Ayers has been hired from Princeton, which is really cool. I think that could be a good fit. He's a good coach. He's done a good job with growing Princeton's wrestling program a little bit. So it seems like a very natural transition, kind of Ivy League to Stanford. That all kind of makes sense. He'll probably understand how to navigate those sort of waters, I guess. Yeah, friendship ended with Rob Cole. Chris Ayers is our best friend now. Chris Ayers is our best friend.
00:02:12
Speaker
I mean, it did, it made a lot of sense, right? It was, it's sort of the same. It's sort of like, uh, Rob Cole minus, you know, Rob Cole moved from Cornell to Stanford for like those same reasons that, uh, I think Chris Ayres will be a great coach for Stanford. Awesome. And then I'll be very excited for in two years for our third head coach, uh, within the time of this podcast at Stanford. We're, we're very righty to, we are ready to get out the pitchforks for Chris Ayres if he, if he ever leaves.
00:02:41
Speaker
I think we do need to mention that we're not even like Stanford wrestling fans. We just we just follow Stanford for no reason because they're just so close. It's the closest. It's it's we have to. We should talk more about other California wrestling schools. Well, I mean, what, like, I'm not going to talk about Baker's Field. You're not going to get me to to talk about Baker's Field on this podcast.
00:03:08
Speaker
Well, maybe we'll get the head coach on for an episode. He can't have too much else going on. Yeah. Cal State Bakersfield and this podcast with your listenership of around probably five. Oh, it's a match made in heaven, man. It's basically we're on the same rung there. So I'm sure they'd love to get to come on here. You know what? You know what?
Exploring California Wrestling Schools
00:03:34
Speaker
I think that, you know, the season's just around the corner here.
00:03:38
Speaker
getting ready to start. Let's follow Bakersfield closely this year. Let's check in with them. What if we just became enormous Cal Baptist fans? No, I like Bakersfield. Actually, that's not true. I hate Bakersfield. Every time I drive through Bakersfield is I just, I go, God, I hate this city. No, we can't be Bakersfield fans, but we should be a correspondence for them. It's the least we can do. We should share our platform.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, if they do anything interesting, you know, we're going to tell you if they do anything interesting. I'm going to tell people when they don't do anything interesting. Look, look, the fact that they exist is fantastic. It's incredible, right? Like, I don't know how a program like that is surviving at Cal State Bakersfield. It's not like it's a huge school that just has lots of money to spend on whatever they want, right?
00:04:32
Speaker
bigger shows making it work. They're making it work. So I don't mind checking in on them. I still can't believe, uh, Cal Baptist ever had mess and brink. What was going on with that? How did that even happen? Is there like some connection that I didn't know about that we don't like? I mean, it's truly so confusing that that ever happened. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I guess I could, you know what? I know I can't, I can't think of it more.
00:05:02
Speaker
a moment of like more, uh, uh, you know, good wrestler coming from such a small, uh, presence in wrestling. Right. I mean, what's Bernie, Bernie Turex that, I mean, I guess that's kind of like a similarity, but Calipari. Yeah. Well, it was a, you know, he was tracks was, you know, from. Oceanside, California. Right. Right. Messingberg was a number one recruit and then went to Cal Baptist. He just went there. What, what was up with, I mean, weird.
00:05:32
Speaker
One of those, uh, you know, when he's like a multiple time national champ in like, you know, four or five years or whatever, people are going to break out to like, Oh, did you know Messenbrink was actually in like 10 years when he's won a world champ world title. He'll be like, yeah, did you know maybe he's really went to us to nap this tree. Yeah. Maybe that's, they're just really into that. He may be messing brink is like one of those guys that does like the snake handling.
00:05:57
Speaker
He keeps it on the down low, but he's really into baptismal Christianity. That could be the connection. That could be the connection we were missing. Yeah, obviously.
The Unique Wrestling Style of the Zingu Tribes
00:06:10
Speaker
Well, let's not be insensitive towards his religion that we've decided he has. But speaking of sensitivity, we are covering another folk style this episode, and I'm excited.
00:06:25
Speaker
It's very unique, I would say, in terms of the elements that make this style what it is. There's going to be some stuff that we haven't been saying about other styles coming out of this. And this style is actually called hookah hookah. And it comes from the Zingu River area of the Brazilian rainforest.
00:06:53
Speaker
We are going to be talking about a wrestling style that is only practiced by a population, and obviously not the whole population participates in the wrestling, right? But it's a population of about 3,000 people. And, you know, folks, you heard, right, that it's from the Amazon rainforest, and this is an indigenous people, the Zingu River people.
