Tournaments

For 2015, IGX will continue its tradition of supporting ongoing HEMA tournament formats while piloting new formats.  The majority of our tournaments will adopt the core rules of developed by the Nordic League.  This year, our experimental pilot efforts will focus on our Dagger tournaments.

NOTES:

  • Please review guidelines on safety and general expectations and the more specific equipment requirements.  
  • Tournaments are BYOS (Bring Your Own Steel)!  With the exception of the Dagger tournaments where weapons will be provided, we encourage people to bring their own steel weapons to compete with.  Tournament loaners will be provided as needed.  See equipment requirements for further details.  
  • Expect tournament caps!  Due to the ongoing growth of our event, we expect to cap tournaments this year, see individual events below for specifics.  
  • Expect to have a coach!  IGX highly recommends all competitors to have a coach in their corner, to help both with bouting feedback and as a potential go-between with tournament staff.  
  • Expect to judge!  Judging in HEMA takes practice, and there is no better learning environment than a live tournament.  Learning how to judge not only help increase the pool of experienced judges in the HEMA community (a constant need), but helps all fighters gain a better appreciation of what is (and isn’t) reasonable for judges to see in a bout.  This year, all clubs participating in tournaments should expect to “donate” a number of their participating fighters as judges; tournament scheduling will be structured so that this will be possible.  

Dagger: Fighters will participate by weight class, and will fight using the IGX 2015 dagger rule set. Cap of 30 fighters.

Mixed Weapon: Fighters will use the modified Nordic League rule set for a wide array of single-handed swords (steel preferred, nylon may be allowed if no steel equivalents are available), details on the equipment requirements page.  Cap of 30 fighters.

Women’s: IGX will continue to encourage the growth of ladies’ participation in HEMA with a Women’s mixed weapon triathlon (i.e. same as 2014 with longsword and one-handed weapons, but using the modified Nordic League rule set).  Cap of 16 fighters.

Longsword Basic: This year we’re excited to broaden our longsword offerings by providing a tournament specifically designed to help expose newer HEMA students to longsword competition.  Fighters can expect to get more feedback from both coaches and officials to help develop competitive HEMA skills.  Cap of 30 fighters, rules identical with the Advanced tournament (modified Nordic League rule set).

Longsword Advanced: Typically the golden standard of HEMA competition, this event format will feature steel longswords with the modified Nordic League rule set.  To help raise the bar for both competitors AND judges, fighters should expect that they may very well be asked to judge at some point.  Fighters also will NOT be allowed to participate in both the Basic and Advanced events — they may choose only one.  Cap of 60 fighters.