Introduction
I am Loys Adam, I am 35 years old, and I have been practicing Buhurt for six years. The Metz Buhurt club was founded in 2018.
Can you describe the current state of Buhurt in France?
In France at the moment, we're going to have, I'd say, almost 30 teams, between all the new ones that have been created, mergers, etc. I think that in terms of practitioners, we must be in the order of 1000, but in terms of competitors, we must be in the range of 300/400.
How are Buhurt tournaments organized in France?
Most Buhurt tournaments in France are organized by the French Federation, or they may be organized by clubs, towns or even monuments, such as Château Faugas, which is going to organize its own event, but they'll call on the French Federation to help build it, and also on local clubs.
What are the main challenges the Federation faces today?
I think the main challenge is the evolution of the sport. We're a young sport, but there's a tendency to stick to the old ways of doing things. So we're starting to see a swing towards the new generation of the sport. The French Federation's new challenge today is to transform Buhurt.
How does the Federation promote Buhurt to the general public?
For the most part, we try to feed the social media, but it's not easy. We work a lot with volunteers, everyone has a life, activities on the side and most of the people who are going to help with communications for the Federation are already doing this work for their respective clubs, so it's not easy. But it's true that we're going to find this on the networks thanks to the tournament and the Live tournaments, but once again, there's still room for improvement, as always.
How often are tournaments held in France, and how are they funded?
In France, it depends on the year. We're on a downward trend in terms of the number of tournaments per year. I think we're on 5 tournaments this year (2024), last year we had 4 (2023) and in previous years, it seems to me that we were more around 6/7.
Tournaments have to be spaced at least 20 days apart, and in this case it's much more, but very much grouped together in July/August, because for the moment we're still very dependent on external funding, i.e. medieval festivals etc., to finance us. For example, one of the changes we're trying to make is to follow a real sporting season, i.e. July/August, which is supposed to be the break, and start to be a little more autonomous in organizing tournaments.
How do Buhurt teams in France interact with each other? Is there a spirit of competition or camaraderie?
I think it's both. There's obviously a competitive spirit, because once again we're playing sport. But it's a healthy competition. It's a combat sport, so it's all about hitting your opponent, knocking him to the ground, so there's bound to be some animosity, but that happens in the fight. Outside the field, there's no such thing, as in any other sport.
There are a lot of great things happening in France, and a lot of big clubs are going to take smaller clubs under their wings, with structures that have just been set up to train them, help them get to know Buhurt and then be able to fly on their own. So that's part of the spirit of camaraderie you see in the Buhurt.
After that, you can also see interclubs being set up, i.e. meetings between several clubs in a region to develop the sport in their region, improve their technique and so on.
What are the plans to further develop Buhurt in France?
It's complicated. Once again, I'm going to talk about the increase in the number of tournaments. After that, I think there's a bit of a lack of communication about certain things at team level. But it's funny, we're a young sport, so everything has to be created. We're trying to sweep away things that were done before.
It's strange to say, because it's a young sport, but you often hear the phrase, “it was better before” when you're very young in the sport, so it's a bit weird. I arrived at the Federation office 4 years ago with people who had already been doing it for 12 years and who told me “we've never done it like this, we'll never do it like this” but we can't, as we said, we're a young sport, if we stagnate now, we're doomed to disappear.
So the goal is to revitalize the sport?
Yes, that's right, to make the sport a sport and not just a meeting of medievalists drinking beers, A SPORT. But with what goes with it, i.e. a great mentality, because before, you know, when you arrived at tournaments, I saw it when I started setting up the Club, you had a sort of divide between the teams. The big teams at the top didn't mix with the smaller ones.
Now there's a real atmosphere. Where the big teams are starting to say that, in fact, if the general level goes up, it's all the better, because it's all very well to come along at the weekend to beat up your mates and run them over in 30 seconds, but if we all started sweating our asses off, that would be good too.
So it's developing along those lines, and there aren't really any teams who put on a weird atmosphere at tournaments. Some teams are still old-fashioned and have a mentality that I find archaic in the sport, but that's okay, it's evolving, everything's evolving. As far as I'm concerned, the future is positive for Buhurt.
How does the Federation manage safety during tournaments?
Safety is managed in several ways. For example, no tournament goes ahead without a first-aid service.
Then there's another kind of security. It's administrative security. This means making sure that the fighters involved are properly registered and identified by the Federation. Because that's a problem that can arise. People sometimes watch videos and think, “All you have to do is get a suit of armour and go”. No, no, you have to enter through a club, you have to enter through a structure, and that's the Federation's job, to identify, to give a fighter number, to identify each person who enters. For me, that's part of safety, and then it's up to the clubs, in terms of safety, to make sure that their fighters are properly trained in the rules. Because untrained fighters or independent fighters who come in like that, are dangerous in the ring because we don't know if they've learnt the rules correctly, if we can slap them on the wrist if they make mistakes, because if you don't belong to any structure and someone tells you what you're doing isn't right, you can say “Yeah, but who are you to stop me doing what? I'm kind of doing my own thing”, and that's what we've got now with Buhurt International abroad.
But I think that the federations and countries now need to get together and ask for a fixed secretariat, fixed in quotation marks, for the controls, i.e. I wouldn't mind, as is done in other sports, having an identity control so that each fighter passes an identity control at the secretariat to say “I'm Adam Loys, I've come to register for the tournament, I'm the one who'll be in the armour with number 1”. Because, once again, not everyone knows everyone else. The federation is run by volunteers and, in fact, I get my cousin to come, we register him under the name Adam Loys for the tournament, he comes in my armour, nobody knows him, but people will think, well, it must be a new Graoully figther, no questions asked. That's part of administrative security.
As for safety, well, there are rules, there are referees, there are first-aiders, there's training in the clubs and international rules which mean that, in fact, no matter which country you go to or which country you come from, we all practice the same thing, it's not just a matter of chance. We have rules, and for me that's the biggest security.
Are there collaborations with other international federations?
Exchanges with international federations are fairly limited, because each country is managed differently. On the other hand, between teams, it's already more possible. I think contacts are made more by team than by federation.
As soon as we do a tournament, we open it up internationally, we open it up on our networks, but we don't go and contact the European or World Federations to say “here, we're going to do a tournament, talk to your teams about it” as in fact everything is run differently, we do more mailing by team rather than by federation.
What is the Federation’s vision for the future of Buhurt in France?
A sporting future, but purely sporting. After that, you're in a sport where you're dressed like a knight, and you have to respect the rules of history and authenticity.
But now I think we need, from my point of view, to start balancing the cursor on the sporting side with the common language of sport, the well-established, international rules, of respecting an international federation, because right now, we're starting tournaments, we're still hearing about HMB, Buhurt international, IMCF: “We're keeping this rule from that thing, but that thing, from that thing”, it's impossible. Now the future is one rule, one international federation, one national federation, clubs and sport.
A big thank you to Adam Loys for answering our questions!