Dies Irae: She fights to reach the goal

Today we decided to introduce you to these warriors better and tell their team in our She Fights for… rubric. Looking ahead, let's just say that the girls are very serious, and they all exist as one well-oiled mechanism. And how nice it is to look at them in action!

The women’s team from France Dies Irae made a splash at the recent Tournament Colombier 2021 in Switzerland. The girls took the first place in the buhurts 5 VS 5, leaving the very experienced fighters of the Prague Vixens team from the Czech Republic in second place. The fights of that tournament were incredible, no one was going to give up their place on the podium. Each step to victory was difficult for the team. But they did it!

Today we decided to introduce these warriors better to you and tell you more about their team. Looking ahead, let’s just say that the girls are very serious, and they all exist as one well-oiled mechanism. And how nice it is to look at them in action!

“The Swiss tournament was really expected by all our team! We hadn’t fought since the Laon Tournament (Buhurt Challenger) in January 2020! We also had new fighters with us. So we were quite afraid to have lost efficiency of moves and skills with the armour. But… we know each other very well and it might be our strength. It is like a well known motto: “All for one, one for all”. The fights were very tough, we faced well known and worthy teams. We were definitely determined to fight and win. We also had a wonderful staff behind us. They did most of the work for us and we’d really love to say a huge thank you to them. The level of the team was very close, we are more than ever excited about training and eager to meet them again”.

We are eager to meet Dies Irae too, and now want to tell you all about them. 

 Dies Irae team was created at the end of 2019 by Marjolaine Eme. Firstly it was the merge of two former opponents: teams “Les Lionnes du Nord” and “Dies Irae” after the “Tournoi des Flandres” during which girls tested the alliance for the first time under the “Lionnes du Nord” banner.

“It gave us full satisfaction and we decided to create our own female club in order to achieve a complete independence from men’s clubs regarding our organization and development. Our aim is to regroup strong and motivated fighters from all France to challenge the best teams in the world! We kept the name “Dies Irae” because it’s great and echoe with the anger and passion we experienced during battle, and merged the banners of our two previous teams”, said Charlotte Dorchies, the vice captain of the Dies Irae team. 

According to her, the team develops well even despite the pandemic. Also they are doing a great job to promote our sport. As she told HMBIA News, they promote HMB by social medias, using hashtags #shefights and #hmbia on every occasion.  

“As we’re doing other sports, we speak about buhurt in different communities, but also at work (especially when we are bruised from hard training). We encourage people to watch videos from the Battle of the Nations or Buhurt League YouTube channels. And sometimes, we put on our armour on special events like fairs to show how this sport is so damn cool! 

We are used to speak about HMB (I mean a lot !) to those around us. People are more curious about women practicing this kind of sport probably, because it is more unexpected… and then they come to our training session or look at our FB page, youtube video and… they ask “Are you totally dumb? it seems to hurt?”. And, at this point, it’s our job to promote our sport, like a real fighting sport, like a real kind of “martial art”, with strict rules and philosophy. We speak about the whole community and its spirit of fellowship. We speak about the fact that female fighters are sometimes more supported here than in other sports. already written just before.

We explain all the crazy work made by all the fighters, the historical rules, the knowledge of those men and women in medieval history, etc. So people change their mind and ask to see other videos, and  come to our events and tournaments… and they truly love the show !! They are really admirative by all the skills needed to practice this sport ! At the end they fall in love with buhurt and join the fan club! We’d also like to organise an event or a tournament as soon as we could”.

To become a team member, it is not enough to have a desire to fight. Each girl goes through a serious selection. They recruit women with substantial potential for fights using every opportunity. At the very beginning, there is a first meeting managed by the captain or vice-captain. After that, the fighters of the team get a detailed summary about potential newcomers and discuss each person. If the girls are ok, Dies Irae invites the candidate to an armour training and see how newbee feel and move after several assaults. 

We evaluate her physics and mental capacities. Newcomers have to fight in 3 tournaments including an International one to confirm their entry in the team. So, we are now like 13 female fighters from all over France”.

Each fighter is responsible for her physical preparation here. Girls are quite inspired by Russian or French male teams, like Bayard, Bern, Aquila Sequania or Martel. After training sessions they usually end up watching Youtube Videos. They are trying to follow their  advice (virtual or in real) as best as they  can. According to the Vice-captain, girls work specifically on cardio and strength exercises. Once, every two or three months, they have training camps for 3 days to work with armour. 

We manage to keep a strong link between us all despite the distance and the pandemic situation, by sharing our training programs, challenging ourselves constantly, and even doing work-out together online! And, of course, talking about buhurt every day! We are real sisters in arms”. 

All these measures, all the work that the girls do every day, all the efforts bring closer the goal set by the girls from the team!

“Our goal is to go with the whole DIES IRAE team at the next BOTN! We are ready to train very hard… to see our faces on the podium! 

This is a worthy goal for real warriors! We are confident that these determined and strong girls will be able to achieve whatever they want. And we thank Charlotte and all the girls of the team for the interview and look forward to seeing you at the HMB World Championship Battle of the Nations.

top