Each HEMA event has its own specific traits that give it its unique character, or at least I believe that the particularly successful ones, such as Swordfish, Longpoint, Fightcamp and several others, do.



What makes a specific event particularly memorable and popular is down to a combination of factors, some more elusive than others, which you can probably group into two main categories; your preconceived notions about the event, those that makes you want to go to it for the first time, and the actual experience of the event itself, the things that make you want to go back.

One of the key aspects that makes me want to return to events year after year, like the NHFL, is the effectiveness of the tournament staff, in particular the quality and consistency of the judging. This year I’m involved with the organisation of a brand new open longsword tournament here in the Netherlands, The Dutch Lions Cup, and one of the main areas of focus, and something we are spending a great deal of time and effort on, is tournament judges training.

Aside from being a pressure-test of our skills, competition teaches us, among other things, how to come to terms with both victory and defeat. But while we must learn to cope with being bested by whoever managed to effectively close down our attacks while succeeding in theirs, no one appreciates losing a sword-fight to bad calls from “four blind men and a thief” as our scoring system is sometimes known. Anyone who has participated in competitive historical fencing knows that it can lead to massive disappointment, and occasionally some HEMA drama (that controversial Swedish federation ruling in 2014 comes to mind).



As someone who enjoys attending historical fencing events and competing in tournaments, I know that poor judging quality is one of those key factors that might make me not want to return to a particular event ever again. A rule-set I don’t care for or inane gear requirements are things I can simply avoid by not attending an event in the first place, but it’s hard to tell in advance if the judges will suck at any given venue. As event organisers we want to ensure that we avoid crappy judging as much as possible, as we want the tournament to stand in good stead and for participants to be happy and want to return.



[video: Bart Jongsma and David Grijmans in a Swordfish rule-sets tournament judging class in Nieuwegein in 2015]



Following that line of thought, the two main goals we had for the Dutch Lions Cup (or DLC), was to make it very affordable, as an alternative to other more high-end events in the region, and to do everything we could to have competent and reliable judges and referees within our shoestring budget. The hosting club, Zwaard & Steen, has a well-established track record of organising judge training days, open to members of the HEFFAC (a coalition of Dutch and Belgian historical fencing schools), so we applied the exact same methodology to design a judge and referee training programme specifically tailored to the rule-sets and code of conduct of the DLC. As a matter of fact, while in other events a significant part of the budget is allocated to paying for international instructors, or for professional video production teams, or prizes, food or booze, our biggest non-essential expense was flying in a few great referees to work with our local Dutch ones.

So as soon as we had a rule-set in place and a clear idea of the tournament size and structure (how many arenas, the size of the pools, a preliminary schedule etc), we identified the number of judges and other staff required, and then designed a training schedule, consisting of Judge training days (or ‘jury training’ as they are referred to) on April the 3rd, June the 11th, July the 10th and 24th, August the 14th, and a full dress rehearsal mock tournament on June 25th. Each training date had between 6 and 10 fencers, who would have continuous exchanges and run through several possible scenarios, and a number of volunteer judges and other tournament functions, who would then rotate into the various roles all day. Each exchange would be judged and then examined and discussed thoroughly.



[video: Carl Ryrberg and Dennis Ljungqvist acting out various scenarios during a tournament judging class in Örebro in 2013]



While these judge training dates were specifically designed to help the judges work on their skills, understanding of the rule-sets and the many variations and exceptions the competitors may introduce during bouts, the rehearsal tournament (known, adorably, as the Lions Cub), had more to do with organisational aspects of the tournament itself (people, processes and tools), as it helped us identify possible areas of improvement or fine tuning prior to the actual tournament date on August 27th, while still serving as a training date for everyone involved, including the 25 or so competing fencers in attendance. The expectation is that each volunteer judge at the DLC will have ideally attended at least three of these six hour sessions (one of them being the rehearsal tournament), or a minimum of two if they have previous tournament judging experience.

Does this mean that the event will run perfectly smoothly, every single call exquisitely well determined, and that every fencer will come out of each bout in complete and full agreement with the final score and each and every call by the judges? Well no, undoubtedly not, I don’t think this is an attainable goal, but at the very least we are taking appropriate steps to ensure that we get the best quality performance from all of the volunteers for this often thankless and unappreciated tournament role. Aside from creating a collective of well-trained individuals in The Netherlands that will only improve over time, we are building a repeatable training methodology that can be used by other organisers or for different rule-sets.

So what key differentiators will our DLC event have? Well, as you can probably tell, our aim is for a large, high-level quality tournament for a very reasonable price within easy reach for many. Time will tell if we succeed.



There’s much more to be said about this subject, but others have covered the topic far better than I could, so here’s my suggested reading list for a more in-depth view:

All photos courtesy of Hylco Jellema, videos by Zwaard&Steen and Örebro HEMA

