Well the guy running the weigh ins came up and asked us to take the food outside.

at my son's first tournament he signed up at 46lbs (he had weighed 44lbs for two years), he weighed 46.5 that morning.

he had his shirt on, the guy weighing in said, you didn't make weight, do you want to take your shirt off?
no.
your over weight don't you want to take it off so you make weight?
No.
Son if you don't make weight you can't wrestle.
Yes I can.
don't you want to make weight so you can wrestle? take off your shirt.
NO! I didn't come here to make weight I came here to wrestle, I weighed 46 pounds at home, where do I wrestle.

I told the guy that he gets his temper from his momma, and she said absolutely NO CUTTING WEIGHT.

the guy smiled and wrote 46lbs on his arm, we now wrestle 49lbs, soon to be 52.

What is wrong with weight cutting? - I think weight cutting is good, all kids should learn the discipline of it. When my son was in the 6/u novice we started him cutting 8-10 lbs - he went from 52 to 40lbs most weekends & he won almost every time !!!!Once he got in the 8/u opens after 4 years, we started making him cut even more, and from there, each age bracket we made him cut even more. Weight cutting has been an extreme motivational factor for our child, as we told him if he didn't win - he was to heavy and that he needed to cut to the next lower weight. We only had to do that several times and he started easily loosing that 15-20lbs from 92 to 68lbs(by the way wrestling in the really lower weights means less poeple in the bracket - so if your kid feels a litle weak -, don't worry they usually don't have as much competition either) . Weight cutting is why our family likes wrestling so much - Why... in these times of economic hardship, wrestling keeps our food & clothing bill down. Generally little Johnny saves us enough money to pay for the entrie fees and gas money to the tournie's, and since we continually keep him in the plastic sweats, he never needs new undies(we just keep wringing the platics out). We will miss wrestling next year, as johnny has said he is tired of winning and wants to play something else.. like bowling - but we just wanted to share how good wrestling & weight cutting has been for our family. To sum it all up ...Cut weight and win, or cut more weight - to motivate!!! (cool rhyme ..Hey Maybe I'll Start Rapping)
P.S. missing the next season already

That was just beautiful birddog. Brought a tear to my eye. Maybe the best post of the year. And to think some of you think people that get on this forum are nuts.

I like the idea mentioned earlier about matside weigh ins. The only thing I would add is that you don't offer any allowance for clothing. Keep the weights the same and kids have to make the weight with their competition gear on. Why worry about having to give allowances for clothing?

For kids club wrestling I think we should do all remote weigh ins by club. Let the clubs weigh in their kids on Friday evening. Have all of the weights emailed or called in by 8:00 pm on Friday evening. Do not do Sat morning weigh ins at the tournament site. Here are the advantages I see.....

1. As a club you can have the kids come in on Friday evening and weigh in. Play a game and then order in pizza or go out to dinner. This makes it fun and it builds team unity.

2. This gives tournament directors the time to get the brackets done. Coaches show up 1.5 hrs before the start of the tournament for kids that didn't show up and report the scratches to the tournament director. This would allow us to start tournaments on time.

3. This saves the parents money and keeps them from having to get up extremely early to make weigh ins. It cuts out the kids having to sit around for 2-4 hrs before wrestling starts and it makes the experience more enjoyable.

This idea is based on a couple of assumptions.....

1. You don't do this for the qualifying tournaments.
2. We adults can trust each other.
3. The goal of kids wrestling is to get them matches and experience.

The arguments I hear against this are based on adults not trusting each other. I get told that coaches may give their kids extra weight, scales are different, etc.

My response is that every open tournament I have been to in the past 7 years I have witnessed the people monitoring/certifying the weigh ins give at least kid some additional weight (usually no more than .2-.4 lbs). Personally this doesn't bother me. I use this to illustrate that this is already going on. I honestly think if clubs were weighing in their own kids that less of this would occur because they don't want to ruin their reputation.

In the past 7 years I have never seen the weigh in scales be certified. Heck, we have been to a couple of tournaments where they used the old type bathroom scales with the spin dial.....not very accurate. My point to this is that the scales at most open tournaments aren't perfectly accurate....good enough yes!.....perfectly accurate NO! So why do we continue to stress over this for kids wrestling?

I think implementing a system like this would really help the sport. It would also help the clubs that don't promote weight cutting to monitor their kids and parents.

Just my 2 cents.

Shawn Budke





Shawn Budke

Most remote weigh-ins are much more healthy and eliminate the need for weight-cutting. Lol.
P.S. If you have ring worm, you should always go to a remote weigh-in, because it always go way after the remote weigh-in.

