Rocket City HEMA will be competing in Fence-acola 2024, hosted by the UWF HEMA Fencing Club.

Rocket City HEMA will be competing in SERFO 2024, hosted by the Atlanta Historical Fencing Academy.

Rocket City HEMA will be hosting our third Ye’H.A.W. event this year! Round out the year with mixed Armor as Worn melees and a group fighting experience like no other. Fight in open fields, woods, in a doorway, on a bridge, and under the hail of arrows from our very own archers.

Registration and event updates for 2024 will be posted later in the year, but check out Ye’H.A.W. 2023’s event page for more details!

Rocket City HEMA held another in-house favorite: our annual dagger workshop to celebrate the Ides of March and introduce students to a variety of dagger fighting techniques.

Rocket City HEMA walked in the 47th St. Patrick’s Day Parade (Ellen McAnelly Memorial Parade) in Downtown Huntsville, AL as banner carriers for the Ulster Province.

Rocket City HEMA came out for an armor showcase for the Madison Public Library. This demonstration featured discussion on the modern use of armor as well as armored fighting.

Rocket City HEMA hosted our annual in-house tournament, featuring a variety of weapon systems taught at the school, such as rapier, longsword, Medieval sword & shield, and Renaissance weapons.

Rocket City HEMA came out for an armor talk and demonstration to compliment the Huntsville Museum of Art’s Age of Armor: Treasures from the Higgins Armory Collection at the Worcester Art Museum exhibit. This demonstration covered the modern use of armor in the historical manner. Check out the link below for more pictures!

HSV Museum of Art Instagram Post

Rocket City HEMA walked in the Huntsville Christmas Parade, hosted by Mix 96.9 and the Von Braun Center.

Rocket City HEMA was visited by WAFF48 for a segment on Tennessee Valley Living! Follow the link below to watch the video of our interview and learn about what it was like to fight in armor.

WAFF48 News Post

Rocket City HEMA hosted our second Ye’H.A.W. event this year! Thank you all for making this event bigger and better than last year, with participants from several fencing schools competing in mixed Armor as Worn melees and for the very first time – charging under fire from our very own archer team.

We appeared at the Florence renaissance faire once again as performers, demonstrating HEMA in its many forms throughout the weekend both at our booth and with scheduled demonstrations. Our demonstrations showcased rapier techniques and armored fighting with poleaxes.

We returned to the Madison Street Festival to walk in the parade and perform a fencing demonstration on the Community Showcase stage. Our demonstration included a sparring showcase featuring bloss longsword systems, as well as an armored duel with longswords, Messer, and spears.

Rocket City HEMA hosted our annual All-Are-Welcome in-house Dussack tournament and historical costume contest.

We participated in SERFO once again this year, fielding our school’s largest-ever tournament team. Our fighters all performed very well, reaching 4th place in longsword, top eight in rapier, and eliminations in sword and buckler.

Our first major invitational HEMA event was a great success. Armored and unarmored fencers from across the southeast US met at our school for a weekend of outdoor melees and guided scenarios. Going forward, we hope to grow the success of this event into something truly unique for the HEMA community.

We performed a fencing demonstration on the Community Showcase stage at the Madison Street Festival. Our demonstration included a sparring showcase featuring six different weapon systems, as well as an armored duel with longswords and spears.

We participated at the inaugural MSHFO 2022 in Russellville, KY. All of our fighters performed very well, including taking home the bronze medal in the Open Rapier tournament.

We took a team of fencers and spectators to Atlanta to compete at SERFO in 2022 and made an excellent showing. Our fighters made it to eliminations in every tournament, achieving a top 16 finish in longsword and two top 8 finishes in conventional rapier and dagger.

We were invited to exhibit at RPGCon, Huntsville’s first and only convention aimed at tabletop role-playing games, board games, and war games. We were in attendance throughout the event, providing sparring demonstrations with a variety of both weapons and armor.

Rocket City HEMA was visited by WAFF48 for a segment on Tennessee Valley Living! Follow the link below to watch the video of our interview and learn some basic longsword techniques!

WAFF48 News Post

We appeared at the Florence renaissance faire once again as performers, demonstrating HEMA in its many forms throughout the weekend. Our scheduled demonstrations showcased the longsword, quarterstaff, messer, backsword, dagger, rapier, and armored fighting with the longsword and poleaxe.

We were invited to attend this year’s Nerd Rummage Sale at Makers Local 256. We spent the morning outdoors, alternating between casual sparring, running educational demos, and grilling burgers for the attendees and vendors.

We participated in a demonstration hosted by the HEMA club at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. We introduced a theater full of interested students to the world of historical swordfighting by discussing and demonstrating techniques and sparring with the longsword and the messer.

We were featured in a spot by Alabama Public Radio! Stan Ingold from APR visited our school and interviewed some of our members for a news item about the school and our place in Huntsville. If you have five minutes to spare, follow the link below and give it a listen!

Listen to the APR News Post

We were invited to attend the Fairytale Ball, hosted here in town by United Cerebral Palsy of Huntsville. We attended as part of the entertainment team – two of our members wore armor and wandered the hall, while the rest of our group talked to the attendees. We also ran a fencing demonstration, showcasing both unarmored longsword sparring and fights in armor with the longsword and poleaxe.

We took a team of fencers and spectators to SERFO again this year, and we made a respectable showing in every event. Our fighters earned silver in open weight ringen, reached eliminations in longsword and sword & buckler, and finished top 16 in conventional rapier and dagger.

We went out to demonstrate HEMA to the general public at this years Alabama Ren Faire. We survived the rain and met quite a lot of cool folks. We had innumerable people stop by the tent and watch our demos, and we intend to return next year!

We attended the Oktoberfest in Cullman, AL, where we provided technique and sparring demonstrations for attendees throughout the day.

Our tourney team made the trip to Greenville, SC to compete in open longsword. Our five fighters all reached eliminations – outright winning some of their pools – and we survived all the way into top 8. Our youngest attendee also received silver in the youth longsword event.