Pedersen, Norway: ”This sport is what makes me get up everyday”
History of the HMB-sport in Norway is unusual – thanks to Youtube. Ni?k Møller Pedersen saw HMB-fighting on Youtube and loved it. It happened 2 years ago and it became the base of HMB-movement in Norway. Ni?k Møller Pedersen became founder and chairman of Norwegian HMB organization. He told all details about his work as HMB developer in the Norway.

Ni?k Møller Pedersen, chairman of Norwegian HMB organization: “I saw some crazy guys fighting in medieval armour on Youtube and thought “hey, this is crazy cool”. I searching and watched more and more videos and found out that this is something I wanted to try. I tried to find the sport in Norway but i didn’t find anyone doing HMB fighting”.
Nick could find only a middle age reenactment group that did some poleaxe fighting in armor and also did jousting shows. Later on he found out that they did western line fighting together with the viking environment in Norway. He joined them and tried western line fighting, but it wasn’t what he were looking for.

Ni?k Møller Pedersen, chairman of Norwegian HMB organization: “I wanted more hardcore, I wanted to test out how much I could take before i got beaten down. 1 year went by in this reenactment group where I participated in several middle aged festivals which was a lot of fun. Then my second year I decided to bring HMB-sport to Norway”.

As chairman Pedersen told, one of the guys from the group knew about the sport and knew a guy who also was interested in HMB, he contacted the guy and we start to talk about this sport. 6 month left. Pedersen saw more videos and got in contact with more HMB people. He contacted the same guy and they made a group page on facebook and announced that they were looking for people with the same interest. The first day the page was up a guy contacted them and told that he was in. Slowly all presence were done and some more people was joined.

Ni?k Møller Pedersen, chairman of Norwegian HMB organization: “We still haven`t tried fighting or anything. Then we met up for some trainings which were a lot of how do we do this and what should we do next. Being the most eager guy and having the motivation to get this going I contacted a lot of people within the environment for training tips and advice. We then had a meeting which has become our annual association meeting where we first voted for whom to be leaders. I was picked as chairman of norwegian armored combat and Jan Erik was picked to become trainer”.

Time went by, and the third guy Øystein was the one to first get his armour. Then after 8 months Nick finally got his kit and went to Copenhagen medieval festival to finally try out the group fights. Here he met the Israeli team and learned a lot from Michael Morgul and his guys (and girl). Also he remember the combat against ukrainian club “Ayna Bera” and fight with them which was very useful to the beginner.
Ni?k Møller Pedersen, chairman of Norwegian HMB organization: “They are great guys all of them, and I’m still grateful for what they learned me. After the tournament a month later was time for our first official norwegian tournament”.
According to Mr. Pedersen, it was a small friendly tournament with scandinavians as Denmark and Sweden. Being new to the sport and putting the tournament before “Battle of the Nations” most countries could not find the time to come our small tournament.

Ni?k Møller Pedersen, chairman of Norwegian HMB organization: “The tournament was a great success and people enjoyed themselves, it was friendly matches and very little injuries, I had tried to make the attending teams happy and made sure that they were well fed and taken care of. I also had the honor of having Knight marshal Maciek Riehl and his wife coming to judge the tournament, and Steve from UK also came within short notice, thanks Guys. Also a thanks to Bo from Denmark”.
After this tournament 2 new fighters showed their interest in HMB-sport. Also they got an accountant Maja, interested in becoming a marshall. Ni?k Møller Pedersen told that she is really helping out in all ways there possible can be. She also travelled alone to UK to learn to judge and is soon judging in Denmark.

Mr.Pedersen as chairman and a fighter trying to organize trainings for his people as often as possible. According to him, they have trainings every Saturday in homemade soft kits, soon pro soft kits. They are planning to train that way (in soft kits) until fighters get armour. To make trainings more effective, Nick have a plan to attend as many tournaments outside of Norway as possible to gain more experience and knowledge to take back to the team.
All the fighters in Norway are from 2 active HMB-clubs. One group in Trondheim lead by Tobias Andre Harnes which is currently in Belmonte. This group is doing their best and they actually have the most amount of Armored guys. And, of course, “Nørskovs Falcon Knights” – it`s Nick`s group, as Pedersen told by the secret, named after his Stallion.

So for now there is not many fighters in Norway, but it’s only for now. Currently we would say that Ni?k Møller Pedersen, Maja and Tobias are the people keeping HMB-sport alive in Norway. Maja is eager to see HMB rise and will do whatever it takes to help out. She is a great resource and I’m thankful for having her. Tobias is the north leader, and doing a good job getting his friends in armour. He is also eager and helps out as much as he can.
As founder of full contact medieval combat in his country, Nick want to develop this sport and he can see it in the growing locally. And of course they must get new fighters out, also to make the sport more visible.

Ni?k Møller Pedersen, chairman of Norwegian HMB organization: “It’s a slow progress, but slow is better than no progress. No matter how many people come and go I will not stop doing this sport as I love it and this sport is what makes me get up everyday”.

Vera Smith,
HMBIA News