Heeeeere we go again with the weight deal. IMO, busy bodies with way too much time on their hands.

Watching weight, managing weight, tapering off a bit, and yes, from time to time, cutting weight are ALL, at various times, part of the sport and many others btw. As with anything, some folks take it a bit too far. Coaches are in the best place to catch severe or unhealthy approaches to weight management. It should be handled by a clear statement of direction and adherence to it by each club, through the coaches.

This idea of weighing-in matside is idiocy. It would clearly result in MORE cutting (and for longer time periods btw), NOT less. It would take several months to years to be effective, in the meantime, you'd have lots of kids, parents, and other supporters abandon the sport (this level anyway). This idea was likely hatched with the same level of a mindset as the braintrust of the Salina Bi-Center and their anal bag searching/cooler water bottle denying policy, which was about as effective, not to mention completely annoying. Ferget them terrorists (or given the era of Hoax and Change, purveyors of Man-Caused Disasters), lets all get them evil water bottle bringers!

Each club weighing their kids? Ahhh, most clubs sure probably fine, some, not so much. How would it be enforced? Because essentially, this approach says that it basically wouldn't be.
I would think that at least you'd want each club's weights checked by yet another club. At least have some level of check/balance.

I have spoken.

I agree! Our club doesn't see ANY of the problems described here. We address weight cutting at the beginning of each season in our parents meeting (particularly with new parents) and in 20 years I've never seen one of our kids "cut" weight. I've seen some manage their weight in a healthy manner but never "cutting".

Klaus, you should be in comedy.........GOOD ONE!!!!!!

Have you guys ever asked a 10 year old to cut 25 pounds for state. my kid said no thanks 2 years in a row. he now gets to cut just 5 pounds. can he do it or not? i dont know. do i care? i dont know. People in Kansas are not on the same side. From district 1 to district 4, you guys really dont know what is good for the kids or the sport

Not one person, including you, form District 1 to District 4, submitted a request to change the weight limits last year. There were several changes that were made and adopted this year. Those changes were made because people went through the proper channels. They did not just get on here and complain, the acted upon the changes they wanted to see.

I don't know ANYBODY in their right mind that advocates a 10 year-old kid or anywhere in the vacinity, cutting THAT much weight. THAT, (pause for effect) really IS stupid. Even 5 pounds, depending on the kid/situation may be a bit much, but NO WHERE near 25, WTFoxtrot?

I still say ""cut weight and win - or "cut weight to motivate"
If he isn't winning - cut more weight -your kid will get the idea or get real thin! Americans are too fat anyhow.
Remember remote weigh-ins are more healthly and somehow seem to get rid of ring worm, but for some reason my son always gets ringworm at remote weigh-ins and its the fastest growing ring worm you ever saw.
What I can't fiqure out is - how the kid who didn't eat all week, wore plastic sweats to school and practice, spent two nights in the sauna, and donated blood to the Haiti disaster relief effort, only lost 1.5 to 2 lbs, or @ least thats what I overheard his dad telling coach (remember thats the coach who says our club doesn't allow weight cutting), my son always lost @ least 12-15 lbs when he was in the 6/u novice doing that. Of course that's the year he placed second at novice state. Since my son didn't win novice state that year, we really got "serious" and as I mentioned earlier we "Cut weight to motivate" and he wrestled a weight class under what he had wrestled the year before and got 2nd again to a kid who had cut more weight.

Goes to show that weight cutting works!!

Proud Dad of (2x) 6/u Novice Runner Up State Champion


P.S

Wow, how on earth can we argue with success like that Birdy?!

You might consider though, a nice colonic as well. Might knock off a little mo.

Hey Rough,
Could you explain what a colonic is? Us redneckers are not sure what that us. Explain all details - so everyone knows how to do it. Ha!Ha!
*Remember "Cut weight to motivate" & Weight cutting is good!
*Remote weigh-ins are good!- its just to much of a problem to weigh in on the day of the tournament you are gonna wrestle at.
What would happen if we had weigh-ins after the tournie?
The "Make Weight if you Place" option, Heck you would only have to weigh 4-6 guys when they picked up their awards! Oh yeah, you Can't do that either, because the boys have to eat while they are wrestling, & that would make them 12-15lbs heavier. Gosh I can't remember that last time I ate a 3 lb filet 2/lb tator, and drank 5lbs of .... before wrestling. maybe thats why I didn't win much....

Just having fun with this - the weight cutting issue is like
beating a dead horse over and over.... again / & again.

Well, Unfortunately I cannot speak from experience, i saw it referenced on some television show (that movin picture box thingy).

However, I decided to you one better and get RedNeckers a link to something better for the kids.