i competed at my first meet with friends and family and they were throughly bored. but they made comments on things they liked and things they didn't.
- they did not like the bench shirts they all thought it was cheating
- they loved all the lifter who put on the big show, all the antics
- they did not like the disorganization, they all thought there could have been more than one platform (which i understand that at the national level it may be better, but it starts at the state level)
- they all wished that they would announce why the lift was no good, it seemed there was a lot of interaction between the lift and the crowd
- the geared and the raw lifters should be separated, this was my one buddy who seemed very against the gear lifts
these are from people who have never been to this type of thing or really seen this type of thing before.
for me there should be 2 federations tested and not tested. within those federations there would 2 divisions raw and geared. it would be nice to see consistant judging across the board, i see different squat depths being accepted in different federations, and different pause times on the bottom of the bench, some seem like a touch and go bench and above parallel squat.