Horseback wrestling is an indispensable combat game played at the festivals, feasts, sports events and assemblies of the Turkic Republics of Central Asia. A popular sport in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it requires substantial physical strength and will to...
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Horseback wrestling is an indispensable combat game played at the festivals, feasts, sports events and assemblies of the Turkic Republics of Central Asia. A popular sport in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, it requires substantial physical strength and will to fight. Its local names include Oodaryş and Audaryspak, pronounced “er-enish”. The present study aims to make a contribution to the wider recognition and embrace of this sport, which is relatively unknown in Turkey, and to help it gain a solid place among traditional Turkish games. Given the rarity of the printed sources on this matter, the study employed interviews to support and complement literature survey. The input gathered were categorized and coded, followed by the analysis stage culminating in the final version of the text. Horseback wrestling was found to be a traditional game played in weddings and festivals in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in particular. In this context, the game is played without any time or space limitation, an
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