The fascination of wrestling: the body contact, the muscular men, the expression of anger, the techniques of self-defence, of controlling your opponent and, in submission wrestling, of actually punishing him. Watching a wrestling contest is like experiencing an ancient spectacle. In the studied gestures, the expressions of strength and vigor lies the abstract beauty of classical sculptures. Homeric heroes take the stage once more in one of their habitual setting, as if in a fragment of the ancient world: "So speaking, he raised him up, but Odysseus did not forget his tricks. He kicked him from behind and hit the hollow of his knee and loosed his limbs, and Ajax fell backward and Odysseus fell on his chest...".
The times when the harsh experience of everyday life and physical training became rites and recollections and finally gave rise to institutions and games, as a result of a cultural process. Wrestling as a ritual of war and as a means of overcoming it. It asserts the right of the strongest but also gives the weakest the possibility of winning with skill and dexterity.
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War is dominated by violence and brutality; in wrestling the rules and regulations are just as decisive. Therefore wrestling can be seen as a product of a culture and laws where barbarism and anarchy once reigned. Today, the wrestling contest represent a kind of special cultural melting pot. Many societies have placed strong cultural significance in wrestling, which has taken on ritualistic and ceremonial meaning and performs a number of different functions: competitive, ostentatious, communicative, each one with its own protocol and containing detailed procedures. Such aspects have been amply documented in demological, ethnological and anthropological literature indicating the various forms of wrestling in the different cultures. |
