Monday, December 30, 2013

Simon Jackson



I have already written an article on Sports funding but below is an article on the "most outrages benefits cheats"part of it features Judoka Simon Jackson I also expect he was getting UK Funding. What is more important is not that one rogue sportsman has been cheating the system, we should also look how we fund sport in the UK. Because we had a very successful Olympic Games in London, the Government stance is support those athletes who are potential Olympic Medallist. So they have chosen just a few sports where we as a country get a good success rate, this funding goes mainly to individuals for training travelling etc. So we the Tax Payer spend Millions on just a few individual to win medals, who in turn these medallist go on to carve a lucrative career in such things as show business. Tom Daly is prime example 19 years old Diver who has his own TV show has recently made a rather spurious video of being Gay which was picked up by the Media which in turn gave him a lot of publicity or the Swimmer who recently appeared in "I am a Celebrity" Will they pay their Grant Money back NO Will they contribute something their sport? I hope so. As someone who has won World medals and was an Olympic reserve (in the days when their was very little grant aid) you do your sport not for some altruistic reason you do it for yourself and the Olympic Dream becomes an obsession. Not only do you get the adulation of being an Olympic Medalist and the riches that follow you most probably get some sort of honour i.e OBE. Not bad for something you done purely for you own self gratification that in itself is not all wrong all of us are guilty of that sometime in our life.
 The Government logic is that winning medals encourages people to take up Sport well that has certainly not worked. Sports Funding should be concentrated on the Grass Roots, this way Tax Payers money is utilised for the many not the few we want more people taking part. During the Cold War the USA and USSR used their prowess in Sport to justify and promote their political ideology it seem Cameron and his cronies are doing the same. This Government members have come from Elite Social Backgrounds and believe the way forward is to help the Elite in Society


Blind athlete Simon Jackson, who won three gold medals at Paralympic Games, was prosecuted in January this year.
The 40-year-old judo star from Littleborough, near Oldham claimed £10,000 for taxi rides, but then then let his wife drive him and pocketed the cash. 
He escaped jail after insisting he was 'ashamed' of his conduct and had been subjected to abuse following his exposure.  But was handed a four-month community order and a curfew.



Monday, December 23, 2013

Kazakh Wrestling

Kazakh Traditional wrestling is an integral part of folk culture in Central Asia and has always played an important role in the nomads' everyday and social life 
 Kazakh kures takes place in standing position only. Wrestlers can grab their uniform or belt and use leg trips to force their opponent to the mat, but they are not allowed to hold the legs. Some of the typical holds are similar to those used in Greco-Roman wrestling and several Olympic medallists, including Daulet Turlykhanov and Saksylik Ushkempirov, have a Kazakh kures background. The sport is governed on the international level by the World Kazakh Kures Federation that became a member of FILA in 2010. A partnership agreement was signed by the FILA President and WKKF President on the occasion of the 5th World Wrestling Games held in Astana on 22-23 October 2010.   



Sunday, December 22, 2013

JUDO-SAMBO-COMBAT SAMBO-NO GI MMA GRAPPLING

BRITISH SOMBO FEDERATION

PRESENT

BRITISH OPEN 
SAMBO & COMBAT SAMBO 
& BSF NO GI MMA GRAPPLING
CHAMPIONSHIPS

BEDFORD ENGLAND

SATURDAY APRIL 5th 2014

For Further Information Russell Dodds CAPITALWELDING@HOTMAIL.CO.UK or

WWW.BRITISHSOMBO.CO.UK




BEDFORD GRAPPLING ACADEMY

PRESENT


OPEN JUNIOR & SENIOR JUDO CHAMPIONSHIPS

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 16th 2014 

 BEDFORD ENGLAND

For Further Information Russell Dodds CAPITALWELDING@HOTMAIL.CO.UK


YOUNG JUDO CLUB
WARRIORS GRAPPLING ACADEMY

PRESENT


OPEN JUNIOR & SENIOR JUDO CHAMPIONSHIPS
& NO GI MMA GRAPPLING
SUNDAY MARCH 23rd 2014

SITTINGBOURNE KENT ENGLAND
Clarkessportsstudio@hotmail.com




Tuesday, December 17, 2013

A true appraisal

ENJOY THIS YOUTUBE CLIP

SAMBO or SOMBO

It seems that the controversy over the name of SAMBO has risen its head again this time in the USA. Britain and USA on the whole use the word SOMBO as opposed to SAMBO

