Cannon Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 Hello grip nerds! This is an update on the progress toward a new, updated Mash Monster certification! I have tried hard to preserve elements of the retired certification with some improvements. Some of this is driven by what's possible and some by my own preferences. Things that will stay the same The Mash Monster certification is intended to be an elite certification. Originally I had aspirations to expand the levels, but I believe that adds an unnecessary amount of additional logistics, cert management, and waters down the achievement. Throughout its duration, the retired certification averaged about 24 certifications per year. The new certification will be more accessible with more carefully spaced levels so I believe activity will increase as a baseline. A bunch of additional lower levels feels unwieldy. The Mash Monster Set. There is a chance to switch to a setting block, but I do not prefer that option. Most well-known certs use a block so the MM cert was unique in this respect. We will keep the parallel or wider Mash Monster Set. The certifications will be via video submission, no witness required. However I am implementing safeguards which I believe 100% guarantee authenticity of the certification. A primary safeguard is that the MM grippers will be unique items which are tightly controlled and received back as part of the certification, as before. It is a massive security to be able to scrutinize the gripper after the attempt and most other certifications do not operate this way. There will be protocols which the video must follow and it will be possible to fail the certification based entirely on execution in the video. There will also be tamper-evident safeguards which guarantee the judges will be able to identify the original gripper on video; not all of which will be explained to the public. An MM0-style door opener will still be required to establish readiness for the certification both in terms of strength level and ability to shoot an acceptable video. Judging will be completed by the Mash Monster judges as before. 3 judges will score the attempt and it will take 2 out of 3 "white lights" to pass. Participants must be a GripBoard Contributor at any level. Contributor Level 1 offers one certification attempt per year and Levels 2 and 3 offer unlimited attempts. Certification attempt means signing up for and attempting a level, not the number of tries you get during a single certification. That will remain as 3 attempts within a 15 minute time limit. Any one person can only have one level checked out at a time. There is no certification fee except to cover shipping. Things that are new Where the old certification referred to levels, the new certification will be based on ratings. There are 7 levels planned at this time beginning at 160 and increasing to 220. The levels are 160-170-180-190-200-210-220. You would refer to the levels by number such as "Mash Monster 160" or Mash Monster 190". This naming will also distinguish new certifications from the retired legacy. While this is fewer total levels than the original certification, I believe this actually offers more truly distinct levels. There is a possibility for a level at 230. You can jump directly to any level after completing the door opener. This is a huge change. The door opener will be two-fold in this respect. The door-opener for levels 160-170-180 is an IronMind #3 or equivalent, as before. For levels 190 and up the door opener is increased to an IronMind #3.5 or equivalent. The retired certification offered a semblance of "everyone did the same thing" by always using the exact same gripper. The truth is that we know grippers do change slightly over time. Knurling gets worn and ratings slide. The new certification will actively manage the Mash Monster set to be "the same" based on repeatable specifications. The grippers will be made from Standard springs and handles. The handles will have unique markings not otherwise commercially available. After each certification, the gripper will be scrutinized not only to ensure the authenticity of the attempt, but also to ensure the gripper has not appreciably changed in specifications. If critical measurements such as the rating or spread fall out of our accepted tolerance from natural use, the gripper will be replaced with an original. In other words, I am more concerned about "everyone did the same thing" than "everyone closed the exact same gripper". I expect any one gripper to last years. There will be a women's Mash Monster cert! Officially, it will also just be called Mash Monster and the respective levels which are planned to be 110-120-130-140. Door opener here is an IronMind #2 or equivalent. Everything else is the same. This does beg the question about Why can't anyone certify at these levels if they will exist? It goes back to a both a desire for the certification to remain elite, and a logistics issue about managing certification volume. I am planning for expanded International availability. The current idea is to have a period every year where the set of grippers is shipped to a European Hub and managed from there. I do not want to maintain an entirely separate set that just lives at the European Hub. During this time period--something like 3 months--we can cram in as many European certifications as possible. Nothing else about the cert process would change. It's simply a chance to accommodate International certifications at a much lower cost. International participants can always sign up any time, but the costs could be higher. We will not maintain profiles like before. The roster