Spaldings Athletic Library: "How to Wrestle"

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paldings Athletic Library was obviously a line of "how to" books - about anything and everything within the sports world: pole jumping, golf, running, baseball, cricket, tennis, boxing, wrestling, jiu-jitsu (I must have that book...!) and so on.

This nice book is from the year 1910 (yes my hip-hopping young friend, that's a looong time ago :). It seems like the first of the books in this Athletic Library series was printed in 1906 (and continued until the 40s sometime). Given the age of this book, it may actually be a first edition. Anyhow it is in a great condition for it's age, and was a true steal on EBay...

By and large the methods described in this 150 page soft-cover book is catch-as-catch-can wrestling - or "free style" if you will. Looking at all the great techniques in the book I am stunned by how much a lot of it is quite similar to ju jitsu, locks, throws - the whole shebang... This is truly a magnificent piece of historical document! There is a technique called "the scissor hold" (picture on your left) that could be taken directly out of older ju jitsu books.

At the end of the book there are descriptions of the differences between catch-wrestling and Greco-Roman (or "French style" as they also call it here) wrestling, the rules of wrestling, needed equipment and more. You will also find a healthy selection of old, fun and really interesting advertisements.

Rather than being simply a historical document (and a great one as such), this is actually a documentation of the wrestling roots of ju jitsu (or the ju jitsu roots of western wrestling if you will). And it has a great selection of really cool techniques to boot! It can not get much better than that... What's left: Oh yes - get this book if you can (that's an order)! Now, if I only can get hold of the jiu-jitsu book :-)

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