Auckland Longsword

🐇 March Hares 2026 🐇

Thanks to everyone for making it out for March Hares 2026 last weekend.

We had a wonderful time hosting you all for our first swiss tournament. Fencers went through 12 rounds facing a new opponent each time.

There were 19 fencers total representing 7 clubs from around the country.

We've put together some of the photos taken by

It seems you all loved the swiss format!

The results are live on HEMA Ratings now.

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Well done to all fencers, especially the medallists:

1st Atreyu Norman
2nd Nico Leiseder
3rd Olive Nuttall

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Thank you, Adrien, for your insightful workshop on Sunday. It has given us all a lot to consider!

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Finally, thanks to our referees, table staff, medic, and photographer.

Pictures by

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Happy holidays!

We recently held our AGM and have a new committee.

President - Chris Lynch
Secretary - Nick Williams
Treasurer - Sergei Shmigirilov

We will be on break over the holidays. Our first night back will be the 8th of January.

Thanks for a great year everyone! 🥳

Our next HEMA beginner's course is just around the corner!!

Open to all adults (18+), regardless of gender, skill level, or background.

This course will cover all the basics to get you engaged with HEMA / historical fencing techniques and safely sparring with others.

We focus on early Lichtenauer German longsword fencing. We will be training with a mix of foam and steel weapons.

We provide all the necessary equipment you need to get started. Additionally, at the end of the program, you'll be able to keep your fencing mask to continue your fencing journey.

You can try the first 3 classes with no financial commitment! The full course fee is $200.

Our course runs each Thursday between August 18th and September 18th at Mt Albert War Memorial Hall, from 7pm to 9:30pm.

We have limited spots available and cannot guarantee entry to this beginner's course.

Sign up here: https://forms.gle/Xbh6cthwdTmxVnfq9

Auckland Longsword - Beginner's Course Sign Up Our next HEMA beginner's course is just around the corner!! Open to all adults (18+), regardless of gender, skill level, or background. This course will cover all the basics to get you engaged with HEMA / historical fencing techniques and safely sparring with others. We focus on early Liechtenauer G...

Thank you Canterbury Historical Fencing Club for hosting another excellent Unicorn Fight Club 5 . It continues to be the biggest HEMA competition in New Zealand drawing participants from all corners of the country as well as fencers from Australia and sometimes further afield.

This year we felt everyone stepped up their fencing. Each pool was neck and neck with happy fencers putting their all into matches to come out on top thanks to tiered competitions in longsword and saber. The New Zealand historical fencers did an excellent job meeting the competition and the vibes were great all weekend because of it.

We sent 4 members to compete across longsword, saber, spear, sidesword, and rapier & dagger. All Auckland Longsword fencers fought hard and the results, particularly in Longsword, paid off.

Congratulations to all fencers. Thank you to the referees and staff. Thank you to Will for streaming this event for everyone at home. We cannot wait for the next one!

To our new friends we made over the weekend - if you're in Auckland let us know and we'll happily fence with you again. Additionally, thank you to Anna and Sarah for sharing your excellent photos with everyone.

Here are our full results from UFC5:

Longsword B Tier
Chris 3rd 🥉// Alex 5th equal // Reef 18th

Longsword A Tier
Chris 5th equal // Christian 5th equal // Alex 10th

Sabre B Tier
Alex 9th // Reef 15th

Spear
Reef 5th equal // Chris 14th

Sidesword
Reef 12th // Chris 13th // Christian 15th

Rapier and Dagger
Christian 12th // Chris 13th // Reef 17th

Due to an abundance of caution and active weather warnings we will be cancelling tonight's training. We hope you all stay safe out there!

Also, next week's training will be held at Western Springs Garden Community Hall, Hall 1 at the same time, 7pm - 9:30pm. You can see where we will be training by looking at our Auckland Longsword Planner. We hope to see you there!

Here's a link to the planner:

Auckland Longsword Planner

Thank you to Auckland Sword and Shield for hosting the AAA tournament this weekend. Thank you to Nic, Alen, Dean and the crew behind the scenes for an excellent competition.

Auckland Longsword had 5 competitors this weekend and although only four of us could compete in Longsword, we had a great showing across many events. Well done to Alex and Reef in particular for taking part in their first competition and doing excellent. And it was President (Chris) vs Secretary (Christian) in the semi-finals for longsword with Christian just taking the final's spot.

LONGSWORD - Reef 11th, Alex 9th, Chris 3rd, Christian 1st (/13)
SIDESWORD - Reef 14th, Aniis 11th, Chris 5th-tie, Christian 3rd, Alex 1st (/15)
SABER - Reef 8th (/9)
CONT. SIDESWORD - Reef 5th-tie (/5)
MIXED WEAPONS - Chris 9th, Reef 5th-tie (/14)

The continuous and mixed weapons categories were a heap of fun to participate in and watch. We are looking forward to seeing them again next year.

Congratulations to all fencers who competed. And a big shout out to Reef for not just taking part in his first competition but also competing in every event - legend!

This week at Auckland Longsword

1️⃣

Wednesday, 9th April

Competition Training at Western Springs Garden Community Hall

For those looking to get in some judged reps, we are hosting a one-off AL competition training night.

2️⃣

Thursday, 10th April

Autumn Fechtachule at Mt Albert War Memorial Hall

On thrusday we have our end of beginners course celebration and friendly competition. Our doors are open to visitors and members. Come say hi! Our previous post has the schedule.

Two weeks ago, we held the inaugural March Hares event. A two-day longsword event featuring a tiered tournament with an emphasis on safety followed by workshops.

After the event we collected attendee feedback from which we've decided to share key takeaways as well as the average rating of specific areas. We are happy with the feedback and are glad to see constructive criticism, highlighting some key areas for improvements.

We had a miscommunication with one of our volunteer staff which led to an assistant judge performing head judge responsibilities for a few exchanges. We addressed this on the day as soon as we were made aware of the mistake.

On the second day we mislabeled one of the catering options. Unfortunately, this led to some fencers with dietary restrictions being left without clear options. We are very sorry for this mistake and will be paying close attention to how we label and clearly group our catered meals.

The final consistent piece of feedback we had was about the noise levels on the second day. Unfortunately, we could not control this and will be looking for an exclusive venue next year.

Additional considerations we’ll be taking forward include: more clearly communicating event details further in advance and potentially allowing wider fencer protests for judge calls. If anyone has further feedback, we’d love to hear from you! You can message us here or email us directly.

Thank you to everyone that attended March Hares. We hope to see you back in 2026.

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In the interest of transparency, we have included the average ratings from our feedback form.

Event Communications 4.4/5
Registration Process 4.7/5
Venue 4.3/5
Ruleset 4.4/5
Judging 3.7/5
Safety 4.8/5
Catering 4.5/5
David's Workshop 4.8/5
Nelson's Workshop 4.4/5
Social 4.7/5
Value for Money 4.4/5
Overall Experience 4.7/5
Would you attend again? 83% Yes11% Maybe 6% No

That's a wrap for March Hares - Auckland Longsword Fencing Competition & International Workshops. The event was ~720 fencing exchanges, fought by 17 participants, representing 6 New Zealand clubs.

A big thank you to our sponsors, SIGI Forge and QP Sport.

Also to all of our volunteers for their hard work over the weekend, to our mercenary referees from Melbourne, and to all the participants for their great attitude and exemplary behaviour over the course of the weekend.

Thank you so much!