Why Russians are better than Americans in wrestling....

[Jason Hyatt]

The Russians come already with that disciplined regimented work ethic, willing to endure the most banal, repetitive tasks, which seems ingrained in their culture, while very few 'westerners' have that same passion for mundane, tedious repetition.

Yeah, there's something about Russian culture that seems to me to go back beyond recorded history. They just have this ability to put their heads down and work HARD. I imagine at least some of that has to come from eons of scraping a living from one of the harshest places on the planet. If your ancestors going back countless generations had to survive by doing hand-to-hand combat to the death with Mother Nature on a near-daily basis, wrestling probably feels right at home.

[Tyler Timmermans]

Training under a sambo guy I can tell you the takedowns for sambo/freestyle/folkstyle are the same. its the mat work that makes it different. Folkstyle is all about riding a guy with no time limit as long as the top guy is active. Freestyle is very different, you get a very short amount of time to get points, plus you have to rotate the guys shoulders across the mat and maintain control to score points. Also in fresstyle its ok to lock your hands when your trying to maintain control, in folkstyle that will cost you a point each time you lock your hands.

why don't they just make it simple and have no gi submmission in the Olympics.

[Scott Yockel]

[Scott Yockel]

these are 2 of the best guys to every come out of russia

[stlnl]

Isn't that everyone's ancestors?

Not really. Lots of places, its alot easier to live day to day (tropical coast for example) compared to a subartic tundra, where life is cheap.