00:07:22
Speaker
they are made up of 15 different tribes. And, you know, I'm sure a lot of folks here have watched documentaries here and there where they've probably seen the Zingu people pop up. And yeah, these are these are the folks who they they don't really wear any clothes, you know, they they're generally completely nude. And, you know, they might wear kind of like a sash or a very short scarf around their waist that dangles down and like barely
00:07:51
Speaker
Obscures genitals But in general like yeah, everything's out. It's all hanging out. That's just the traditional outfit So if you watch a lot of like videos or look them up, you'll see that these folks They've just you know, they're generally not wearing clothes. They don't need them. It's not part of their culture It hasn't been necessary for their survival you know rainforest pretty warm pretty humid don't need a whole lot of clothes and
00:08:17
Speaker
you will see like more modern people, more modern generations will wear like a t-shirt and shorts sometimes, but they are also still very comfortable in their traditional non-garb, right? And yeah, just want to bring that up that when people look up videos of this style, you're going to see naked people and you know, try to be big boys and girls about it.
00:08:41
Speaker
But yeah, I had always I had no idea that the this was something this kind of style of wrestling was going on. And I think the reason we kind of started looking into this is we were talking about, OK, what's the next style that we want to cover? Right. What's the next point of history? What do we want to dive into? And we really wanted to cover something that was in North or South America. Right. We wanted to get away from the old world. Right.
00:09:08
Speaker
And it's really hard to find anything. Yeah, it's um, I think this was brought to our attention and Probably some of you by the recent video that came out with Anderson Silva where he's got the You know, he's all like polka dotted on his back He's got like red and black polka dots is like part of the the you know war paint they use and then he's he's doing that um interesting
00:09:36
Speaker
It's not stance in motion, right? It's part of their, what the dance they do before they start wrestling. But, uh, some, some of you, I think probably saw this, we saw it like what's going on here. And then as soon as I realized, Oh, this is a, this is literally a, uh, folk style. That's what's going on here. Um, we became very interested pretty quickly were, uh, they are a people who, uh, were, you know, pretty densely populated.
00:10:02
Speaker
And they go all the way back to somewhere around the 12th or 16th century of the common era here.
Cultural Impact of Colonization on Zingu Tribes
00:10:11
Speaker
That's when ancient roads and bridges kind of like linked to the communities together. And that's when they were discovered. And that's, you know, a big part of pre-Columbian history is where they're at. So this is as far back as we've been able to trace the Zingu people or Zingu people have been traced.
00:10:32
Speaker
back, but obviously, their ancestors were around the rainforest for long, long, long before that. And it wasn't that long ago that the Zingu people essentially were nearly dissolved as a people and as an ethnicity, right? Like through colonization and through integrating with non-indigenous cultures, right?
00:10:56
Speaker
or so they were essentially studied and they actually were brought together by some I think they're Portuguese. But yeah, or I think they I think they might have been. No, they're Brazilers. Yeah, yeah. The Villas Boas brothers. Yeah. And so they're the ones that basically reunited a lot of the people of these tribes. And there was like only a few settlements
00:11:22
Speaker
at the time, and they helped these tribes kind of like reunite and gain, regain contact with, you know, with each other, after they had been, you know, dispersed, essentially, through, like, imperialist aggression, essentially. And yeah, and so they were brought together. And now the tribes have kind of
00:11:42
Speaker
start to reestablish and grow and they're much more robust now in population. They got video cameras. You can go on YouTube and see them recording what their day-to-day life is like and stuff like that. They've got cell phones. They're interacting. They're not like an uncontacted people. They're very much integrated, but they are choosing to live in a certain way based on their history. Yeah.
00:12:11
Speaker
the Villas Boyas were some of the people that pushed for the creation of in 1946, like they call it like National Park, Zingu National Park, but it's basically they have like a protected status. So little, little corner of the world, not something you think about in terms of wrestling.
Symbolism in Zingu Wrestling Events
00:12:30
Speaker
And the way this happens is the wrestling is not a sport necessarily. That's not exactly the right term for it there.
00:12:41
Speaker
Wrestling is kind of very ritualized. So it might often be used more locally to like settle a dispute, right? Maybe someone just got some beef with you and they'll do a little wrestling match and just kind of release. That's kind of how it's described as like this kind of release of tension with people. Take it away with an underdome. Exactly. Take, you know, street beefs essentially for the Amazon.
00:13:07
Speaker
But yeah, they're just they're trying, hey, we just need to relieve a little tension. Let's get that out of there. Right. And so it's done so in that sense, and very localized to their tribes. And it's been that way for a very, very long time, which is something that I think is is kind of coming up in a lot of the folk styles we we talk about. And like, what's the origins? A lot of it is sometimes you just got to
00:13:28
Speaker
You just got to smash a dude around, right? Just to, just to get some aggression out, not be so upset about something and, and, and have mutual respect afterwards. Right. This seems to be a, um, or it's, it's just a reflection of humanity a little bit. I think I think it says something about us. Yeah. And I think this will, this will be kind of clear when we talk about, like, I mean, of what we've seen, you know, the footage that we have of these wrestling matches, um, definitely there is much less.
