Is this possible? We have a boy on our club that is 12 and under who is physically gifted. He isn't getting much out of that age bracket. Any help is appreciated.

Several people have wrestled up in age to get competition. Whether it is legal or not I am not sure , but several people are doing it.

Rule 4-4-1
Competition shall be in the following age and weight classes. Age determination shall be as of midnight, August 31 for that competitive year. For example, a child with a birthday on August 31, 1995 will wrestle as an eleven-year-old during the 2006/07 season. A child born on September 1, 1995 will wrestle as a ten-year-old during the 2006/07 season. Any USAWA-Kansas Kids club may challenge the age of any wrestler during weigh-in at a sanctioned tournament. The wrestler or the wrestler's club must, within one week, provide a birth certificate or similarly reliable verification that the wrestler's age stated on his/her membership card is accurate.

Additional and/or combined age and weight classes can be used at the option of the host tournament director.

Rules applying to qualifying tournaments....
Rule 4-4-1
No additional age or weight classes are allowed. At no time will a wrestler be permitted to wrestle out of their age division.
My interpretation of this would be it is up to the tournament director if a wrestler could wrestle above their age group. Our club has a simular problem in that we have a kid who is not over-weight who exceeds the heavyweight classes for his age group. If I am correct in my interpretation of the rules we should look at allowing any wrestler to be entered at the next higher age group for non-qualifying tournaments. We should NOT use this as an excuse to open up the heavyweight classes again!

"Wrestling up" can certainly be a challenge to the promising wrestler in respect to increased competition.

sportsfan02 is writing in regards in regards to "qualifying tournaments such as sub-district etc. when it would not be allowed and the wrestler could only qualify in his appropriate age bracket.

Be cautious of wrestling up in respect to the bout numbers (not being a split tournament), the recovery time the athlete may need to get his body and psyche back together.

All too often I've seen great wrestlers take 2nd when they should have won their age/wt class only because they were spending some extra mat time in the upper division. Therefore it all depends on what you want....more matches or more wins and the bracket. Choose wisely. Although wrestling outside your age/wt division does not "count" when it comes to the "seeding" meeting at sub's.
Ultimately, it's up to the kid, however I think 6-9 matches in a day is quite a heavy toil vs. 3-4 in a great bracket.

Just my .02. Anybody else?

Wrestling up is a great way to increase your competition if you are in some of the right weights by that I mean if you are 12U 100 and want to move up to 14U you would get some good competitoin. 120 even better, If you are 12U 80 for example however there is not many that little in 14U and you might not gain anything unless you knew there was a very good kid entered, etc.

It also depends on what you are trying to get them mentally and physically prepared for. For example my son got on the back side of his bracket a few years ago at Liberty and wrestled 8 matches, and the last 5 of them were within 90 minutes! Might be one of the toughest things he has ever done. But he survived and after that was much more mentally strong, especially when the going got tough. That is the true benefit to me.

Just some thoughts.

24/7

Rule 4-4-1
No additional age or weight classes are allowed. At no time will a wrestler be permitted to wrestle out of their age division.

Who can clarify this? Our athlete is 190, 12 and under. My intent is to get him more mat time. He breezes through his matches. I want to see him wrestle/struggle. Most tourneys have 1 or 2 kids in his bracket. I would like to see him get more.

I know kids do it, but I don't want to jeopardize his season.

Jim Ryan

Jim, that is for qualifying tournaments only. As I read the rules, for invitationals you can contact the tournament director for that tournament, and with his approval wrestle a kid up an age group.

IowaStyle,

The rule you are quoting is from PART B – QUALIFYING FOLKSTYLE TOURNAMENTS. It does not apply to nonqualifying tournaments.

The applicable rule for nonqualifying tournaments can be found in PART A – SANCTIONED FOLKSTYLE TOURNAMENTS:
Bottom line - as long as it is not a qualifying tournament, it's up to the tournament director.

sportsfan02 is correct.

Mike as you know we have visited about this several times. Point of clarification; without utilizing a split tourney format doesn’t wrestling up for one individual (not combining the entire bracket) become impossible. The tournament director has discretion on combining age groups or weights but where does it say they can allow one wrestler to enter another age? Again, IMO, spilt tourneys are the way to go, more flexibility for the tournament director, better opportunity for the wrestlers to get quality mat time (double dip) and ultimately a better experience for the families.

PS. there is another thread out there related to this topic you may want to check out. "Wrestling Up"

The tournament director is not precluded from having multiple brackets; therefore, s/he could have one combined 8U/10U-64# bracket to accommodate a single eight year old, while having another 8U/64# bracket with all of the other seven & eight year olds.

Great idea.

With respect to double dipping the only way to facilitate this is in a split tourney format correct? Can you please explain what it would take to change our current rules to allow double entry if it is not a split format. OK has no restrictions on this why do we? Keeping in mind the rest time between matches becomes at times an issue.

Yes, the only way to compete in two separate brackets is if they are in separate sessions at a split-format tournament. This is due to a rules interpretation by the Executive Council several years ago, where they decided that a split format tournament would be treated as two separate tournaments for the purposes of this rule.

The Executive Council could change this policy, but only in that they could decide that a split tournament would be treated as a single tournament, effectively removing the option of wrestling in two separate brackets. If you wanted to allow wrestling in more than one bracket in a single tournament, this would need to be a rules change presented through the Rules Committee. To do this, I would recommend that you make your request in writing to Ned Price, Kids' Executive Director.

To gauge the interest in changing the current KS rules surrounding wrestling up and double dipping is there a way to include a ballot box on this thread or a new one? I remember seeing something on another post that utilized this, is this still possible? Someone smarter than me, please help.

For those that aren’t in favor of relaxing our current rules I would be interested in your reasoning., either post or send me a pm. Thanks!

I do believe wrestling up should be allowed even at qualifiers. I don't favor double entries though as I see too many kids wrestling too many matches in a day already.

You can create a poll by clicking on "Poll Manager" when creating a post. I would recommend starting a new topic to hold the poll - this makes it easier to look for updated results.

Bear in mind that this is will be a very unscientific poll, but it's certainly one way to gauge interest levels.

okay reading this I have to say Im a little confused as the qualifying tournaments section..here is my question my daughter wrestles 6 and under but we do not have a 6 and under bracket at State so come subs,district, and state she wrestles 8 and under..but the rules says a kids cant wrestle out of their age bracket for qualifying tournaments???could someone help clarify this to me..thanks

The age divisions for the qualifying tournaments are Eight and Under, 9 & 10, 11 & 12, 13 & 14, and 15 & 16

Okay so since she is under 8 she falls in that category so why if a kid is say 12 can he not wreslte 14 and under at a qualifying tournament if he choses to? why does he have to wrestle 12 and under then? its very confusing or maybe I am just not catching on