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Covid-19 has not broken the spirit of the Norwegian HMB athletes!

Despite the restrictions in the country associated with the spread of the coronavirus infection, work continues in Norway to promote HMB sports in the country. HMBIA News talked with Anders Gjestad Rugsveen, captain of the HMB Norway team, about how the sport is developing in his country.

According to Anders, the pandemic affected the pace of the HMB sport development in the country, as well as other areas of life. Training and mass events are prohibited. Such obstacles made the work on sport promotion more complicated, but did not stop it!

“We have started to slowly increase our media presence. Due to the lack of training possibilities we haven’t run any commercials or adverts to attract more people. We have lots of plans when it comes to developing our HMB community. Not all of the viking fighting lust was spent in the old days, so more and more people are contacting us to see what this is about. As soon as the gyms open up here in Norway we will be inviting people to take part in our training and show them what all the fun is about. We are also applying for funding to expand HMB, both for adults and for kids. HMB Soft is something I`m sure Norwegian kids would love and one day I hope that we can introduce this to them,” said the national team captain.

When it comes to tournaments in Norway, there are a lot of regulations that work against HMB athletes and HMB sport as it is. Anders Gjestad Rugsveen hopes that with the growth of buhurt internationally and other sports like MMA, it will be opening up for them to organize on a larger scale and as a real sport.

“It was only 6 years ago that professional boxing was legalized in Norway and MMA is still illegal, just to show that we got a slow system when it comes to approving sports like this. And about HMB – we are growing slowly, but steadily. We got 5 male and 1 female veterans, meaning they have been battle tested in several world championships and tournaments. So, in total we are about 15 people, fighters, recruits and support. Still small, but slowly growing.

Due to the total number of our fighters we sort of say that we are “one club”, but technically we are two HMB clubs here in Norway. We got several new fighters currently gearing up, but also here Covid-19 have had its impact”.

However, the spirit of the Norwegians cannot be broken! They have a goal for which they train, use every opportunity, work to attract new people to the sport. And this goal is shared by all HMB athletes around the world!

“Our main goal for the coming time is BOTN. That’s what we train for and the one event that we really hope the world opens up for in terms of the pandemic. We can’t wait to be back in the list and meet our friends abroad”, said Anders.

HMBIA News editorial office thanks for all the work that Anders and his team are doing for the development of HMB sports in their country. We wish them inspiration and success in their work. We can’t wait for the next edition of the HMB Battle of the Nations and also are eager to see the HMB Norway team in the lists of the Championship.

HMBIA Norway

Stephen Slater: the ultimate goal of the Australian marshal

Being an HMB Marshal, Stephen Slater is willing to improve his skills and to get more and more experience. He therefore wants to have the experience of marshaling at different tournaments. He loves what he does and does his best to improve skills every day. He sees the goal ahead and goes to it.

HMBIA

Duel League project is officially started!

Duel League is the HMBIA project dedicated to promotion and development of HMB Duel Categories. The principal decision about the necessity of such a project was taken at the HMBIA General Assembly 2019.

HMBIA

Polish “Lady in Red”: Chain of chances leading to victory

The stunning dress that impressed the audience, participants and judges of the Best Female Authentic Costume of Battle of the Nations 2016 was created thanks to a series of happy coincidences, lots of devotion, dedication, hard work, and the result was undoubtedly beyond praise. Dorota Kriger from Poland told us how the dress which brought her the victory in The Best Authentic Female Costume at BotN 2016 was made.

HMBIA

Who knows what the HMB future holds?

We’re not going to repeat once again how challenging and unpredictable 2020 was. That’s pretty obvious for everyone who was struggling with its restrictions, postponements and the virus itself. What we do want to repeat is the fact how grateful we are for having such an incredible HMB community. We cannot thank all HMB teams and athletes enough who managed to brighten our days with the true spirit of comradery. This time we want to have a quick look back and acknowledge our victories and defeats and say – we faced the facts, we saw what was needed, and we did it. And this time we also want to look to the future and reveal the most promising upcoming projects, experiments and ideas.

So, ready for a 2020 glimpse?