00:13:57
Speaker
uh, reliance on like rules, some of them end in, you know, someone getting, well, you know, like a takedown. Right. Or like a mat return that like that sort of motion where it's like, all right, clearly that guy won. Uh, and then a lot of them just seem to, I don't know, like fizzle out or just one guy stands up and then they hug each other. Yeah. So it's sort of hard to tell what the rules are, but I think that's probably not, it's, it's clearly not, you know, the focus of like, who is winning based on, you know, these rules and like hard refereeing. It's really more about, uh,
00:14:27
Speaker
this festival and this ritual. It's almost more like the attitude you would take into a mosh pit, right? Yes. It's not about like, who am I going to beat up? It's like, I'm just going in to endure this for a minute and vibe with everyone kind of deal, right? Like it's not a big mass of people bumping into each other, obviously, it's the one on one. But that's kind of the attitude that it seems to be carrying. Yeah, I wonder if some of the more aggressive matches I've seen were more of the street beef type.
00:14:58
Speaker
Yeah. And so to get into that, so a lot of the folk styles we've covered, it's been like a national celebration where a lot of the big tournaments are happening or the big matches. Right. Yeah. Turkey, Mongolia. Yeah. Very festive. Right. And it's going to be similar here, but not exactly the same. So there is a gathering of the tribes called the Quarup and the tribes will come together. It's once a year.
00:15:25
Speaker
And, uh, there's always one of the tribes will host the core up. And there's a big expectation to be a good host, right? If you don't have good food or good lodging for everybody when they come. Um, although the lodging is, you know, it's, it's not exactly that they're not expecting five star. They're just expecting. I wonder if Matt, if Matt Storm Ronello would, uh, like the lodging that he might receive in the core up. I'm referring to the, uh, the famous call out posts of Illinois's Matt room.
00:15:54
Speaker
or their locker room that they provided Northwestern with. And then Isaiah, my name is hidden back. Like how dare you come into my house, criticize my walls that are literally falling apart. Yeah, they probably won't run into that too much here. I think the expectation is a little different. So they come to the Corp, you have to be a really good host. It's a big expectation, but the Corp isn't necessarily a big celebration. That's not how it's treated.
00:16:21
Speaker
Instead, you might think of it as the opposite. The Corp is more of a funeral, if anything, and specifically a funeral for the big important folks who died that year who are specifically important to the Zingu community, right?
00:16:38
Speaker
So these could be chieftains kind of deal. It could be someone who's just very elderly or older, right? It doesn't even need to be someone who comes from one of the tribes. They might just be mourning someone who was important to the tribe, like maybe a human rights activist, things like that. They've honored people like that. But it's about a remembrance and honoring of people who are important to them who have passed away that year.
00:17:08
Speaker
in the first like whole day, like our first whole 24 hours of this of the quorum, which is several days long, is essentially just everyone's mourning people. And one of the big like visual representations of that is they carry in these big logs, they'll decorate these logs with paint. And so each log kind of it's almost like a headstone. Yeah. Person who had who has died, right. And so that's like the first big thing is it's all about mourning people.
00:17:38
Speaker
But then other apparently all it's also kind of like one of these things that juxtapose Some stuff where although it's a funeral and remembering people have died. It also tends seems to have a big focus on fertility, right? because the other big practice of it is all the women who essentially have Who are menstruating now, right and it's kind of like a symbol of like womanhood, right? are
00:18:06
Speaker
There. And it's also an opportunity for them to find a partner is the idea. Right. Find the women dance, you know, and the men wrestle. Yeah, exactly. And through that, they're kind of, I guess, expected to find a partner. Yeah. So the idea being, you know, you can't all be in the same tribe. You know, we've got a branch out here, folks kind of deal. Make sure it's, you know, not someone you're related to. I think it's kind of like the idea behind this a little bit.
00:18:32
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it's, it's essentially a time to be like, you know, I'm a man, I am a woman. Um, and also, uh, we're remembering the people that are no longer with us. Right. Um, so yeah, lots of dancing, lots of, uh, music going on, um, and tons of ritualization. One of the big, uh, things that you notice is, uh, they'll have like all the men in the tribes are in these big long lines, you know, like 200 people or something. Right.
