Last weekend, 14-16.8.2020, was time for the annual Häme Medieval Festival. As for several years now already, Medieval Combat Sport Finland hosted a buhurt tournament as a program in there. Huge kudos to local buhurt club Tavastia Armigeri for carrying out the heavy lifting of making it happen again this year.
Due to severe limitations and protective measures against COVID-19, the possibilities to do buhurt have been very few this summer. Häme Medieval Festival ended up being the only official buhurt tournament of this summer in Finland. Obviously, the restrictions impacted this event as well, making it practically impossible for several teams to participate. Despite this, a beautiful set of eight teams were able to join and fight. In addition to the main tournament event category of men three vs. three, there was a lot of duels and several training buhurt fights by the Finnish women buhurt team Kivuttaret.
For me personally, this was an important event as this was about to be the first official tournament since my injury in February 2019. I fought in Helsinki Medieval Combat team two. The fighters consisted of two first-timers eagerly getting their trial by fire, one old-timer returning to the sport after a couple years of exile, me as a recovering fighter, and one solid veteran.
Given the team setup, the expectations of tournament results were not high, but the spirit was. Determined and bold our team met every opposing team with no fear, and we made them work for their victories. We managed to get some successes as well and made it to the quarter-finals to meet the Estonian Nordburg team. They proved to be a too hard bite to chew this time, although the fight left us with several ‘what ifs’ to speculate with, just like it should be. The ‘what-ifs’ get you to train more and leaves you thirsty for a rematch.
All in all, the tournament left me with only positive feelings. The marshaling was great, the weather was great (too hot, just like it should be), the atmosphere was friendly, and the commentator managed to get the best out of the spectators. I personally, as a social animal, was left longing a bit for the big after-party and get-together, but due to apparent corona-reasons, there wasn’t one this year.
It's good to be back!
Results and more information about the event, including photos, you’ll find from Medieval Combat Sport Finland’s Facebook pages: https://www.facebook.com/medievalcombatsportfinland/
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