For the 1st time in the HMBIA history we didn’t have Battle of the Nations but thankfully not due to Covid-19 as it was decided long before the pandemic struck the sports industry. Having Battle of the Nations every 2 year was a decision based on the evolving of the World Championship into a complicated large scale project that takes much more time for preparation. With the expanding growth of the HMB sport, developing mass categories and increased number of the National Team members, it’s definitely much easier for National Federations to have a 2 year gap for organizing the qualifiers, national team trainings and the trip itself.

For the 1st time HMBIA created the concept and announced a new type of the 9 day event Knights & Legends planned for the beginning of May in Serbia. It was supposed to unite several events into the HMB vacation with the Masters tournament in Belgrade and mass battles festival in the Smederevo fortress. We were ready to present the HMB Academy camp training and certification but this time we have to admit the whole project was our major loss. We’re sure we’ll be able to get back to it and we continue working with the local organizers and authorities but we won’t have the same concept. We’ll have to transform it into something else and we assure you that it won’t be less catchy.

For the 1st time we held Host City Race of a new format with 13 cities as applicants for hosting XI HMB World Championship from 9 countries, and we must admit despite the fact the work was complicated with the lockdowns, restricting measures and unpredictability that led to the constant delays of negotiations, it was an amazing awarding experience and we can be proud of the fact we managed to set the venue. Romania and Oradea fortress won the final bid and we can’t wait to meet you all on the territory veiled with legends.

For the 1st time we held a month-long social media online campaign BotN Total Recall dedicated to the Battle of the Nations that included a set of activities on HMBIA sources. By this time we also presented a renewed BotN website and a new HMBIA website.

It was definitely a time of hard work but we could see how much all the world miss the Battle of the Nations as the monthly reach on the sources exceeded 1 000 000!

For the 2nd time we held the final tournament of the Buhurt League season in Monaco with the unprecedented attention of the local media and audience and we’re thankful for the fact we managed to have Buhurt Prime in February just a month before the world entered the era of the pandemic.

For the 1st time we held HMBIA General Assembly online and turned out to be one of the most unusual in the history of the Association. 138 participants from 42 countries were registered beforehand and got access to the folder with the reports. 77 attendees from 31 countries managed to join the live Q&A session that was also recorded and uploaded later.

Definitely a huge amount of work left behind but what’s ahead?

For the 11th time we’ll gather the strongest HMB athletes of the world, this time within the walls of the Oradea fortress in Romania, with the goal to find out the World Champions at the Battle of the Nations. We hope that the situation in the world will let us to greet you all in person and immerse ourselves in the BotN atmosphere that has nothing to compare with.

For the 1st time the new rule set for the Full Plate Harness category will be implemented at the Battle of the Nations with 4 subcategories that will definitely add something new to the HMB World Championship.

The work on the Duel League project will be forced and include more countries for international ranking system tests.

The new concept of the Communication Committee will be implemented and tested with the announcing new conference leaders and officers.

The HMB Soft World Championship is planned for this year and we hope to bring even more young HMB athletes to the international arena after the year of the absence.

The new set of tournament tests aiming to possibly adjust the current rule set codenamed HMB Future will be developed and tested by the Marshals Committee. With the overall improvement of the HMB kits, safety bar and level of marshaling it became possible to reconsider the current battle scheme for the sake of more dynamic actions in the list. Several modifications were suggested for the tests and further analysis at the tournaments held by the HMB Russia having the most developed and numerous community and a huge number of small tournaments not included in the Buhurt League rating system.

The following modification will be implemented and tested:

modification of the construction of the list rail to prevent the capture by the fighters during the clinch;
modification of the rule regarding touching the list surface with a knee or a shield during attacking actions (throws);
possibility to change fighters during the round.

The HMB Future statement with the modified rules will be available on demand in case you’d like to join the project. The most important thing is the fact that such modifications cannot be fully tested just during the team training, we need a full-fledged tournament observed by certified HMBIA marshals and fully recorded. Such tournaments won’t be registered in the Buhurt League system as well.

To cut the long story short, we’ll continue working on the global HMB sport development hand in hand with national organizations of 42 countries and step by step we’ll be bringing the common dream of the HMB sport being officially recognized.

HMBIA