Core-up Wrestling Rituals
00:18:59
Speaker
And they're all kind of doing this same kind of like marching step and chanting at the same time. And they, the women do something similar later on. It all leads up to the very end of the core up where it's the day of wrestling. It always ends with the wrestling. And it, it, it's essentially the chief is the master of ceremonies, right? The chief will say, all right, this person, this person, they're going to wrestle. Go. I thought that the matches were very, very short.
00:19:27
Speaker
You know, sometimes they'd be just a couple seconds. Really. You want to describe like what you were seeing with it. Yeah. So, I mean, what they do is they come in, um, and I'll describe like they have a lot of body paint on. A lot of times they use a lot of, uh, black and red for the most part, like, like face paint, body paint, also mostly black and red, um, couple of other colors as well. Uh, and they all have, they all have bullcups.
00:19:56
Speaker
The straight up bowl cut and it's been slicked down with like a mud or something to like hold it in a very like rigid sense. Yeah. Cause they're, uh, they're like red, like red or like kinda like orange red. Uh, so they do this, they come in and then they start by, uh, how would you describe it? Like they sort of like stand on their tippy toes, like, uh, shoulder width apart, put their arms.
00:20:25
Speaker
into the air, like, into like a T. Yeah, they T pose and they sort of like, uh, tippy toe around in a circle, just like tippy toeing their feet. And then they jumped to their knees and that was something that was really different here, right? Where the match actually is supposed to start on the knees and generally stay on the knees, right? Yeah, this is sort of like, uh, I mean, I don't think we've ever seen anything else like this. I don't know of any other folk style, any other wrestling I've seen like this. I mean,
00:20:54
Speaker
The closest comes to like, uh, you know, like drills you might do, you know, game wrestling games you might do right in the, in the wrestling room where the idea, you know, to teach kids how to do like a gator roles or something where, you know, you have to, you have to stay on your knees, no getting off your knees. Yeah. It looks like, uh, you know, when a lightweight gets down on any and kind of like plays the low game, right? It looked a lot like that. Um, but essentially the, the wrestling is short offense wrestling.
00:21:22
Speaker
Right. Yeah. They're looking, they'll look for like hooks and knee taps. I saw a lot. Um, and there was, you know, not a lot of front headlock. They avoid that sort of situation, but I saw like straight up drags, like really like one drag was really good. I saw like a great technique. Yeah. A lot of short drags. Yeah. Um, and yeah, mostly, you know, they're, they'll get into collar ties. Um, they'll, you know, maybe an inside tie, maybe an outside tie. And they're just kind of, they snap each other a lot. It seems mostly of just like,
00:21:50
Speaker
They're not trying to score necessarily. They're, but they are trying to get behind each other. They're definitely trying to get behind each other. And really the only thing I've seen, like when someone tries to talk about the rules is someone saying that you're supposed to just throw someone down. Like that's it, right? And it's like, well, you're kind of already down. So I don't know. It's confusing. Yeah. I don't know what they mean by down, right? So, but they tend to stop the match if you,
00:22:19
Speaker
you know, uh, get behind someone from short offense. They might stay there for a sec and then they stop it. Um, and they'll tend to stop the match if there's a takedown in general. Um, you know, I saw some double legs. I saw knee pick stuff because anybody that's wrestled knows that even if you're on your knees, you kind of, you're driving to each other and you kind of end up going to your feet a little bit and they don't stop the action there. They just say that's where the action went.
00:22:45
Speaker
And they let them keep wrestling, but a lot of times they'll just be, you know, color ties, pushing each other around a little bit. Not much is happening. And then, uh, the master ceremony steps in and is like, we're good. That's it. That's all it was, you know, and you can, like you were saying, sometimes you're watching the matches and you can tell these are just dudes that got paired up and they go for a minute and that's it.
00:23:06
Speaker
But there's been other matches where it's like, Oh, this guy looks like he's trying to like, this guy wants to snap the sky in one of the videos you sent me. Um, and most of, most of the time, you know, they're both in there. They're both in short offense or on their knees. Uh, one guy will sort of get like pushed to his feet and then he'll stay there. And then the other guy will get up to his feet. Uh, and then when I got pushed to his feet, we'll just be like, Oh, awesome. And like hug him and they'll, they'll leave.
00:23:32
Speaker
So it seems like a lot, it seems like, you know, you can just sort of concede. Yeah. If you feel like it, it doesn't, you don't have to keep going. Um, but then in one of the matches that I saw, uh, same thing happened. Guy went up to his feet and then the other guy sort of did a double leg, uh, and was able to come around to his back. And then he just did a big old mat return and slam. Yeah. That sounds like there was something else going on, especially when I went like these other ones, it just, it just seems like they're trying to get out there.
