Entering into your first HEMA tournament can be a daunting undertaking, especially if you’re not used to competitive environments. Emotions can run high, hopes can be dashed, and reality can be sobering.
We want to make our beginner’s tournament more friendly, accessible, and approachable, and we have a couple of tweaks to the formula we want to talk about with you.
The first big change is that we’re making the beginner pools themed by familiarity. Teens will be grouped together, fencers over 6 foot will be grouped together, etc. We’ll do this for as many reasonable groupings as we can find. In eliminations, all fencers will be brought back together to fence one another. Additionally, the top fencer from each group will receive an award.
We hope that these small changes will help fencers better understand what they can work on to improve and provide a more positive experience to people who may perhaps be competing for the first time in their lives.