ANOTHER POSTAL IDEA

[dwagman]

Some years back, John Wilmot did a real nice thing…lifters in each Postal meet received a certificate. That was a pleasant surprise when I received my first one. For some reason USAWA stopped doing that and I think it would be nice to reinstate that practice.

It would be wonderful, at minimum, to have the winners of the Postal Nationals receive a certificate of sorts, but most definitely the overall Postal champions. To me, the entirety of the Postals is like the Formula I Grand Prix; it matters less how you did in each event along the way, but it does matter how you did overall. So the overall Postal Series winners—who would be the most all-round all-rounders—should receive the nicest award.

Just speaking for myself, I wouldn’t expect a trophy or anything like that, an e-mail with an attachment of a certificate would suffice. Of course there actually could be a trophy of sorts. And again speaking for myself, if costs would be involved in generating the certificates or whatever, I most certainly wouldn’t mind including a check with my Postal entry.

What’s y’alls thoughts?…

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[Abe Smith]

Hey Dan – I like your thoughts. I am indifferent about certificates but understand that some folks would be interested and if payment is needed to participate I would be open to that as well.

I would like to add my 2 cents to quarterly postal. One would be to rename it to the Art Montini Memorial Postal Meet. And the other would be to expand the quarterly postal lifts to 5 instead of 3. I like the added variety. I have never heard of the Habecker Lift before it being included in the postal list for this year and like to add the variety into my weekly training sessions. I am also aware of the USAWA does have rules in place for lifts done for repetitions. So perhaps the last event could be for ‘x’ reps. Again my 2 cents only.

Dan – you coming up to compete for Nationals?

[KCSTRONGMAN]

Here is my 2 cents on the matter. While the certificates that John Wilmot sent out were nice and appreciated, each one had to have cost postage. I am guessing he ate that cost? I love the postal series, but I wonder if one of the draws for some lifters is that it is free. I personally would prefer not to pay and not get any award. The vast majority of my awards at this point are boxed up or in a pile on an old pool table in the basement. I would lie to say that early on I did not enjoy getting them, though.

Remember when that Australian fellow (maybe Frank Lamp) promoter a world postal? There were medals in display cases for the lifters, a printed booklet of all the results, and award plaques for the top lifters. It was very neat and looked forward to. He had to quit doing this, because it became cost prohibitive.

As far as the 3 vs 5 lifts for postals, I am indifferent. We just might have to move along a little quicker to get through the 5 in a timely fashion, as we sometimes move rather slow on postal days (LOL).

I'm the lyrical Jesse James

[Denny Habecker]

If someone with more computer skills wants to take over running the postal, then he {Dan] can do the certificates and the awards for all the lifters. I do not have the computer knowledge to do that. The postal was an idea to keep people, that maybe didn’t have the time or money to travel to meets, to be able to be involved. It was rarely about awards, although Bill Clark did send out some awards in the past.

[Al Myers]

I agree completely with what Denny said – the postals are intended as an “introduction” to the USAWA, or for those not wanting to travel to actual real meets. Denny has done an EXCELLENT JOB as postal director and it takes time to build the entry forms, compile the results and prepare the report for the website.

You need to remember that the USAWA has made allowances to allow entry in our postal meets without having a certified USAWA official present (however you do need someone to judge you) unlike other comps that require certified officials. I don’t see the point of taking the time/expense of sending out certificates. If its that important to you just make your own afterwards as simple certificates can be made with pretty much any word processing software.

[dwagman]

Hey Abe, only a bodybuilder would ask to do repetition lifts. Oh, the shame of it…hehehe…

But seriously, I’m with you on variety. Variety to Postals is pretty darn cool and the more of it, the better.

No, not coming to Nationals. If you’re going, I expect to see some new records from you.

Denny, I’d be happy to help if USAWA would want to go in that direction. Just let me know and we’ll take it from there.

My 1.5 cents worth…a meet is a meet, Postal or otherwise. There are many USAWA meets that don’t ask for an entry fee but some sort of award is usually still given. It’s just a nice memento to have from a meet and a nice gesture from the organization, even if it’s just a certificate like what John used to send out.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[John Strangeway]

I agree it is nice to have physical representation of your achievements be it a trophy, medal or certificate. I, myself have somewhat of an ego wall in my garage gym where I pin my awards and competition t-shirts.

Saying that, I believe the postals are a nice yin to the yang of “regular” meets. To me these meets are welcomed relaxed events to hang out with your mates and throw your name in the hat of a little test of strength through the organization. Relaxed not only for the practitioners but for members who run regular meets and I’m sure for those behind the scenes (except Denny as he gets it all rolling).