00:24:02
Speaker
and show, you know, show a little bit of show their stuff for a second. Right. Just show you. It's just to show that you're willing to get in there and be tough. It looks like a very like jovial. The whole thing looks very jovial, like one person's in and it also kind of seemed like a kind of element where like one the guy who won like stayed in and then someone else came in. Yeah. Yeah. Almost like they were just like they just kept it going. It's a three partner drilling, right? Yeah. It's a whole circle where there's like, you know, like four or five matches going on.
00:24:32
Speaker
at a time, everyone's dancing and they're yelling. They like, like, I know, like when someone does a good move, uh, you know, or wins, a lot of them do like the list of really like high pitched yell is definitely like what the, like the fans are, how they get involved. Yeah. And then, yeah, it just seems like someone goes out, another person hops right in and then they just, they keep it going. Yeah. So no, like there doesn't, there's no winner. There's no.
00:25:00
Speaker
tournament situation. There's no bracket. It's just, let's meet here. Let's have a good funeral. Let's eat food together. Let's talk about our next generation, basically, right? Let's set that up and let's go at it and let's wrestle each other for a little bit. And then they just kind of end it, right? So it's, I think this first time we've talked about one that doesn't have a strict competition to it, but it, when you watch it, it is very much like, no, but this is definitely a wrestling style, right?
Techniques in Zingu Wrestling Style
00:25:30
Speaker
Yeah, they're hitting moves that are that they've obviously trained a little bit in they understand where they're trying to what they're trying to do Right like a drag is not a very natural move. I feel like for most people to hit they obviously yeah hitting that like short drag is I mean, that's one like you kind of just have to get taught that like that's something there, you know, they've developed in their style Yeah, I mean it's when both people are in short offense and they can't stand up
00:25:55
Speaker
Uh, it's hard to take someone down. It's hard to get behind. Like it's, it's not easy, you know? Um, so most of them don't end in like, you know, like a really clear winner. Uh, also really cool that we haven't got to talk about that much is, uh, the women will wrestle as well. Um, the women will be out there and, um, they, they, I didn't see very much wrestling of them wrestling at the Cora.
00:26:21
Speaker
but they will wrestle with each other in some of the, you know, like at the local stuff for the same reason the men might. But there is also specifically another gathering called the Yamurikuma, which is a time in which the Zingu people will, I'm not sure why, I, I,
00:26:43
Speaker
need to understand this a little bit more. I don't know like what the motivation behind it is, but they end up doing a time where there's just gender reversal day. And the women during this time will actually get to participate in the wrestling. So you see all the women coming out, same thing. They clinch, they just kind of shake each other around a little bit. Maybe there's a takedown here or there, but the end of just kind of going, all right, they step out and it's like, all right, next one in, right? It does remind me of wrestling, like,
00:27:13
Speaker
those Iron Man things that you do in practice where it's like, all right, we're going up and down the line. Yeah, it's a lot like that. And it's super interesting. Once again, everyone's naked, right? Stuff's flopping around. It's, but it's not a problem. It's not a problem. Everyone, everyone just, you know, works to score their takedown and then they get back up and they're happy and they move on with life. Like while you're watching it, you're kind of like,
00:27:35
Speaker
Sometimes you forget. I was going to say, like when, like, you know, if I saw someone walking down the street completely naked, you know, you're like, Oh, well, it kind of, you know, shocks you a little bit. It breaks you out of like, what's going on. You're kind of like, Oh. And then you kind of have that same feeling when you watch a video of, uh, indigenous folks that don't wear any clothes. Right. Um, and that's something that, you know, isn't just, you know, going on here. It's, it's, you know, something that's all over the world. Right. There's people that have different standards or different expectations around.
00:28:05
Speaker
uh nudity or clothing or any or any at all right um you you know some places they don't care if women are topless here in the united states we have a real problem with that for some reason and when you see another culture that is obviously doesn't have those hang-ups and they're just like vibing and acting normally with each other as you're watching and as you're like participating in that mentally you start to just like forget that that's going on like you don't even
00:28:31
Speaker
You're not like looking at people as like sexual objects, right? You're noticing that people are just interacting with each other culturally. Yeah, your expectation and like your environment changes really quickly. One of the things that I will say also about these, a lot of folk styles as we're trying to look up more and more that we want to cover, because we've kind of covered everything we can say so far about this, about hookahook wrestling, because there's just not a whole lot more to it, right? Yeah.
00:29:01
Speaker
It's a, it's a pretty like simple style. It's not based in, because it's not based in like such a competitive nature. Um, you know, there's not like, uh, a ton of refinement that they've had in it. There's not a ton of different techniques, right? There, there hasn't been like this arms race that has developed, you know, in say folk style wrestling, like funk or in, you know, freestyle, like there's so many more.
