The New Zealand Grappling and Wrestling Association in its first season has exceeded all the steering committees expectations by considerable. The history and reasoning behind the development and establishment of the New Zealand Grappling and Wrestling Association is as follows.
January 2011, a meeting was conducted in the South Island in consideration of what was seen as required important undertakings to ensure the South Islands continued membership of the national governing body and the growth and development of grappling and wrestling in the South Island. Post this meeting, unanimous attending clubs support for the changes was given. The requests for changes were sent to the national body and on not being able to achieve the changes requested a decision was made to establish a new association for grappling and wrestling. The reality is that a lot of North Island clubs embraced the changes the South Island clubs wanted introduced and gave their support in the form of becoming members of the new organisation.
No one could have imagined the rapid growth of the newly established New Zealand Grappling and Wrestling Association in the short period since. Decisions have since been made based on recent international results and the performance levels of a majority of grapplers and wrestlers in New Zealand to focus on the growth and development of provincial and national competition and competitors first.
We realised we needed to be realistic with expectations and develop our competitors nationally through coaching clinics and increased competitions within NZ. We also realised that many individuals involved with wrestling and grappling are on the bread line and with the recession affecting so many we needed to make registrations free. These establishment decisions have included completely free club and competitor registrations which has seen in the first year the New Zealand Grappling and Wrestling Association being the combined major national body for grappling and wrestling with more clubs registered with them than any other such governing body.
We have been fortunate to have all our establishing costs covered by a major business that has given us a continued assurance of assistance. Already grappling and wrestling New Zealand has 34 Clubs throughout New Zealand registered with more clubs ready to come on board and tournaments are attracting more entries than ever in all codes.
We have a directive to bring up to date computer programs and systems to improve and advance our abilities and capabilities with registrations entries and matchmaking. Already we have developed programs for automated registrations and entries and we have matchmaking programs being developed and tested at provincial tournaments that will, when completed, provide modern efficient fully or semi-automated matchmaking custom designed resources for NZ tournament needs.
In fact the final component of the computer systems to be finished post the recent Otago Championships is the match scheduling that will be completed before the South Island Championships. Grappling and Wrestling New Zealand considers itself the People's Association of Combat Sports and the website is for all members providing them with a very good means of promotion and publicly.
Photos from the NZGAWA Otago Champs
The hits on the site in such a short period are much higher than was considered possible and are surprising everyone. We are getting a lot mileage from the website and constant enquiries and endorsements of our new and member friendly aspects. New member clubs are registering their clubs members and placing their entries through the website with ease.
There have been two South island and one North island tournament conducted under the New Zealand Grappling and Wrestling Association already in the last two months with higher numbers of entrants competing in more combat sports codes and divisions from more clubs than previous.
Photos from the NZGAWA South Canterbury Champs
We have a North Island grappling delegate in Neil Swailes and a South Island delegate in Karl Webber and these two dedicated individuals bring to the Association considerable experience and with them being so actively involved with training and promotions they are very current informed and hands on.
Having elite competitors like Sam Belkin and Stephen Hill as members prepared to advise at meetings and assist at tournaments all adds up to a very sound and current experience base. Everyone is working together and assisting in the ownership and expansion of an association that the members have control over and have equal decision making in.
We have been extremely fortunate with having wrestling and grappling officials in Wayne Grant, Robbie Dee, Danny King, Anton Bowring, Dean Smith, Yoshi Takano, Karl Webber and Aaron Miller officiating at tournaments.
There are good numbers of members from clubs willing to train to become officials and we will also be training computer operators to run the computer matchmaking programs at tournaments.
We are really trying to bring combat sports competition into the 21st century and the new automated systems that provide random matching and can take care of everything from entries to results and certificates has cut back on the required staffing by considerable and as such reduced unnecessary expenses.
Wayne Grant has agreed to train up more wrestling referees and judges and this will relieve officiating pressure with the increased number of tournaments and high entries at these tournaments.
We will establish a similar grappling officials training program by next season.
New mats, scoring and timing equipment have been purchased and are continuing to be purchased to cope with the increases in competitions and competitor demands.
In Otago, at the Combat Sports School, they have just purchased and are awaiting delivery of a new FILA approved 12 x 12 mat to add to our current mats.
The Rangiora club is very well set up equipment wise to conduct tournaments and have been assisting other South Island clubs until they receive their own equipment.
Fight Times has many agencies for combat sports supplies and is ensuring clubs get the best deals possible on mats, wrestling singlets and boots, as well as grappling shorts and rash guards. Fight Times’ sole and exclusive agencies of some of the major brands has increased product and brand choice and reduced pricing, which is a real advantage to the new association member clubs.
The nationals this year set down for November in Christchurch will incorporate freestyle, Greco-Roman and female wrestling as well as gi and non-gi grappling.
There will be new and exciting titles to be contested in the form of double crown grappling and wrestling champions for male and female seniors in all weight groups.
To win a national double crown championship of grappling and wrestling the competitor must be the champion of both freestyle wrestling and non-gi grappling in their senior weight division.
Having dedicated lifetime committed individuals like Kevan McLaughlan of Rangiora and Peter and Paulette Berry of Timaru along with all the other highly experienced supporters and contributors to the People's Association of Grappling and Wrestling has led to its instant success. Administration wise, Grappling and Wrestling New Zealand has been established to be fair to all clubs regardless of member numbers and to be totally transparent.
