Tag Archives: Waco Texas

Where We Plan to go in 2025

Three of our fighters while participating in Gatesville, TX Spurfest. In the middle is Organizational Lead Instructor and Jarl of the Viking Age living history division, Jefferson Webb. To his left is Gatesville, TX Lead Instructor and Viking Age living history division Huskarl Nathan Laney. To the Jarl’s right is Gatesville, TX Fighter and Viking Age living history division Dreng, John Post.

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!

Interesting Perspectives on the Modern Tournament

By: Jefferson P. Webb

Codex_Manesse_(Herzog)_von_AnhaltAlthough there is a segment of the HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) community that does not approve of nor are they interested in modern HEMA/Medieval Martial Arts tournaments, utilizing martial skill in tournament fighting (sport-fighting) is in no way a new concept. What reasons do some of the modern HEMA practitioners give for not engaging in competitions and what did fighting for sport mean to the medieval knights as seen through the eyes of one of chivalry’s most celebrated Medieval knights?

One thing that the author of this posting has noticed in researching other blogs, message and review boards, articles and other martial arts sites online is that there is a certain level of hesitation or lack of desire on the part of some (not all) HEMA schools, clubs, and organizations to engage in freestyle combat tournaments. And, when some of them do engage in such events, they are closed events within their own organizations. Naturally there are a number of HEMA schools that do indeed compete in open tournaments, but what is the mindset or philosophy behind others not doing so? There appears to be two main reasons that continue to recur the most as to why some HEMA groups will not engage in the tournament. Continue reading “Interesting Perspectives on the Modern Tournament”