will be a list which records the highest level accomplished by each athlete. If you certify on multiple levels, your name will only remain on the highest level accomplished. We are considering the idea to list minimal personal info by the name such as weight class, age, height. Names will be listed in order and not numbered. Off-hand will not be considered a unique feat. You can certify with either hand, but the only result is whether you were successful in general. So what is the hold up? In short, springs. We have the new level of Chromium spring on order...and have for a while. Our spring supplier (and the manufacturing sector in general) is short-staffed, over worked, and still experiencing some supply chain issues. We want to have all levels in place at once for a grand reopening. Building the grippers, in general, is the only thing taking time. Since the plan is to pull from existing Standard supplies, the idea is that if CPW is rating grippers and comes across a 160 Cobalt or a 180 Titanium, it gets set aside to be converted. I can reliably hope to come across "back-ups" for all levels except 170. Or we can build grippers on purpose to land where we want. But, the whole reason we created Standard was to service a few dead zones in the gripper progression covered by other brands. In that same manner, Standard has dead zones as well. We essentially cannot make a 150 or 170 gripper for example. And I don't want to accomplish the levels by making the springs narrow or wide. So this will probably require ordering a special spring for 170, likely Cobalt with a slightly tighter coil (we're talking fractions of an inch here, maybe not noticeable to the naked eye). But we don't want 170 and 180 to be perceived as "the same difficulty" because the 170 is wide and the 180 is not. Otherwise, we have already started accumulating grippers at certain levels, hoping to essentially have a lifetime supply in place. This will help ensure consistency in the certification! We are really excited about the future of Mash Monster! 31 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilBB Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 Super excited for this new MM certification, I already started training for it! 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorOfCrush Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 14 minutes ago, EmilBB said: Super excited for this new MM certification, I already started training for it! Same! I'm going to continue working towards the MM0, but now I have the next goal post. Plus, I just got a load of grippers around and above the 160 mark to aid in working towards it eventually. Here we go! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jared P Posted February 28 Share Posted February 28 Awesome to hear. I believe you made the best decisions on the details of the cert. - Will the roster/certification list be hosted on its own separate website like the old certification, or on the GripBoard/CPW? Will it be in the same style as the old list, or more in a format like GripperMania, IronMind, or GHP? - Will further levels above 220/230 be created if/when necessary, such as for someone like Carl who could probably do 250-260 currently? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matek Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 (edited) 8 hours ago, Cannon said: The Mash Monster Set. There is a chance to switch to a setting block, but I do not prefer that option. Most well-known certs use a block so the MM cert was unique in this respect. We will keep the parallel or wider Mash Monster Set. Even if the setting block is not mandatory, it would be great to have an option to use one. I understand that this makes it harder because the gripper must be held parallel for longer. But then it wouldn't be about perfect video angles, opening the gripper to ~30mm just to be sure, etc. And it is much easier to judge. The alu/steel block is measured with a caliper and it's either passed between the handles or not, that's it. Just an opinion. I will participate either way. Btw do we carry our legacy MM0 (or above) certs to bypass the opener? Edited February 29 by matek 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C8Myotome Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 3 minutes ago, matek said: Even if the setting block is not mandatory, it would be great to have an option to use one. I understand that this makes it harder because the gripper must be held parallel for longer. But then it wouldn't be about perfect video angles, opening the gripper to ~30mm just to be sure, etc. And it is much easier to judge. The alu/steel block is measured with a caliper and it's either passed between the handles or not, that's it. Just an opinion. I will participate either way. I agree, I would prefer a block rule so there's no question on narrow closes, either way it will be fun to know when we are actually prepared for the next level 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted February 29 Author Share Posted February 29 18 hours ago, Jared P said: - Will the roster/certification list be hosted on its own separate website like the old certification, or on the GripBoard/CPW? Will it be in the same style as the old list, or more in a format like GripperMania, IronMind, or GHP? Probably it's own website although that's an additional expense that has to make sense. Both CPW and the GripBoard have functionality to make a webpage, but especially for the GripBoard it's strictly html coding but we know people who can help with that. CPW's page builder is much more user friendly, but this isn't really a CPW thing so I'm not sure it makes sense to host it there. 