The reason being was when SAMBO was introduced into Britain and the USA in the 1970's SAMBO was a derogatory name for Black People stemming from the books "The Story Little Black Sambo" also at that period a Golliwog was shown on Robertson Jam Jars, plus there was a ITV programme called "Love Thy Neighbour" which had a white and a black man living next door to each other. The white man would call the Black Man "Sambo" he in turn called the White Man "Honkey" both were meant to insult a person skin colour. Now you may have differing opinions on this particular issue but the fact remain in GB the name SAMBO was frowned upon and in the USA I believe there was a threat of legal action about the use of the name


The British Wresting Association in the 1970's was in charge of British Sambo and they came up with a compromise where they use the S sounding letter from the Cyrillic Alphabet which was a C. So SAMBO in GB became CAMBO and was pronounced as it read. Later Josh Henson the Founder of USA SAMBO/SOMBO researched the name Sambo (You can see the research below) and came up with the word SOMBO the name the USA has mostly used since then. In latter years with Josh moving away from FIAS and eventually linking SOMBO with FILA, Russian Immigrants to the USA took over the sport in the USA for FIAS and returned to its original name SAMBO. With Josh Henson and Joe Neally organising the biggest SOMBO/SAMBO event in the USA i.e. SOMBO section of the ARNOLD FESTIVAL it has brought complaints from the FIAS USA organisation who insist it should be called SAMBO. The reader may make their own judgement on this and the right for US Citizens to decide for themselves the name of the Sport

With reference to the British Sombo Federation we are in a different position, unlike in the USA where no SOMBO/SAMBO association is recognised as autonomous organisation all though I do believe the SOMBO section is recognised by the USA Olympic Wrestling Association, we in the BSF have been recognised by our Governments Sports Regulatory Body UKSPORT and all the various Home Country Sports Bodies i.e England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as the Governing Body for the Sport of Sombo. Some years ago we were asked by FIAS to change the name to SAMBO the BSF contacted UKSport and SportEngland they emphatically said if we changed to SAMBO they would no longer consider us a Governing Body and worse they would not recognise SAMBO as a Sport. The BSF considered the changing of an O to A was to higher price to pay and FIAS agreed with us that is why they accept the British Sombo Federation as one of their oldest affiliated and most respected countries.

As for my own opinion I no longer consider the name SAMBO a racist term I have asked many young Black and White  people in the UK about the name and they did not know what I was talking about, all Caribbean, African and Asian Countries use the word SAMBO so if they are not offended why should we in GB/USA be offended? Yet one has to be pragmatic when one joins an organisation you accept the rules and abide by them until UKSPORT change the rules we will still be called the BRITISH SOMBO FEDERATION a compromise is to use SOMBO/SAMBO when explaining our Sport.

I have include some letters to our past Secretary and past Chairman on the Subject. Brenda Jones is now longer with us but she was great help to me and the BSF







