Journal of Western Martial Art
January 2000
Pete Kautz
Glima translates literally as "The Game of Joy", and is an art roughly 1100 years
old. It was brought to Iceland by Viking settlers, and has been practiced
as a folk art ever since. It is mentioned in writing in the "Jonsbok"
law-book in 1325, "Whosoever participates in a contest of friendly wrestling
or hide-tugging does so on his own responsibility". In other words,
"It's your own damn fault if you get hurt!" The term used in the
book to refer to wrestling is "Leikfang". This is an older name for
wrestling. The root word "Fang" meaning "Catching" in the sense of
gaining control of a person or object. The term can also be used
to refer to holding someone in their arms, the space between the arms,
or wrestling in general, though in the old sagas when they talked of Leikfang
it sounds more like back-hold wrestling than what we see in Glima today
with the low grip. Some of the Leikfang contests described end with
spines being broken from a man being bent backwards.
Glima is traditionally practiced outdoors in appropriate clothing for the weather. In Iceland, one of the reasons you might have decided to play a few rounds was just to stay warm on a cold night! These often cold and slippery conditions are part of what goes into giving Glima its distinct movement. It would be practiced on the hillsides or in any natural place that gave shelter, and these were referred to as Glimuholl or literally "Glima Hall".
The basic idea is to grip your opponent
in the proper way, and then force them to touch their torso or any area
above the elbows or knees, to the ground for the best 2 out of 3 falls.
Also, if both of their arms touch the ground, it is a fall. If both
players fall together
then
it is called a "brother-fall" and neither player gets the point.
Perhaps the most immediately discernible characteristic of modern Glima is that the participants today wear special leather belts. These have a main belt around the waist, and separate belts on the lower thighs of each leg, which are connected to the main belt with vertical straps. These belts allow a specific grip to be taken which is wrestled out of - similar to many other traditions around the world. Last year I saw an exact duplicate picture of a Glima belt in the "Weekly World News", a paper that also regularly features the half-human "bat-boy" and photos of Clinton shaking hands with UFO aliens. They were saying that this belt was developed by the scientists at NASA as a "Zero-G Sex Device" for experiments on human reproduction while in orbit! Believe it...or not.
The reason that the belts are still worn today is that they are symbolic of wearing the heavy pants and jackets as they did in the past. The belt gives something to grab, and it is fair to all competitors. It is also important to note just where the Glima player is grabbing. The left hip and right thigh are both places where an opponent's sword or dagger would have been kept in the old days - and so it should be no surprise that this is where you grip for play. Your left hand grabs his right thigh and your right hand grips his left hip. From here you start to circle to the right, both circling around each other, trying to find a weakness.
There were three main ways Glima was played
in the old days. There was formal Glima and Loose Grips wrestling;
and then there was also wrestling for settling a duel - to the death!
In the deadly matches, which would have only been done over the most serious
of offenses, the two men would go into a field with a large, waist-high,
tapered slab of rock - a stone to smash your opponent down on to slay him.
One of these still stands today on a farm in the western part of Iceland.
Let this be a lesson to modern grapplers - look for the "slaying stones"
in urban areas and other places you might have to fight, and let the terrain
magnify the power of your throw!
In
Loose Grips, the formal rules of play are not followed to the letter and
a player is allowed to "cheat" in that sense, since Loose Grips is not
considered "correct wrestling" (by the rules of Glima). The initial
grip is different than the one used in the formal game, and follows after
the familiar "collar-and-elbow" style seen the world over. The match
doesn't stop when one player touches the ground, and sacrifice throws and
other tactics that might be used that are specifically referred to as being
"illegal" in Formal Glima are used. One such throw seen in Loose
Grips is the Somersault throw (similar to Tomo-Nage). This is fine
for loose-grips play, but in technical Glima you would be touching your
own body to the ground, so you would lose the fall! In the case where
both players fall to the ground in Loose Grips, whomever stands up first
is declared the winner. There are at least 27 traditional techniques
used in Loose Grips only.
In the modern game, players wear special shoes in addition to the belts previously described. The belts were introduced to play in 1905, and from this time on they were gripped instead of the opponents trousers. The next year would see the introduction of the highest honor in Glima to be awarded - the Grettir Belt, which has been given each year to the greatest Glima player in Iceland, who wins the Icelandic Glima Championship. It is named after a character from one of the Norse sagas who was fantastically strong and a master of wrestling - it is like having the Hercules Belt!
The game was further formalized when the Icelandic Sports Federation published official rules for competition in 1916. In the modern day, Formal Glima is characterized by 4 key points and 8 basic tricks (bragd) using the legs, hips, and feet to throw with.
Journal of Western Martial Art