18 hours ago, Jared P said: - Will further levels above 220/230 be created if/when necessary, such as for someone like Carl who could probably do 250-260 currently? The issue is springs. We'd have to custom order hundreds at the new level(s) just to have the pricing make sense. But, maybe it will make sense. 12 hours ago, matek said: Even if the setting block is not mandatory, it would be great to have an option to use one. I understand that this makes it harder because the gripper must be held parallel for longer. But then it wouldn't be about perfect video angles, opening the gripper to ~30mm just to be sure, etc. And it is much easier to judge. 12 hours ago, C8Myotome said: I agree, I would prefer a block rule so there's no question on narrow closes I appreciate the feedback, but a block will not be allowed. It's a no block certification. In my opinion, if you have the strength to use a block, you have the strength to leave absolutely no question about the set. You could pause it if you want, à la Paul Knight, Teemu, etc. But a block is not part of this cert. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnie Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 If someone already has MM (insert 0, 1, or 2 or whatever here), or a COC or GHP cert, does that mean they can just request MM160? Or are we re-doing qualifiers also? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C8Myotome Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 18 minutes ago, Vinnie said: If someone already has MM (insert 0, 1, or 2 or whatever here), or a COC or GHP cert, does that mean they can just request MM160? Or are we re-doing qualifiers also? For original MM a 3 cert overrode the need for MM0. I'd imagine that will still be in place. 26 minutes ago, Cannon said: I appreciate the feedback, but a block will not be allowed. It's a no block certification. In my opinion, if you have the strength to use a block, you have the strength to leave absolutely no question about the set. You could pause it if you want, à la Paul Knight, Teemu, etc. But a block is not part of this cert. I was actually never concerned about my own closes being too narrow, moreso about other people getting like a 15 mm close passed Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorOfCrush Posted February 29 Share Posted February 29 51 minutes ago, C8Myotome said: I was actually never concerned about my own closes being too narrow, moreso about other people getting like a 15 mm close passed That could always happen, but that’s what the judges are for 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 On 2/28/2024 at 12:39 PM, Cannon said: Hello grip nerds! This is an update on the progress toward a new, updated Mash Monster certification! I have tried hard to preserve elements of the retired certification with some improvements. Some of this is driven by what's possible and some by my own preferences. Things that will stay the same The Mash Monster certification is intended to be an elite certification. Originally I had aspirations to expand the levels, but I believe that adds an unnecessary amount of additional logistics, cert management, and waters down the achievement. Throughout its duration, the retired certification averaged about 24 certifications per year. The new certification will be more accessible with more carefully spaced levels so I believe activity will increase as a baseline. A bunch of additional lower levels feels unwieldy. The Mash Monster Set. There is a chance to switch to a setting block, but I do not prefer that option. Most well-known certs use a block so the MM cert was unique in this respect. We will keep the parallel or wider Mash Monster Set. The certifications will be via video submission, no witness required. However I am implementing safeguards which I believe 100% guarantee authenticity of the certification. A primary safeguard is that the MM grippers will be unique items which are tightly controlled and received back as part of the certification, as before. It is a massive security to be able to scrutinize the gripper after the attempt and most other certifications do not operate this way. There will be protocols which the video must follow and it will be possible to fail the certification based entirely on execution in the video. There will also be tamper-evident safeguards which guarantee the judges will be able to identify the original gripper on video; not all of which will be explained to the public. An MM0-style door opener will still be required to establish readiness for the certification both in terms of strength level and ability to shoot an acceptable video. Judging will be completed by the Mash Monster judges as before. 3 judges will score the attempt and it will take 2 out of 3 "white lights" to pass. Participants must be a GripBoard Contributor at any level. Contributor Level 1 offers one certification attempt per year and Levels 2 and 3 offer unlimited attempts. Certification attempt means signing up for and attempting a level, not the number of tries you get during a single certification. That will remain as 3 attempts within a 15 minute time limit. Any one person can only have one level checked out at a time. There is no certification fee except to cover shipping. Things that are new Where the old certification referred to levels, the new certification will be based on ratings. There are 7 levels planned at this time beginning at 160 and increasing to 220. The levels are 160-170-180-190-200-210-220. You would refer to the levels by number such as "Mash Monster 160" or Mash Monster 190". This naming will also distinguish