00:29:29
Speaker
things at play there. It's a very pretty simple style of wrestling. Yeah. Like imagine if someone just walked in and did a cement mixer on a dude in there. Yeah. They'd be like, what the hell? What the fuck was that? People would be like, why are you taking this so seriously, bro? Just get a collar tie like the rest of us now. But that's the thing. You use term arms race, which I think is perfect to describe it. If there's no reason for there to be a reason
00:29:58
Speaker
to score, to beat, to move on, to be superior to the other wrestlers around you, then you don't need to come up with the next great technique because it doesn't mean anything, right? Yeah. And then of course, you know, there's no money involved. Um, it doesn't seem like there's any, you know, even for some of the things we've seen, there might not necessarily be money involved, but there's probably some level of like fame or renown or just people are like, Oh, guys are good wrestler. That's pretty sick.
00:30:26
Speaker
It doesn't seem like there's really that much going on there. I mean, probably there's some aspect of like, want to look big and strong for, you know, for the women. Right. As because it is part of a marriage ceremony, but it doesn't seem like it's, it's still rooted in like, Oh, who wins or who, who doesn't like that's someone that we like, you know, put on like a higher pedestal.
00:30:47
Speaker
Yeah, there's no like celebrating the champion that we've seen in other other folk styles, right? There's there's nothing like that. They don't pick someone up on their shoulders after they've won or anything. You know, it's it's very just like everyone's participating. Everyone's part of this. And this is just, you know, the only person that's really celebrating your win is going to be you for the most part, it seems like.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, I'd say I from what I saw so like when someone like got a takedown right or like a clear win I did see a lot of people, you know coming out and yelling and like Dancing like they seem very excited, but it seemed like they were more excited You know just in general at like the the spectacle, you know Yeah, there might be some like kind of like whoop-boop kind of thing like some some hootin kind of going on like alright But it's all it was more just like alright get the next person. Yeah Get your matches
00:31:40
Speaker
the preseason scrimmage. Yeah, everyone's, everyone's guaranteed at least like five. Gotta get at least 10 matches in when we go to this. We're coming all the way over to the drive. You think that's what they're talking about before they leave? Is this homewains? But so yeah, like I was saying, like, we're going to start running into more and more folk styles. You know, we're saving some of these other big folk styles. We're holding on to them. We're going to get to them. You know, especially the ones have a lot of history to talk about behind them.
00:32:10
Speaker
But there's also going to be a lot of like little things like this where we're going to ask ourselves, is it a folk style? Is it worth covering? Is there enough? Is there enough information to, you know, really glean and understand it? And there's probably going to be quite a few where we don't know quite how to cover it. We might have to group some styles together almost like I was looking at some of the Northern European styles that are, you know, not Russia, you know, where it's just everyone. It's like, it's like,
00:32:40
Speaker
10 different styles, they all have different names and they're all described the same way, right? How do we want to handle that sort of thing, right? Also, like 30 people in the world do it kind of thing. So that'll be something we need to decide how we want to explore those. And I think it'd be worth mentioning them eventually. But this was definitely one of those styles that kind of teeter on the edge of going into is there really much to talk about with this? But I thought there was enough cultural
00:33:10
Speaker
Yeah, I guess amenities going on here that were Entertaining really like really interesting to learn about like I learned quite a bit from this. I had no idea This is a thing that people did. Yeah, it was just really interesting seeing just how it's connected into like the larger culture I think like a something that would be more at the end of is connected to the larger culture and is also viewed super competitively is like the Mongolian wrestling and
00:33:39
Speaker
They have like both aspects of it, like still part of, uh, you know, their religion or like mysticism to some sense. Uh, and also still like very commercialized and very modern and you know, done for payment, like the Mongolian wrestling where they had like, you know, we watched the video of the, of the ceremony and they had like a, you know, a rap artists come on and he was like performing this like rap in Mongolia and so like,
00:34:09
Speaker
When it's more commercialized like that, still like becomes more modern. This one, not too much else to say. Uh, we, we still think it was really cool though. Um, and it was different. It was nice to see something a little bit different and some people having a different take on, on wrestling itself. Yeah. From what we've seen and we tried, uh, been looking at different, you know, North and South American wrestling that we could find. Cause we figured, you know, Hey, like this is where we live. Let's see if we can.
