Proposed ladies classes

[chrisgobby]

There is no gender bias here. Men support the sport, women do not (not my opinion, the numbers show it).
Your attitudes are poor and if I offend a whole gender due to my opinion, I'm cool with that as it says more about your defensive sensitivity than my alleged malice.

Stop asking what the sport can do for you, ask what.....

[Jeff Miller]

So do the ladies have any other ideas besides 60, 70, 80, 80+? If there are other alternatives, a poll could be made. Yes I agree with Joanne that more effort could be made to recruit females...I usually put some effort in that dept. the months prior to Mayhem in the Mall, because I know there is something to offer the women competition-wise. I kind of peter out after that tournament is over, because I need a carrot for the newcomers for me to be motivated to recruit. The pro UAL circuit for women helps in this regard in my mind...another level to try and achieve if training, tournaments go well.

[Jay Riehle]

To pick classes here it's fairly clear look at the pullers here in Canada. I say 0-135lbs, 136-155, 155lbs-185lbs & 186lbs+. I think there is room for growth here, I gave always thought that women's classes should be offered free of charge for circuit and non-sanctioned events to boost attendance/awareness and of course have to pay their way to provincials and nationals. It's hard to get someone on the table to try it when they have to drop $50 to do it. Just my opinion. Trophies for the ladies classes can be easily covered even with as little as 30 entries in the whole tourney. I mean either bite the bullet and promote the class or watch it go down even further.

[John Milne]

Letting someone ride for free on the backs of the ones who make it possible is not the answer (in my opinion).

Why are we placing the onus on the promoters to pull the ladies weight? Why take money out of the promoters pocket to beg women to compete when historically they've shown they're not interested enough to support their own?

I can't believe this is even a topic. Mr. Rielhe, I have to respectfully but strongly disagree with you here.


Some considerations:


Are having more ladies the future of the sport?
Will they even get to a point where they carry their own weight?
Will having more ladies make this sport better? If so, how?


I am not opposed to women competing in this sport. However, I'm not for bail outs either. If a class can support itself, great. If not, get rid of it. The one exception would be for children's/youth's classes. I personally think there is potential for growth there.

For the record, my opinions would carry through for a mens class that could not support itself either. No "gender bias" here, just a factual, rational and economical way of looking at our sport.

[Jay Riehle]

I understand your point John from a financial aspect and perhaps I am stuck in a more promotional mindset regarding the woman's classes. I cant except that any division of armwrestling be discontinued. Right now the division is critical it's either promote it and build structure in the class or just throw it out now because the C.A.W.F. and it's counterparts will only continue to lose money with no entries until the enevitable happens and it disappears. Much like business you have to start from the ground up and right now we hardly have any ground to stand on.

[Rick Pinkney]

Jay, the classes you proposed are similar to the ones I proposed 60, 70, 80, 80+.

[Ashley Maher]

Rick, I am confused, I thought that you were suggesting these classes; 65/80/80+, then later on you listed 60/75/90/90+, does this mean that you are now in favor of 60/70/80/80+?

John, I cannot explain to you the disappointment I feel when I read your posts, each time I read them I loose more respect for you.

[John Milne]

Nov 1, 2013 0:04:56 GMT -5 Jay Riehle said:

I understand your point John from a financial aspect and perhaps I am stuck in a more promotional mindset regarding the woman's classes. I cant except that any division of armwrestling be discontinued. Right now the division is critical it's either promote it and build structure in the class or just throw it out now because the C.A.W.F. and it's counterparts will only continue to lose money with no entries until the enevitable happens and it disappears. Much like business you have to start from the ground up and right now we hardly have any ground to stand on.

I guess we have different ways of looking at the similar problem, however I don't see the situation so dire.

I don't see the sport as in such despair as some here do. I think it's going alright, not great, but not horrible either. I like the fact that people are talking about change and it's encouraging.

Not everything can survive, that has always been a fact. Perhaps not everything should either, change is often needed and it often works out well. One other question to think about it this. Is the good of the few worth more than the good of the many? Leaders, governments, businessmen and many others have asked this same question over the years. I'm not sure there is a correct answer, but I know where I stand on it. I like to think that being fair to the many outweighs suffering for the few.

I'm all for promoting the weaker attended classes and trying to encourage more entries just not at the extra expense of everyone else. That has been my point, perhaps often misunderstood.

[Jeff Miller]

I'm all for increasing/promoting women participation, but I think free entry for women is the wrong way - we often have a reduced rate from men for women competitors at tournaments, but no crime in charging an entry fee. The entry fees obviously must vary according to what the tournament offers. For Nationals, for example - I'd be in favor of higher entry fees for all classes like $100 per arm, especially if there's lots of pulling as with triple elimination. Reason is, that helps the promoter/CAWF a whole hell of a lot, and it's a small relative increase in total cost to each for the event (travel, hotels food are the lion's share).

I definitely think armwrestling is very similar to MMA, and looks what is happening there - women are taking off...this could happen with armwrestling too, but it does take motivated people - and lots of them (particularly the women armwrestlers, as they have the highest stake in this, and also would have an easier time recruiting IMO). For example - if I ask my buddy's wife to come armwrestle at our club (which I've done, and her husband is not interested in aw) then I look like a creep to my wife and my buddy! If a lady does it it's all good...this part sucks, but seems to be a reality.

Ladies, can we please put some preferred weight classes down? If you don't want the 5kg increments, then don't use them; what I did for the men's is get the lowest weight class, the highest weight class limit, and the preferred number of classes - if you gals give me those numbers (ie 55kg - lowest, 83kg - highest, five classes total) then I'll use a multiplier to divide them up and show you what it looks like. Or if you want you can do that too. There can be a few variations to compare (like 4, or 5 classes, with different low and high ends). These can be tailored to match WAF classes if you want. Obviously for those of you that don't want to change them, like Joanne, then no suggestion is needed.

Thanks for the discussion!

[Rick Pinkney]

Ashley, I was just throwing classes out there to see what the ladies would tolerate and to achieve a goal of cutting classes. It appears that the 60, 70, 80, 80+ has the least resistance. Many think that 65 is to heavy for the lightest class. So I don't mind starting at 60. Then it would be up to the women to fill those classes. That would drop the ladies from 7 to 4, which is not unreasonable.