Our Year in Review - 2003

It’s been four years since we first started our annual year in review. Originally it was a lengthy examination of an extraordinary twelve months of activities.  Each year since then the review article has gotten larger. This time however, we decided that this is how it’s going to be from now on, so we will keep things down to a shorter recap page looking back at the previous year’s highlights. As of 2004 it will be a decade since I first took over this club back when it was called “HACA” and reformed it to promote something new—a historical European martial arts organization that focused on arms and armor as they were really used and relied on the source manuals for our practice.  Since then, with the advent of the World Wide Web, we grew substantially and forever changed the modern of the study of the subject.

2003 was yet another banner year for ARMA. In 2003 we added more than 80 new members (almost one every 5 days) and added four new Study Groups—in South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, and our first ever in Greece.  We certified more than ten new General Free Scholars' rankings and had three new Senior Free Scholars who successfully played their Prizes in public.

We held a record ten seminars or workshop events—more than one every other month—in Utah, Virginia, South Carolina, Florida, Oregon, New York, Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, and Sweden.  We also held our largest ever event, our International Gathering, involving over 60 members and guests from six countries for three days of special activities and private instruction. This first of our planned bi-annual ARMA international gatherings was the best opportunity yet for our community to network with fellow members, cross-train, learn, spar, meet our European colleagues, and gain feedback, as well as participate in test-cutting, group sparring, and Prize Playing!

Several regional get-togethers were also arranged between members around the country and in Europe as well as several public displays. A historical fencing lecture was also presented to classes at Furman University while Astroworld Houston featured three special ARMA demonstrations.  This past year members from 3 new countries were welcomed as well as work on a new Spanish language ARMA site begun and a new ARMA class was started in New Mexico.  Our Youth program also grew considerably in 2003 more than any prior year, perhaps as a result of both greater awareness of it and increased interest among teens in swords in general.

In 2003 ARMA Members also conducted hands-on research visits to the Swedish Royal Armories and historical arms caches in Switzerland.  ARMA also had the distinction in 2003 of being featured as a site of the week on none other than The Sci-Fi Channel’s official website. Articles about ARMA's efforts also appeared in several papers and magazines in America and Europe last year. ARMA also attended the annual Sword Show held this year in Orlando, Florida, where we consulted with industry representatives and examined new pieces.

In 2003 our website moved all its 1.2GB of material to our own exclusive server to make room for even more additions and faster access and new possibilities. The site added more than a dozen new articles, essays, editorials, features, and special reports.  We added several important new research papers while many pages of the ARMA site itself were streamlined and revamped. In 2003 ARMA member George Turner also unveiled some unique and important new research into sword impacts. We put online our largest number of new video clips so far while the member area once again expanded significantly and added three new historical manual acquisitions.  We perfected a new design of padded-contact weapon and tested several new products and sword makes. We began many special projects in 2003 which are still under way and should see fruition this year.

Finally, among other martial arts titles Paladin Press published the excellent book on Sigmund Ringeck’s Knightly Art of the Longsword by ARMA Member David Lindholm while Osprey books published his work on Medieval Scandinavian warriors co-authored with noted medievalist and ARMA senior advisor, Dr. David Nicolle.

This past year was good. Very good. Once again interest in historical fencing studies and spathology grew and the Renaissance martial arts community experienced further expansion across the board. 2004 will be surely be even more exciting.