Bighorn Historical Combat, a recreational martial arts club founded in January this year, is hosting its historical sword fighting tournament Hornfest at the Airdrie Martial Arts Centre on July 13-14.

Hornfest will feature participants competing against each other in tournament-style longsword fighting. A cutting competition will be held to judge the quality of participants’ cuts and techniques, and tournament organizers hope to hold a tournament for underrepresented genders on Sunday.

The tournament is a first for Airdrie. Bighorn, a Historical European Martial Arts (HEMA) club practitioner, is new to the local scene but the historic sport of sword fighting has grown in popularity over the past few decades.

Bighorn founder and Hornfest organizer Julian Schuetze has been involved with HEMA events for the past 14 years. He founded four different historic swordfighting clubs in British Columbia before moving to Alberta.

“I don’t know a single kid who didn’t play stick fighting in the backyard when they were five years old,” Schuetze said. “I’ve always loved swords and armor, and the main reason I started was for fitness. It was a really fun alternative to going to the gym. Now I go to the gym to get better at sword fighting, so it’s its own motivation.”

Schuetze said historic swordfighting clubs have grown in both popularity and maturity. The sport mostly involves physically fit people swinging long swords at each other, but technique and safety have come a long way, too. It’s not just a “barbarian sport” where you hit people with swords, Schuetze said.

“I remember when the biggest tournaments in this sport were very new,” Schuetze said. “People would travel all over North America to attend a 15-person event. There was an event in California recently that had 800 participants. It’s definitely growing tremendously, and it’s great to see the variety of reasons people are participating.”

Historical swordfighting is unique in terms of sports tournaments. It’s not basketball, baseball or hockey — it’s widely known and almost universally played across the country. But Schuetze said the intrigue of historical swordfighting, what makes it popular and beloved by those who participate, is the shifting cultures and ideas that have transformed the sport.

“Every sport is going to have its own niche,” he explained. “Some participants are going to be really good at something, and if they can go out and apply that, it’s going to really take off and everybody’s going to learn from other people. There’s going to be a lot of people who take it very seriously and really treat it like a martial art. . . . You have an opponent and they want to win. You have to find ways to counter their knowledge set or maybe their technical application. It’s a lot of fun.”

Schuetze said this weekend’s tournament will be a mix of fun and high-energy competition.

“Fighters still have to go all out,” he said. “But in a very friendly atmosphere where everyone just having a good time is the main goal.”