Glíma

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Two glíma wrestlers at the Icelandic Glíma Championship in 1985.
Glíma wrestlers in Reykjavík 1934.

Glíma is an Icelandic variant of freestyle wrestling .

particularities

Glíma differs from other types of wrestling in four ways:

  • The opponents must always stand upright.
  • The opponents constantly circle each other (similar to a waltz ). This is to ensure that there are enough opportunities to attack and that no stalemate occurs.
  • It is not allowed to fall on the opponent or knock him down. Both are viewed as unsportsmanlike conduct.
  • The opponents should always look over their shoulder. Wrestling should not depend so much on seeing, but more on touch and feeling.

Glíma was and is a sport for recreation and physical exercise, and not a "wild brawl". Some sub-variants, such as Löstagsglíma , also show somewhat harder features. The history of Glima can be traced back to the 12th century, but descriptions in the Edda and in Icelandic sagas suggest that it originated even earlier. The core of Glíma consists of the eight bragð (techniques) from which around 50 different types of throws can be derived.

The word glíma is often translated as "the competition of joy". It could be related to the words glimmer ( English ), glimma ( Swedish ), glimre ( Danish ) and glimt ( Norwegian ), which translate as "glow, flicker, flicker" (of light or fire). This could represent the rapid glíma techniques.

Glíma has the code of honor , which allows opponents to strive for fairness, mutual respect and security.

The sport was a demonstration sport at the 1912 Summer Olympics .

Organizations

The IGA (International Glíma Association) was founded in Reykjavík in 2007 with the aim of making Glíma known to a wider public. There has been a German-language website since 2010 (see links). The operator of the website is a founding member of the IGA.

literature

  • M. Bennett Nichols: Glíma. New Orleans, 1999

See also

Web links

Commons : Glíma  - collection of images, videos and audio files