Dan, although your idea was an award or certificate maybe you can do something similar what I did on one of the postals below?

I was pretty proud to tie Al for first place, I believe 2018. So I simply copied the web posting into Word and tweaked it a little to make a nice single page of results. I printed this with the goal of framing and placing on the “wall” but hasn’t made it yet. Its with some other certificates in poly pockets in the back of my rulebook binder. Just an idea.

[dwagman]

I don’t quite understand the dim view held by some regarding awards for Postals. Back on January 29, 2011 Al highlighted and profusely thanked John Wilmot’s Postal efforts including “sending out award certificates to the winners” in the USAWA blog.

Denny, I want you and everybody else to know what I believe to be obvious…this thread wasn’t designed to criticize anything you have been doing in running the Postal Series. I was merely thinking about things and wanted to share that among Forum members, that’s all. Based on your reply to this thread you seems to get it and not have taken offense. Thank you for that Denny, you’re a class act.

Hey Abe, I thought some more about your ideas on variety in Postals. On 5 lifts per Postal instead of 3, what came to mind is why should a Postal be limited to a specific number of lifts at all? Couldn’t some be for 3 lifts while others for 5, or maybe 4? That in and of itself would add variety.

In staying with that theme, there could be a Postal directed solely toward grip/finger strength. Those lifts don’t take a lot of time to accomplish and don’t tear the lifter down, either. So something like that could contain more than 3 lifts.

Another Postal could offer, as an example, a bench press theme by contesting bp-fia, reverse grip, one armed left and right; that would be 4 lifts.

Another one could be dedicated toward only lifts that contain the name of an old-time strongman.

Another could be dedicated to Abe called the Bodybuilder’s Postal where three lifts are done for max reps.

Another could…I could go on and on and I’m sure you guys could come up with great variety-related ideas, too. An obvious winner in my mind is to pick lifts that haven’t been done in a real long time or even at all in a Postal.

And Abe, just having some fun…please don’t be angry with me and break in to my gym and steal my posing trunks.

John, I usually copy the results from the website and save it as a PDF in my Meets folder on my computer. Over the decades I’ve competed so many times, I can’t keep track of the meets or the weights I lifted, so it’s a nice reference to have. But to me, an official award, even if it’s just a printout of what Wilmot used to have, is just a bit nicer. And like you said, having an “ego wall” in your gym is just a nice thing to have. I don’t know about you, but it also brings back memories about things you did with friends on and off the platform.

—
Dan

For Body Intellect Brochure click here: https://www.icloud.com/keynote/0fcsokZWooW_1B1uZmL1AI5fA#BI-DW

Those who are enamored of practice without science
are like a pilot who goes onto a ship without rudder or
compass and never has any certainty to where he is going.
Leonardo Da Vinci; 1452-1519

[Abe Smith]

Dan – I like the variation you are proposing. So much to do in USAWA! As for the repetitions, you are right. However, in my defense, I have always have been a few bricks short from a full load!

As for the numbers of lifts and such, to be honest I am just grateful to be given the chance to use these days to gather round with friends and make excuses to lift weights with others.

[Denny Habecker]

As far as awards go, My opinion is most of our lifters are masters[over 40] and have been lifting for years. During those years, I am sure they have accumulated quite a few awards. After a while, do you really need an award for every meet you lift in. Where are you going to put all those awards? If you really need more awards, come to meets that need your support anyway, like Nationals, Worlds, Gold Cups, to name a few. As for variety, I could put more lifts in the postals next year, or we could do the IAWA Postals, that they do every other month. But we do not want to do postals run by rival organizations.

[Lance Foster]

Denny, To quote Dave Glasgow, +1 to all your comments and suggestions.

The Gloved One

[Abe Smith]

Dan brought it up…..but Denny refreshed it. Competing in IAWA Postals seems like a fine idea. I knew Denny was president for a reason. I remember doing those world postals and getting beat badly by Steve Angell and others.

[RJ]

Can someone comment on what was the “Straight Weight Postal” done in 2010?

[KCSTRONGMAN]

Ruth, I would have to look back to be certain, and will if time permits, but it seems like it was a postal meet between the JWC and the Dino gym that was determined strictly by the amount of weight each team lifter with no coefficients involved. This is just the way i remember it.

I'm the lyrical Jesse James

[KCSTRONGMAN]

Check out this link: Straight weight postal

I'm the lyrical Jesse James

[RJ]

Thanks!

[KCSTRONGMAN]

No sweat!
ET

I'm the lyrical Jesse James

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