Dance
One of the defining features of bökh is a dance wrestlers perform as they enter the contest field and exiting at the end.
Different locales have different dancing styles. In Mongolia the wrestler imitates falcons or phoenix taking off (devee). In Inner Mongolia, the dance is supposed to be a mimicking of lions or tigers prancing (magshikh)--as represented by the Üjümchin version.
Another major variation, popular among Mongols of Inner Mongolia's northeastern Khülünbüir region, resembles deer bounding (kharailtaa). All considered, the Üjümchin "magshikh" dance seems more strikingly robust-looking, partly due to the wrestler's dazzling apparel and partly the style of the dance itself. In contrast, the phoenix style of Mongolia appears to exhibit a greater degree of elegance.
Mongol wrestling dance has its original forms in shamanistic rituals where people imitated movements of various animals. Today, apart from its aesthetic value, the dance is also regarded as a warm-up and cool-down procedure before and after an intense fight. Good wrestlers treat the dance with great earnest and are often better dancers.
Thanks to wrestling activists' tireless and ingenious efforts, this unique dance has become one of the integral and indispensable aspect of the wrestling tradition as a whole. In Inner Mongolia it has been, together with uriya, the costume, and the various rules, codified in the first wrestling Competitions Rules finalized in the late 1980s.
Read more about this topic: Mongolian Wrestling
Famous quotes containing the word dance:
“The author’s conviction on this day of New Year is that music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)
“Mr. Lincoln at least you’re a man of honor. You said you wanted to dance with me in the worst way, and I must say that you’ve kept your word. That’s the worst way I’ve ever seen.”
—Lamar Trotti (1898–1952)
“Is that dance slowing in the mind of man
That made him think the universe could hum?”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)