Oil wrestling

An old Turkish wrestling style in which the wrestlers oil their bodies.

Names among the peoples

yağlı güreş (Kırkpınar) (Turks of Türkiye)

About

Oil wrestling is a traditional wrestling style in which the pehlivans (wrestlers) oil their bodies and wrestle on a grass field. They wear the kispet, thick trousers made of water buffalo or cow leather. Before a bout the oil man oils the wrestlers; then they warm up and greet each other.

The best-known competition is the Kırkpınar oil wrestling festival, held in Edirne, Türkiye. The Kırkpınar Aga opens the festival, and forty bands of davul drums and zurna play at the opening. The cazgır, the master of ceremonies, introduces the wrestlers in verse, reciting their names, titles and skills. The winner receives the Kırkpınar Golden Belt and the title of Chief Pehlivan.

Pehlivans are trained in the master-apprentice tradition. They are expected to be generous, honest, respectful and faithful to custom. The Kırkpınar oil wrestling festival was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2010.

History

As H. Akın Zorba writes, wrestling was the best-loved sport of the Ottomans and was divided into two kinds, oil wrestling and karakucak; men wrestled at fairs, on threshing floors, at weddings and festivals, and at the palace bouts were held in the sultan's presence. Under Bayezid II the wrestlers formed a company of their own at the palace; Murad IV, Selim III and Mahmud II are counted among the sultans most devoted to wrestling.

In the seventeenth century Evliya Çelebi describes two wrestlers' lodges in Istanbul; one of them had three hundred strong wrestlers, and the men of the lodge wrestled on the square after the afternoon prayer. Of the wrestlers' lodge in Edirne he writes that it was built after the conquest so that the soldiers should be kept in training. He names dozens of holds — ters kabza, iç kabza, sarma, kündeden atma, yanbaş — and notes that the hold called karakuş, and choking, are forbidden among wrestlers, because the man opposite is not an enemy.

Rules in brief

By the competition instruction of the Turkish Traditional Wrestling Federation, the wrestlers are divided into fourteen classes (boy), from minik, the lowest, to baş, the highest; they are admitted from the age of eleven. The main length of a bout depends on the class: 10 to 15 minutes in the lower classes, 20 in the middle ones, 25 in büyük orta and 30 in başaltı and baş. If there is no winner in that time an untimed points period follows, and the wrestler who scores is declared the winner.

A wrestler is beaten by the "open fall" — when his belly faces the sky; the shoulders need not touch the ground. Both elbows touching the ground, and the back touching the ground through the opponent's move, also count as defeat. A wrestler who lifts his opponent onto his shoulder and carries him three steps, or turns him a full circle about his own axis, wins as well.

A broken or loosened leg tie of the kispet is not a defeat: the referee stops the bout and allows up to ten minutes to change the kispet. Butting, elbowing, punching, slapping and biting the opponent are forbidden, and a wrestler who deliberately drops a lifted opponent on his head is penalised.

Federations and competitions

UNESCO (2010), Traditional Wrestling Federation (2022).

Peoples

Turks of Türkiye

Research: Vasif Namazov, Turan Games Concept