How did you originally get involved in judo and Sambo?
Gokor: I started wrestling when I was 5 years old in Greco-Roman and freestyle. I saw a lot of Sambo players come up and I liked this as well, so I began training in wrestling and Sambo. A few years passed and a friend of mine who I always beat in Judo got sick and couldn’t compete on the national Judo team, so I took his place. They took ten or twenty minutes to teach me all of the rules, and I went and did very well. This was in 1973. I enjoyed it so much that I began training Judo. A little while later, I quit wrestling because it was too much for me. In 1977, I began boxing as well and ended up winning a national championship. They wanted to take me to Russia, but by this time we had already decided to come to America.
