Rule discussion

[KCSTRONGMAN]

I had heard before that our rules and those of IAWA UK differed in the strict curl, the holdout raised, and the holdout lowered. I looked into it, and they do, if fact, differ in one very important way. Since we have looked at getting the IAWA UK and the USAWA more on the same page, rule wise, I would think it is high time we think about this rule change They do not require you to hold a sheet of paper with your butt cheeks. This is one thing that I never liked about these lifts. I do not want anyone groveling around back there, sliding in a sheet of paper. It is silly sounding, and in practice. Any judge who can not see if a lifter pulls their bottoms off of the wall probably does not have the eyesight to be an official on any lift. So, I am not asking to make these lifts less strict, just less silly. I would be in favor of removing all paper from lifts in all-round, but it makes me less uncomfortable someone placing paper behind my head than it does them placing paper behind my crack. Thoughts?
ET

I'm the lyrical Jesse James

[Chad Ullom]

I would agree with you on this ET. I don’t think this would be a change that would have much of an impact on records either.

[Al Myers]

ET, I’m in agreement with you on this! Plus it can become a difficult task getting both sheets of paper in place, in addition to the uncomfortable “buttcrack” issue. Removing this would then make our rules identical to the IAWAUK rules on this.

Which brings us to the issue of different rules between the USAWA and the IAWAUK on many lifts. As most of you know we do not really have an IAWA rulebook, but rather just follow the IAWAUK rulebook for our IAWA events. This hasn’t always been the case, as in the Clark era IAWA tended to follow the USAWA rules at competitions, especially if they were held in the US or events Clark was at.

A few years ago Steve Gardner and I started looking at ways to unify our two rulebooks. If it was as simple as the Strict Curl (removing the butt paper) for all lifts then that would have been done. However, many of our lifts are so much different in rules that “coming to middle ground” was impossible. I felt it would be practically impossbile without compromising the tradition on how many lifts had been done in the USAWA for many years, and it was a controversy I really didn’t want to get started as I know several would have been opposed to some of the changes. I spent hours pouring over our rule differences, and it would been an overwhelming project. Plus involve alot of compromise between the USAWA and the IAWAUK. Over the past several years the USAWA has brought at least twenty lifts into the same rules as the IAWAUK, done by rule changes made at our National Meeting. In that time the IAWAUK has only brought one lift into compliance with the USAWA rules. (trivia – can you name that lift?)

[Lance Foster]

Bench press- feet in the air. What is my prize?? 🙂

The Gloved One

[Al Myers]

Lance – YOU WIN THE PRIZE!!! (details of the prize to be determined at a later date)

The answer is Bench Press feet in the air. The rule was initially written to state “the feet must be off the floor”

The USAWA took this to mean that the feet must be “in the air”, and not touching anything. The IAWAUK took this to mean just “off the floor”, and often used a supporting bench to place the legs on. Obviously this gave some support/added balance to the lift and would make the lift easier.

[Al Myers]

Another big issue with unifying the rule book is what to do with all the lifts that the USAWA has that the IAWAUK doesn’t have? Do we just get rid of them? or do we still keep them, thus having a different list of official lifts than a new developed IAWA rulebook would have?

However, the IAWAUK has a few official lifts that the USAWA doesn’t have. Most USAWA members are not aware of this. Theres close to 10 I think. One of these IAWAUK lifts my dad and I are thinking of doing at the Gold Cup, the Rim Lift. (that is if I can talk him into it, as this will be the “grudge match” between us . He’s bested me once, and I’ve beat him once. this year will be final year of the best of three!)

[John Strangeway]

Some ideas

Could the first step be to go through the rule books and identify those lifts that are ruled identical to IAWA. Maybe have a coloured highlight before the lift using a colour coding system in the next update, eg Green (international ie same as IAWA) Red (US rules) or add “International lift” after the lift title.

Step two
To introduce our lifts they don’t have into the IAWA and vise versa. The rules for these lifts will be identical, Green.

Step three
Discussion between the two groups about which rules can be changed to the other without much impact to the lift e.g. the paper issue. Thus turning the lifts Green.

Step four
If there is a rule which DOES impact the dynamics of the lift thus making previous records easy to break for the new rule followers e.g. having feet on a bench and not in the air on bench). Possibly add the others lift as a generation two lift.
e.g. in the rule book
BENCH PRESS, FEET IN AIR USAWA.GEN1 (how we do it)
BENCH PRESS, FEET OFF FLOOR USAWA.GEN2.IAWA (how they do it)
Since it would be unfair to those who had them in the air. The IAWA would have the choice to adopt the USAWA.GEN1 or if not, it becomes a sole US lift.

[Al Myers]

Good points John

One thing I do want to say is that I do know now that both the USAWA and the IAWAUK would like to contest the lifts under the same rules. That hasn’t always been the case in the past.

[Al Myers]

ET –
Forgot to mention earlier – but I have added to my list to propose amending the “butt paper” rule to the EB before the next meeting.

[KCSTRONGMAN]

Perfect, Al.
ET

I'm the lyrical Jesse James

[RJ]

1. I agree with ET and only like to add the following. After I contested the strict curl, I stepped away from the wall and the paper was still there, stuck to the wall.

2. As to the rule book, I just want to add a suggestion. If the lifts are not being actively challenged, archive the USAWA ruled records. OR if they are one of Al’s 10 Worst Lifts, archive them. There is no question that Chad can re-establish his dominance in the Ziegler Clean or shall I say the Zeigler Clean.

[Author]

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