The Association prides itself on listening to all clubs and members requests and concerns and addressing them. Clubs have told us they know the no registration fees policy has enabled them to achieve a whole lot more competition than before. They are clear that the clubs and members after paying club fees and registration with the governing body of their particular style or code of combat sports simply cannot afford to pay registrations with another body.
We are formulating a referendum system so each club will have the right to vote on important decisions with majority deciding and majority ruling. Each club will have a designated delegate that will receive e-mails and be the point of contact for their club. Every club will receive a single vote and when the votes have been counted all member clubs will receive the outcome by e-mail clearly and transparently showing what clubs voted for and what clubs voted against and those that reframed from voting.
Many clubs have made suggestions including being able to compete in wrestling wearing grappling shorts and rash guards instead of wrestling singlets and this has been agreed to for provincial competitions.
Athletes personal coaches has been a topic of considerable discussion and the general consensus is that this should be the club coach and athletes decision when it comes to decision making that may well affect the athletes chances at higher competition.
Everyone agrees that if the athlete does not have confidence in a selected coach or cannot get along with them or does not want to compete under a selected coach then the best coach for them is their personal coach that has after all got them to where they are.
Grappling clubs requested a knockout format over round robin and we have implemented this at tournaments where requested and will also run double elimination for major tournaments.
What is important to the clubs and competitors deserves serious consideration by Grappling and Wrestling New Zealand and we intend to provide proper and sound governance and transparency.
Combat sports have changed considerably over the last several decades and we believe require a very different and united approach with people that are flexible and innovative and have their fingers on the pulse.
Focusing on the recent Otago Grappling and Wrestling Championships with the capacity spectator numbers and the many new young competitors on the mat as well as some of our former elite wrestlers like Aaron Miller and Scott McGregor competing is testament to everyone that is involved approving of the Association and supporting its competitions.
Former elite athletes involved in combat sports have been very clear how far behind the leading countries competitors New Zealand is and how our medal hopes at major international competitions are not great in their opinions.
The grappling fraternity has embraced the new Association and has supported a governing body with free registration that accepts entries from all registered members and conducts competitions where they have the opportunity to compete against a wide range of other clubs and competitors.
Grappling and Wrestling NZ members are encouraged to compete in and be members of any other organisation or governing body where they can get good competition and improve themselves.
The 2011 National Championships in November, after the Rugby World Cup, will be a massive combat sports spectacle with all the new member clubs striving for titles. The numbers of entrants at recent provincial tournaments are up there with recent national championships in numbers and with the early requests for information for the first New Zealand Grappling and Wrestling Association National Championships in Christchurch this year we are gearing up for the highest numbers of entries seen at a single Championships for a long time.
We have had registrations and enquiries from BJJ, MMA, Hapkido, Judo, Jiu Jitsu, as well as many wrestling and submission grappling clubs.
Clubs can register free on-line at https://grapplingwrestling.org.nz/
Individual competitors that do not have a club to register through can register as independents.
We will make changes that get more people on the mat and will grow the codes through being accessible and prepared to listen.
Compared to conducting professional fight promotions that many of our members have done for decades the wrestling and grappling competitions have been a lot easier to conduct.
Clubs have been very surprised and impressed on some of the innovations Grappling and Wrestling NZ have introduced that have led to high number of matches completed in lesser time frames than would be expected based on competitions of previous.
We have members in wrestling from countries where wrestling is a major sport that have applauded us on trying to make the competitions more user friendly for young competitors and their parents and have conveyed this is long overdue.
We have received offers from leading Olympic wrestling coaches to visit and conduct training camps and we will conduct another wrestling and grappling training camp this year at the Todd Group’s Wesleydale camp. Already we have coaches volunteering their services and after the huge success of the last camp this needs to be a regular undertaking.
Ryan Henry of NZ Fight and Fitness who is the NZ representative of Royler Gracie has training workshops in the planning and this will further develop the grappling codes under such experts Royler Gracie and his senior assistant instructors.
Royler may be in Dunedin as soon as August and if his visit coincides with the Otago championships that would be a first for NZ having such an expert in attendance.
There are other clubs that are members of the Association that also have their superiors that will visit and conduct training workshops that will benefit national combat sports persons and further increase standards.
We have Judo players competing in our tournaments and at the Otago champs had a high ranking master in attendance and he got to see the value for judoka with extra competition mat time.
The only down side is that competitor numbers are growing so quickly and entries are increasing so rapidly that the entire tournament structure may need to be modified to ensure we can accommodate everyone.
This may mean running some competitions for just wrestling or just grappling or running age group competitions but we are monitoring this closely and will by majority decision initiate the decided undertakings.
Not a bad situation to be in for the first season of a new governing body and in difficult economic times.
We have future international training and competing options available to us but it’s one step at a time and getting our own national concerns addressed and fixed before we move to the next phase of the plan is most important.
In conclusion grapplers and wrestlers can now join a major independent body free of club or competitor registrations that is the people’s association owned and operated by the members of all styles and codes of combat sports. https://grapplingwrestling.org.nz/
