A Highlander will pack his armour and head to Barcelona for a medieval battle next month.
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Adam Miller is a member of Australian Medieval Combat Team and will travel to Barcelona in April for the Historical Medieval Battle (HMB) World Championships, more commonly known as Battle of the Nations (BotN).
The sport is relatively new, 10 years internationally and five years in Australia.
Miller is part of Team Havoc and has competed in the last three world championships in Trogir, Croatia 2014 and Prague, Czech Republic in 2015 and 2016.
The Australian Medieval Combat Team will take two mens teams to the world championships.
The teams will have eight fighters each and will each compete in a five-verse-five competition.
We hit as hard as we can with the goal to encourage our opponents to go down and stay down.
- Australian Medieval Combat Team member Adam Miller
Two Australian Medieval Combat Team female members will also attended the championships and will combine with fighters from other countries to form a team in the women’s three-verse-three competition.
HMB is full contact with steel weapons. Competitors do not ‘pull’ their hits like other re-enacting groups, which means that strict rules need to be followed.
Miller said the sport follows rules taken from medieval texts.
“It is the closest thing you can get to real medieval fighting today,” he said.
“We hit as hard as we can with the goal to encourage our opponents to go down and stay down.”
Miller said HMB was an extreme sport, likened to MMA in armour.
The Australian Medieval Combat Team trains twice a week at Moorebank and once a month in Yerrinbool.
Miller is a teacher at Bowral High School and teaches History and Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE). Before becoming a teacher, he was a soldier in the Australian Army.
“This sport I do combines all the components of my life into one activity,” Miller said.
The Australian Medieval Combat Team have held displays and tournaments in the area to show how the sport operates.
This year the team hopes to hold demonstrations at Bowral High School Medieval History Day, The Wollondilly Country Fair, Wingello school fete and the Tallong Apple Festival in May.
Battle of the Nations 2017 will be held from April 29 to May 1.