00:34:39
Speaker
Check some stuff out. But um, there's not a whole lot I don't know why it who knows why but like Europe seems to be much more interested in in wrestling than I've any you know, any of the indigenous people in North or in North and South America well, I'd be curious because a lot of indigenous cultures in North and South America were some were farming right some somewhere but a lot of were also still very much within
00:35:07
Speaker
a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, right? And when you're doing that, there's probably a lot less opportunity, like energy and time, to let's set up a wrestling match, right? As opposed to, I think we're going to be using our calories to go hunt a bison or something, right? So I don't know, maybe it could have something to do with that, because I do know about a lot of like indigenous martial arts, but those are all incorporating
00:35:35
Speaker
in the Americas, I mean, but those are all incorporating weapons. Like there's a lot of archery going on. There's a lot of, you know, small arms stuff like using knives, and things like that. There's the sense of martial need that they practice and they have to worry about, like spears and things like that. But it tends to be things that they're going to use like in war or in a in hunting, right. And wrestling becomes less of a focus. I mean, you know,
00:36:06
Speaker
It's it's you know, it's great for warriors to know how to wrestle and that's very important. That's been very important to a lot of cultures, right? But if you're if you're gonna hold a weapon The first thing you're gonna worry about using is that so that's what they're gonna focus their training towards, right? And the other like the Mongolian for example, you know They had the archery in the horseback riding and the wrestling. Yeah all involved and
00:36:32
Speaker
And it was something that they would did more of when, as they had more conquest and had more wealth, right? They're able to justify these things where we go, Oh, my son can beat up your son. And so, yeah, you have more opportunity to do that
Cultural Influences on Wrestling Styles
00:36:48
Speaker
stuff. If you have a lot of farming going on, like when you look at something like the Turkish oil wrestling, think of the resources that went into that sort of wrestling back in the day.
00:36:56
Speaker
it, you know, to get all that... Yeah, farm the olives. You had to farm for it, right? You had to collect tons and tons of olives. So you needed to have farmed for it. And once you've done that, you also need to kind of be like, well, I settled down for the day after farming and we have free time. We don't need to now move to the next location and things like that, right? And we can plan for things and we can build arenas, right? That's kind of what farming allows a lot of society to do. And that's why, you know, cities crop up around those
00:37:26
Speaker
Areas of the world where farming is really, you know, great. I think it's kind of a big hypothesis I don't I don't really know if there's any truth to this but Well, maybe because you'd have to also look at you know the Inca Empire Incan Empire And however noun they were at farming and then we still haven't been able to find really anything for us Yeah, I mean, but once again, like they might have just focused on different stuff But I don't know I would be so surprised if they didn't have some sort of wrestling, you know, even if it wasn't
00:37:56
Speaker
competitive, right? And obviously, when it comes to trying to understand what a lot of indigenous cultures were doing, it's going to be really hard to do that if they're a culture culture that was heavily colonized and erased, right? Yeah, that could this could be also that could be a part of, we could be, you know, would that would that be like, you know, putting the cart before the horse here, you know, maybe, I mean, you know, North and South American, indigenous cultures were
00:38:26
Speaker
obviously heavily colonized. We've lost a lot of their culture as opposed to, you know, European cultures that are kind of have a direct line back to, you know, especially the Mongolian, the Turkish like, they're still doing their wrestling and their festivals exactly like the same way as they used to do it back then. There's just this direct line through like, over like 1000 years that we just don't have for
00:38:53
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, maybe that I'm sure you're right.
Preservation and Sharing of Indigenous Wrestling Knowledge
00:38:56
Speaker
I'm sure that's probably a much heavier factor on this, right? Of, you know, if you destroy a cultured sure is a lot harder to learn about. Yeah, things about it. So yeah, that makes sense to me. But who knows, we don't really know. And that was something I was actually thinking about, like, we haven't even done that many episodes, hardly any episodes on folk style. But the amount of
00:39:19
Speaker
Resources i'm coming across that cover more than one style of folk style like as i'm thinking about who Has come before us and wanted to learn about lots of different styles of wrestling, right? That's the first thing I think about in terms of okay. Where should we be sourcing information from who's already done the work? Yeah, right. So i'm i'm not doing it Well, we kind of unfortunately, you know, we're not doing the real work. Obviously we're not getting there We're not you know translating stuff getting on a plane
00:39:50
Speaker
Yeah, that would be wonderful one day, but no one else has either, as far as I can tell. And I haven't seen even anybody who is collecting the information that is available into one place like we are, which I think is kind of cool to think about. I don't know how fresh this ground is that we're treading in terms of
00:40:17
Speaker
how much information about wrestling in different cultures is ending up in one resource, like our podcast. But at least I haven't seen very much of it yet, at least in the English-speaking world. There might be someone else that's done stuff. But I'm enjoying the thought of that we're at least putting stuff together in one place, that if you wanted to learn a little bit about a bunch of folk styles, this is a good place to do it.
00:40:47
Speaker
There's not much else at least that I'm seeing. Yeah. And we'll, we'll eventually get into, uh, you know, once we cover these things, it's going to be a very easy to draw a direct line to folk style in America, how that got created, how freestyle wrestling got created. Um, and we will, and it's in the cards, but we're, we're covering, we're building up a base of all of these things. And then we're going to see how they became, you know, like one world style.
