Georgia’s national martial art, Khridoli combines wrestling, Judo, Sambo, Jiu-Jitsu, boxing, sword fighting, and archery, making it, unlike any other combat sport.
Khridoli, which dates back to the fourth century B.C., around the origins of the unified Georgian kingdom, has experienced a revival since 1991 when Georgia gained independence from the Soviet Union.
It has now found its way into athletic and competition circles in and around Tbilisi. But since the Russo-Georgian conflict of
2008, it has also been implemented into military training, where the unique mix of hand-to-hand combat and weaponry has practical use in times of war.
“Khridoli [is an] ancient Georgian word which means wisdom to defeat [an] enemy which is stronger than you,” explains Giorgi Avsajanishvili, an instructor at the Khridoli National Academy, who also teaches hand-to-
hand combat to the Georgian Army under the employ of the National Ministry of Defense.
“It includes fighting in five directions: Khardiorda [wrestling], Rkena: a mix of judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Sambo and grappling… Krivi [boxing], Farikaoba [fencing]. The fifth is archery.”
Avsajanishvili is just one of
the many Khridoli instructors pushing the sport and art form to a new generation of Georgian men.
Fortunately, Georgians have been a quick study, in part due to their rich tradition on the Judo and wrestling mats, where the nation has produced multiple Olympic champions, despite only competing as an independent nation for the first time in 1994, after its 1991 secession from the Soviet Union.
It is this exact athletic acumen and predisposition on the ground that gives Georgia a sliver of hope that it can one day begin to produce top echelon MMA fighters, much like nearby Dagestan, which has become a hotbed for mixed martial arts.
In Georgia, in the Caucasus, the sport remains
secondary to survival. And while MMA may have a new generation of future stars from Tbilisi, Gori, Abkhazia, and Bugeuli, the practical focus remains on Khridoli, where sport intersects with battle and tactics, where the practice of martial arts has t
he potential to protect lives and culture.
“In Georgia, if you’re wrong, it’s something that you fight over, it’s something people take to a far limit,” offers Makashvili. “In America, if someone curses at you, you can just turn around and avoid it. In Georgia, if someone curses your mother, it’s words of war, there’s no way around it.”
