HMBIA News invites everyone to get to know candidates for HMBIA President position better. Our first hero – Edouard Eme, the “Martel” club captain, French national team captain and the President of National French HMB federation. He is a great candidate with huge experience, who treats HMB as his passion. So let’s know in detail his full HMB-bio!
Childhood, adolescence and discovering HMB
– What city are you from? Were you an active child, who liked active sport games?
– I was born in Paris, but I spent my childhood in Africa. I was more of a nerdy child, who liked reading books, writing stories, playing video games… I started to enjoy physical activity only, when I discovered combat sports in the end of my teenage.
– How did you find out about HMB? Do you remember your first impressions after discovering this sport?
– It had been a childhood dream to fight for real with medieval armor and weapons. That’s why I started the reenactment, when I moved to France, when I was 17 years old. I was pretty disappointed with the level of “fights”, so I created my own reenactment group and we went to Poland to experience harder battles. There, we met Ukrainians and Russians who told us the fight was even harder and more realistic in their countries. We followed them there, and that’s when I had my first real buhurt, in Russia in 2007. At that time, I had only early medieval equipment, and there were no official rules, only “all VS all”, so it was painful and dangerous; but it was a revelation for me. My friends and I kept coming back to Ukraine for tournaments, as in France nobody wanted to try this style. I became addicted to this activity, and still today there is no hobby or sports more epic, beautiful, glorious and satisfying than this to me.
– When and where did you start doing HMB more seriously?
– I think I really started practicing it as a competitive sport in 2010, when Anton Trubnikov got in touch with me to create a French national team; then we got acquainted with the official rules, new equipment, goals etc.
– Who was your coach? How did he teach you?
– We didn’t really have a coach, we knew how to train physically with boxing and army experience, and tried to work our skill following the advice of some Ukrainian and Polish fighters we knew.
Friends & Family
– How do your friends and family treat the HMB and your participation in it?
– They follow it with great interest and even help me in the tournaments organization. My girlfriend fights in 3vs3.
– Did you engage some of your friends into HMB movement?
– Of course, half of the founders of “Martel” (my club) were my friends before we started HMB.
On a leader’s position
– How do you evaluate the level of developing HMB in your country? What are good and not so good things can you emphasize?
– I think France shows very good results in terms of development. We have a well-structured national federation, regrouping 23 clubs and nearly 250 fighters in the whole country. This allows us to have a much unified movement, organize 7 official tournaments a year, send a full national team in every category at the Battle of the Nations and follow the competition in our national league with a yearly ranking system. The thing we are struggling with is to have HMBIA certified French marshals; the language barrier doesn’t help and it’s hard to find competent volunteers dedicated to something else than fighting.
– When did you become a team captain and President of National federation?
– I have been the captain of the French national team since its creation in 2011, same thing for the French federation that was created in 2014. I have always been reelected since then.
– What are your tasks on these positions?
– As a national team captain, I organize the qualifying tournament, select the fighters and coordinate them at the World Championship.
As a National federation President, I am the head of the movement in France and am responsible for all the actions of our Organisation, which regroups all clubs officially practicing HMB. As such, I preside the federation’s board whose mission is to implement and realize all the decisions taken by the club representatives at our general assembly. I also organize several events.
– What are your personal goals for developing yourself as an HMB fighter? Do you have an aim that you want to reach?
– As I am not a very big nor tall man, I am trying to gain more power. So I’m trying to increase my muscle mass while keeping my cardio. But due to my responsibilities, I can’t focus on fighting as much as I should; instead I thrive in my role as a
leader and organizer, which requires a lot of time and energy.
– How often do you train now?
– In the weekend we practice technique with my HMB club, but unfortunately I don’t live in Paris anymore so I can scarcely attend the team trainings.
Personal “likes”
– What sport do you practice, except HMB?
– I practice crossfit 3 times a week in addition to buhurt.
– Do you like traveling? What countries have you been, what is your next spot and what is your dream-country?
– I have been in many countries; it would be too long to write them all here. The next travel I’m planning is to visit an old friend Benin (a country in Africa), where I lived 2 years when I was a teenager. My dream country is of course my motherland, France; but I lived several years in Norway and I miss it very often, I guess it would be my second choice.
– Do you like history? What period and what region are you interested in the most?
– I think that if you don’t like history, you have nothing to do in HMB. I am interested to learn more about every period and region, but I mainly got into European early middle ages and the hundred years war.
HMBIA News express the gratitude to Edouard Eme for the interesting and information-packed interview! We will continue acquainting you with candidates to Presidential post and providing useful information about the upcoming elections.
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