00:41:15
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I'm hoping, right? It'll at least, it's going to inform a little bit, right? It's like one thing that we are going to constantly notice is the moves that are not only working in a lot of these folk styles that are similar, but the ones that are working in folk styles that are different, right? Like none of this is going to surprise anybody to hear me say this, but damn, the underhooks here seems like a really good position to have.
00:41:42
Speaker
Because they're using it everywhere. They're using it everywhere. It doesn't matter. Everywhere. Doesn't matter what your it doesn't matter what the style is. Doesn't matter what the rules are. That underhook boil. Boy, is that a good position to be in? Right. Oh, getting a guy's leg picked up sure seems good. You know, headlock position. Sure. You know, I just think that's kind of cool, right? These are we're starting to see like, OK, what is what is the foundations of wrestling? It almost could inform a coach, right? Like,
00:42:11
Speaker
what would I teach somebody if I was just trying to go, I want you to just have a very solid understanding of wrestling and what's supposed to work, right? In general, because yeah, sure seems like a double legs good sure seems like a knee pick is great. Just it's fun. I'm having a good time. It's fun seeing all these different styles. Yeah, that's good. It's good to see. Just expand for knowledge more what people what people are doing, how they're
00:42:40
Speaker
how they're wrestling, what their different styles are, how other people, other countries experience, you know, like the same thing we do. I'm looking forward to the finding the lost tomb with a scroll in it that has the secret techniques that have long been forgotten. Well, the kale has that. Monastic, the monastic master. So yeah, kale kale is like Indiana Jones. Yeah. He, he went somewhere and fought like a ghost or something and came back with
00:43:09
Speaker
the wrestling knowledge. Okay, I want that TV show now though. Kale just, you know what? Yes, a ghost hunter TV show, but it's Kale. And he's he tries to wrestle the cows. He just always has that like same just kind of not
00:43:28
Speaker
Just blank look on his face the whole time. Every enemy, you know, fighting a zombie, fighting a mummy, you know, just same, like, slightly irritated, just non-uninterested look that he always has. Have I told you my Ghost Hunter TV show idea? I want to go on a ghost. I want to have my own Ghost Hunter TV show. And it's called Ghost Punchers.
00:43:53
Speaker
And all we do is we go in a haunted house, and we take it super seriously. We're going to punch this ghost so hard. We're going to exercise the ghost out of this house by punching the shit out of them. And then it works. At the end of every episode, we exercise the ghost or the demon from the house, mostly because we punched them. And we solve people's problems. The ghost leader starts reading zero. Exactly. We just go, oop, you hear that little beep? It means that ghost is crying because of how hard I punched him.
00:44:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's my idea for a show. Nice little parody, I think. I think it would go over well. I think a lot of people enjoy watching people try to punch ghosts. That's why you can get a job doing that after this. We can see if we can vault you from this into that stepping stone. Oh, no. I'm too afraid of fame. You could come with me. You could help punch the ghosts. Oh, my dream.
00:44:53
Speaker
You could you could at least hold the camera. And I want to walk around like a dude that's like trying really hard to like look buff, like with his chest out and he's he's got like the luggage arms going on. It's like, is there a ghost in here? Do the whole like Zach Baggins things where they just yell at the girls like like the ghosts. I understand them. Come on out. Welcome. Are you the one that killed that little girl? I want to punch you.
00:45:18
Speaker
This is what happens when there's not enough talk about with the folk style. We have to talk about punching ghost shows. Yeah, I think it'd be a good idea. Next podcast will be the ghost punching podcast where we visit different haunted houses and come back and talk about how we punch the ghost. Yeah, if it isn't already clear, we can just do whatever we want on here. It can be fairly tangentially related. That's right.
00:45:47
Speaker
Right there. There's wrestling history and there's stupid movies. Well, probably a stupid book at some point. There'll be a lot of stupid books. I'm sure anything, anything. As long as there's some justification. I still don't decide if I want to buy Mark Schultz book first or if I want to get the vision quest novel first. I got to know how close it is to the movie. All right. Well, we'll get on we'll get on eBay or.
00:46:15
Speaker
where who can still find it and do that. I kind of know what else he wrote too. Like what else did this guy write? Is it even more wild? Oh yeah, that's a good point. He might have some other nuts. Some other insane ideas. We're gonna find out that he wrote like a ton of 80s movies and it's gonna make total sense. The collective derangement of the decade. It's John Hughes. John Hughes was there.
00:46:59
Speaker
Okay. I got nothing else. I'm probably going to cut, I'm going to cut the podcast right after I mentioned John Hughes. I think that's it.