Proper Mindset with applied martial skill is key to victory!
The Gatesville, TX Chapter is our newest chapter and is lead by Nathan Laney (seen on viewer’s left), a fighter and instructor with nearly 9 years of experience training and fighting in tournaments, earning several medal along the way. You only need to bring yourself as loaner gear is available. You can contact Laney here: https://www.facebook.com/Nathan.Kenneth
We look forward to training with you! Come join us for what my prove the most rewarding experience of your life!
We are welcoming 2025 after having a great year of growth and expansion in 2024. While we continue to grow our headquarters chapter in Woodway, TX (right outside of Waco) we are also continuing to grow our newest chapter in Gatesville, TX.
We are also increasing our presence in Clifton, TX, known of as the “Norwegian Capital of Texas,” after being very warmly welcomed to take part in their annual Lighted Christmas Parade while wearing Viking Age period clothing complete with our blunt steel training weapons simulators. We have been asked to return for the 2025 parade as well. We want to thank the Clifton Chamber of Commerce for allowing us the honour of taking part in such a special event! We plan to start hosting training sessions in Clifton very soon.
Along with the many disciplines in which we train, we are pushing forward with the growth of our Viking Age living history division training more fighters as well as taking in members for our Hearth, the arts of craft division that is well-researched in what they do.
As we continue to increase in the number of members and expand in area, we are interested in taking in new members from anywhere in Texas, though we are initially targeting the following areas specifically to form new chapters and training new members: Ft. Cavasos, Killeen, Temple, Belton, Harker Heights, Corsicana, Salado, Clifton, Valley Mills, Bryan/College Station, Tyler, Brownwood, Coleman and Abilene. If you live in any of these cities or areas near them and you have 2 or more friends that are interested in taking part in amazingly rewarding training, building camaraderie and finding a sense of belonging with great people, contact us here or check us out on Facebook. That said, if you live anywhere in Texas and you have the friends that want to also join in, contact us.
We plan on taking part in a number of events in and around the cities named above this year and we’re very excited about it. Furthermore, there is the possibility of overseas adventures to places like Denmark and Poland, where major Viking Age fighting and festivals take place that have the attendance of several hundreds of participants each year. 2025 holds the potential to be an amazing year of growth for us, and we’d like for you to be apart of it. We hope to hear from you! Come join us!
For the past two years now we have enjoyed keeping up with our friends in Trondheim, Norway and their incredibly popular Saint Olav’s Tournament. This tournament is a competition of mounted skills in Historical European Martial Arts.St. Olav’s Tournament is held every year in Trondheim Norway. It takes place close to the Nidaros Cathedral. The jousting group Ordo Ignis, of Trondheim in cooperation with Olavsfestdagene host an annual invitational jousting Tournament. Six to eight participants compete in Skill at Arms, Joust and Melee on the historical jousting grounds of the kings holding in TrondheimHere are this year’s results for the St. Olav’s Tournament 2015.
Competitors/deltagere:
Bear Steinar Gundersen, Tore Gransæther, Erik Ryen, Bente Andresen, Per Estein Prøys Røhjell (Pelle), Ivar Mauritz-Hansen, Bertold Voss (Bertie)
Tournament Champions and overall placings included their points:
1. Erik Ryen, 288 points
2. Skin, 246 points
3. Bente, 166 point
4. Ivar, 98 points
5. Bear, 93 points
6. Tore 75 points
7. Bertie, 60 points
.
Joust / dyst:
1. Pelle, 100 points (16 lances)
2. Erik, 88 points (14 lances)
3 Bente, 75 points (12 Spears)
4. Tore, 19 points
5. Bear, 13 points
5. Ivar, 13 points
7. Bertie, 0 points
.
Skill at Arms:
1. Erik, 100 points (49 targets)
2. Bear, 71 points
3. Ivar 67 points
4. Bente, 63 points
5. skin, 55 points
6. Bertie, 51 points
7. Tore, 47 points
.
Bohourd / Melee:
1. Erik, 100 points (11 crests)
2. skin, 91 points
3. Victoria, 27 points
4. Ivar, 18 points
5. Bjørn, 9 points
5. Tore, 9 points
5. Bertie, 9 points
We offer up a celebratory congratulations to all of the competitors, both riders and horse of the 2015 Saint Olav’s Tournament for their mounted skills and agility. It takes an immense level of dedication to training and a passion for the arts to achieve the skill needed to participate in this level of competition, and at such a prestigious tournament. Again, congratulations from all of us here at New Ulster Steel Fighting School of Medieval Combat Arts.
By: Jeff Webb
Pictures and printed information used with permission from the Family Hassel-Ryen and The Saint Olav’s Tournament.
My family and I went on a vacation for the month of July to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and what an incredibly beautiful land. We decided that we did not want to just go for five days or so and be the average tourists, rushing to see as much a possible in such a short time. We wanted to “live” there. We wanted to take our time,establish ourselves as much as could be done for a month, and attempt to live as much like a local as we could. I have to say, it went pretty well and we had a wonderful time. We enjoyed living in a large city, using public transportation and going about on foot, and found it to be a very efficient mode of getting around. Even when leaving town on a short day trip, the public transportation was fine.
As a martial artist, I did not want to go the better part of a month with little or no training. I had been following a world renowned school of European martial arts on Twitter for some time and checking up on their web site regularly after a student of mine told me about them several years ago. This school is Academie Duello, in Vancouver, directed by Maestro Devon Boorman. Before we left Texas for Vancouver, I went ahead and signed up for their course entitled, A Taste of the Renaissance. It’s main focus is on the use of the rapier, a weapon I have never had any previous training with. So, I was excited to be signed up and getting ready to attend such a well known school. My expectations were more than met, and I had a great time training there. Continue reading “The Academie Duello Experience”
By: Jefferson Webb
Although my great helm served me faithfully for the better part of a decade, I was starting to look around for another helmet to go along with some upgrades to my harness and gear. As I looked around at the various helmets on the market that are mass-produced, I really did not find anything that I thought would be a good replacement. When I looked at custom helmets from some of the outstanding smiths and forges that exist, the price was just much MUCH more than what I was willing to pay. Some of those custom helms are worth it, but I did not want to, nor could I afford to foot that sort of bill. Part of my issue with my great helm I think came from the human desire to change things up sometimes (like redecorating the house, getting a new house or car…). But my research into a new helm also comes from a knowledge that the great helm (in particular this style) was an earlier helmet and as far as we can tell, did not see much use with a harness of plate armour like the bascinet helmets, sallets, and such did. So, the idea that it would be out of place with my harness was lingering there. That said, as a good friend of mine stated in a conversation recently, “The people depicted in most of the sources in harnesses were royalty or nobility, and were able to afford the most up-to-date and complete harnesses. Others such a lower knights and men-at-arms often had to piece together harnesses and this was not so well depicted.” Something that makes perfect sense, and that I already had lingering in the back of my mind as well. Given this conversation and that fact that my great helm has saved my head and face some pain several times over the span of its service to me, I decided to give it an exterior makeover and continue on with this helm. Since it is historically documented that helms were painted from time to time, why not? I decided to share the basic steps with you. Continue reading “Painting Your Helmet”
Whitehall Fyrd 