new certifications from the retired legacy. While this is fewer total levels than the original certification, I believe this actually offers more truly distinct levels. There is a possibility for a level at 230. You can jump directly to any level after completing the door opener. This is a huge change. The door opener will be two-fold in this respect. The door-opener for levels 160-170-180 is an IronMind #3 or equivalent, as before. For levels 190 and up the door opener is increased to an IronMind #3.5 or equivalent. The retired certification offered a semblance of "everyone did the same thing" by always using the exact same gripper. The truth is that we know grippers do change slightly over time. Knurling gets worn and ratings slide. The new certification will actively manage the Mash Monster set to be "the same" based on repeatable specifications. The grippers will be made from Standard springs and handles. The handles will have unique markings not otherwise commercially available. After each certification, the gripper will be scrutinized not only to ensure the authenticity of the attempt, but also to ensure the gripper has not appreciably changed in specifications. If critical measurements such as the rating or spread fall out of our accepted tolerance from natural use, the gripper will be replaced with an original. In other words, I am more concerned about "everyone did the same thing" than "everyone closed the exact same gripper". I expect any one gripper to last years. There will be a women's Mash Monster cert! Officially, it will also just be called Mash Monster and the respective levels which are planned to be 110-120-130-140. Door opener here is an IronMind #2 or equivalent. Everything else is the same. This does beg the question about Why can't anyone certify at these levels if they will exist? It goes back to a both a desire for the certification to remain elite, and a logistics issue about managing certification volume. I am planning for expanded International availability. The current idea is to have a period every year where the set of grippers is shipped to a European Hub and managed from there. I do not want to maintain an entirely separate set that just lives at the European Hub. During this time period--something like 3 months--we can cram in as many European certifications as possible. Nothing else about the cert process would change. It's simply a chance to accommodate International certifications at a much lower cost. International participants can always sign up any time, but the costs could be higher. We will not maintain profiles like before. The roster will be a list which records the highest level accomplished by each athlete. If you certify on multiple levels, your name will only remain on the highest level accomplished. We are considering the idea to list minimal personal info by the name such as weight class, age, height. Names will be listed in order and not numbered. Off-hand will not be considered a unique feat. You can certify with either hand, but the only result is whether you were successful in general. So what is the hold up? In short, springs. We have the new level of Chromium spring on order...and have for a while. Our spring supplier (and the manufacturing sector in general) is short-staffed, over worked, and still experiencing some supply chain issues. We want to have all levels in place at once for a grand reopening. Building the grippers, in general, is the only thing taking time. Since the plan is to pull from existing Standard supplies, the idea is that if CPW is rating grippers and comes across a 160 Cobalt or a 180 Titanium, it gets set aside to be converted. I can reliably hope to come across "back-ups" for all levels except 170. Or we can build grippers on purpose to land where we want. But, the whole reason we created Standard was to service a few dead zones in the gripper progression covered by other brands. In that same manner, Standard has dead zones as well. We essentially cannot make a 150 or 170 gripper for example. And I don't want to accomplish the levels by making the springs narrow or wide. So this will probably require ordering a special spring for 170, likely Cobalt with a slightly tighter coil (we're talking fractions of an inch here, maybe not noticeable to the naked eye). But we don't want 170 and 180 to be perceived as "the same difficulty" because the 170 is wide and the 180 is not. Otherwise, we have already started accumulating grippers at certain levels, hoping to essentially have a lifetime supply in place. This will help ensure consistency in the certification! We are really excited about the future of Mash Monster! Great news 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 23 hours ago, Vinnie said: If someone already has MM (insert 0, 1, or 2 or whatever here), or a COC or GHP cert, does that mean they can just request MM160? Or are we re-doing qualifiers also? I don't seen any reason to redo them. Anyone who qualified before is good to go, including people on IronMind's roster like before. The new, higher door opener for 190+ may apply however. My feeling is that you can always do the next level without qualifying again. So if you have done MM180 then you can call for MM190. But if you are certified with IronMind on the #3 and you do the MM160 and then want the MM190, in that case you have to submit the door opener. I think if you are MM4 or higher, or on the IronMind #3.5 roster, then you qualify for MM190+ automatically. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnie Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 (edited) 1 hour ago, Cannon said: I don't seen any reason to redo them. Anyone who qualified before is good to go, including people on IronMind's roster like before. The new, higher door opener for 190+ may apply however. My feeling is that you can always do the next level without qualifying again. So if you have done MM180 then you can call for MM190. But if you are certified with IronMind on the #3 and you do the MM160 and then want the MM190, in that case you have to submit the door opener. I think if you are MM4 or higher, or on the IronMind #3.5 roster, then you qualify for MM190+ automatically. Yeah, I will not be worrying about qualifying for MM190 lol. I should be able to do the 160 already, but I will be very satisfied if I ever get the 170, and very surprised if I ever get past that (although I will probably shoot for the 180 IF I get the 170). But 190, no lol. Edited March 1 by Vinnie 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C8Myotome Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 1 hour ago, Vinnie said: Yeah, I will not be worrying about qualifying for MM190 lol. I should be able to do the 160 already, but I will be very satisfied if I ever get the 170, and very surprised if I ever get past that (although I will probably shoot for the 180 IF I get the 170). But 190, no lol. I'm probably going to do a conservative 170 to start since I've only done 180+ a couple times so far, but I'm definitely going to work towards 190 as well 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Greathouse Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 This is awesome! I just got into grip over the last couple of months and learned about the MM cert through Zach Mullins' pod... only to learn I was already too late to take part. Too be fair I'm not yet strong enough to complete the MM0 door-opener, but I'll be gearing a part of my training towards that goal to get on the ladder. The women's ladder is a great idea. Is there a thought that just the RGC will be lower or will you be producing grips with a lower RGC and narrower spread? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Busa Posted March 1 Share Posted March 1 When you make the 170 or the gaps in the Standard grippers are you going to produce a batch of them for general sale? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 1 Author Share Posted March 1 15 minutes ago, Busa said: When you make the 170 or the gaps in the Standard grippers are you going to produce a batch of them for general sale? This is a little up in the air. In some respects, any Standard Cobalt is a decent MM160 replica... so why produce replicas? If we do make actual replicas, they will not have the exact same markings as the certification grippers. Also, there is the question of whether cert grippers which are removed from service will be sold. I just don't know. In the case of the 170, I have to order a ton of springs to get any springs, so then there is a chance to do something with those. I think maybe a special edition of some sort. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steeve tremblay Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 a detail which is not defined what will be the gap of the gripper since there seems to be a standard in the other certificate 67mm to 70mm. I suggest a figure of 70 to 73 mm as a difference to correspond to standardization but it is a subjective opinion depending on the equality of large and small hands Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 On 3/5/2024 at 10:37 PM, steeve tremblay said: a detail which is not defined what will be the gap of the gripper since there seems to be a standard in the other certificate 67mm to 70mm. I suggest a figure of 70 to 73 mm as a difference to correspond to standardization but it is a subjective opinion depending on the equality of large and small hands 70-75 mm. Yep. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannon Posted March 26 Author Share Posted March 26 Chromium springs are being run! This is one of the major things that needed to happen. We went through a few samples runs to get these right. The actual Chromium gripper will run somewhere above 220 and up to 245 so that it doesn't overlap with the #4. But then I needed some with slightly different specs or it was going to be impossible to cover 210 and 220 for the Mash Monster grippers. I hope it works out. 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorOfCrush Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 33 minutes ago, Cannon said: Chromium springs are being run! This is one of the major things that needed to happen. We went through a few samples runs to get these right. The actual Chromium gripper will run somewhere above 220 and up to 245 so that it doesn't overlap with the #4. But then I needed some with slightly different specs or it was going to be impossible to cover 210 and 220 for the Mash Monster grippers. I hope it works out. Phew, I was worried you wouldn’t have this sorted before I was ready to grind the handles on the 210 and 220 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dubyagrip Posted March 26 Share Posted March 26 Up to 245!? Yes! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jared P Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 me preparing to buy multiple Chromium grippers 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weightlifter Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnie Posted March 27 Share Posted March 27 20 hours ago, dubyagrip said: Up to 245!? Yes! (Carl shaking head, waiting for his opening RGC to get made). 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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