HOW DO YOU SPELL SOMBO?
JOSH HENSON  
“Sombo” is a composite style of jacket wrestling that originated in the former Soviet Union as a common form of sport wrestling for the fifteen separate republics that made up the U.S.S.R.  Sombo was also used as a means of unarmed hand-to-hand combat for soldiers, beginning in the days of Stalin, and today is practiced as a martial art as well.  The term “Sombo” is an acronym for the Russian phrase “Self-defense without weapons” (SOM-oborona Bes Orushyia).   
When the sport of Sombo was accepted as the third style of international wrestling in 1967 by FILA (the International Amateur Wrestling Federation), a unique problem arose:  How do you spell Sombo? 
Because the Russian language uses the Cyrillic alphabet, the letters used to spell Sombo in Russian appear to resemble the English letters C-A-M-B-O.  What looks like a “C” to an English speaker sounds like an English “S” to a Russian.  What looks like an “A” can be pronounced two ways in English: One way would be “ah” as in “raw” or “fall” (which would be the right pronunciation for Sambo).  But in English, “A” can also be pronounced like the “A” in hat or bad.  Unfortunately, the letters SAM are a common combination in English, usually with the latter, “wider” sound, as in the name Sam or Samuel.  Thus for most English speakers, the name Sam is the closest guide.  Accordingly, when you spell the word SAMBO, you get what sounds like the name Sam combined with bow (as in “bow and arrow”) -- which is not how the word is supposed to sound.  However, if you spell it SOMBO, you get the pronunciation right every time.  That is because in English an “o” in front of an “m” or an “n” is usually pronounced like the “a” in “fall” (as in the case of “dog” or “fog”, for example). 
So why do some people want to use the spelling Sambo?  To the French, the spelling SAMBO will give the right pronunciation every time, but the spelling SOMBO will not.  For them SAMBO sounds correct and hence the French spell the word that way (as do other romance language countries like Spain).  In fact, for many years, the official nameplates for the international Sombo federation at international meetings had SAMBO on one side and SOMBO on the other, representing both official languages of most international sport organizations.
 In recent years, many Russian Sombo practitioners--when writing in English--have wanted to spell the word SAMBO.  But however much their technical mastery of Sombo is to be appreciated, they are not the ultimate masters of the English language.  Do we spell Moscow as Moskva?  Of course not. 
When Sombo first was promoted by FILA beginning in the early 1970’s, the first Sombo committee chairman was Burt Jacob of Great Britain.  Jacob was afraid the spelling Sambo would impede its development, for many reasons.  However, he reasoned that since a “C” could be soft in English (as in France or city), then he could legitimately spell the word CAMBO, using a “C.”  In so doing, he could also avoid tempting people to mispronounce Sombo to sound like the name Sam…and spelling it CAMBO also avoided many derogatory implications.
 Part of Jacob’s expressed concern was that the word SAMBO has many negative connotations outside the Russian culture.  Sambo is considered a racist term in the United States, for example, and in the early 1980’s the AAU Wrestling Division was actually threatened with lawsuits over using that name!!  A chain of restaurants called “Sambos” actually went out of business under the political pressure.  For that reason alone, the spelling Sambo could even hurt the sport of Sombo in the American television market, which has become a key force in the modern world of sports and the Olympic movement.  Any sport with Olympic aspirations must be conscious of the American media market. In other English countries, the term Sambo also has negative connotations, mostly by reference to the story of “little black Sambo.”
 In Sweden, a “sambo” is a concubine, or live-in girlfriend.  Other meanings of the word Sambo around the world are less controversial, but still confusing.  Pronounce the world slightly differently, and you get a dance:  The samba. In Korea, Sambo is a well-known company name.  The spelling SOMBO, by contrast, is used only for the sport of Sombo.
 To avoid confusion, legal problems, racial accusations and rampant mispronunciation, the issue was referred by FILA to University Russian language specialists, who immediately suggested what seemed to them an obvious solution:  Spell it Sombo.  It is a common practice when transliterating from Cyrillic to English and avoids all the problems that would otherwise occur.
 The main push to spell the word Sambo in recent years has come from Russian émigrés who find using an “A” to be somehow more familiar--and insist with typical Russian resolve that they alone know best about anything concerned with a Russian sport.  While scholars and the more educated Russians have had no problem with the spelling Sombo, Sombo coaches have not always been scholars.
 While some claim “Sambo” is the original spelling, the fact of the matter is that once Sombo became an international sport, all three spellings have been used:  Sombo, Sambo, Cambo.  Of the three, however, the spelling Sombo is most likely to not be mispronounced and has no negative implications, unlike like the other spellings.