Entering a HEMA Tournament After Ten Lessons

About ten to fifteen lessons of longsword. Entering a tournament felt like a reasonable next step.

The decision

I train HEMA longsword at Art of Arms in Huntingdon. Thursday evenings. After about three months, a tournament came up. I signed up.

"Am I good enough?" No. "Will I learn more from competing than from another three months of Thursdays?" Yes. "Does that matter?" No.

The tournament

Steel longsword, open rules, pool format into elimination. I was the least experienced fencer there by a significant margin.

What was not obvious was how much the pressure of competition accelerated learning. In training, you can reset. In a pool fight, you cannot. Every mistake has a score attached to it.

What I learned

That I telegraph my cuts. That my distance management needs work. That I default to a high guard when under pressure, which is predictable. That losing to better fencers is the fastest way to identify what to work on next.

What happened after

This became my best-performing Instagram content. Not the jousting, not the cold water swimming. Because it was a genuine first attempt, honestly documented, with a real outcome.

It also directly inspired the HEMA Training Cards.