The Martialist: A Publication of PhilElmore.com

YEAR FOUR! THE MARTIALIST
ISSUE 3.12

Three
years.  It hardly seems possible that three years have gone by since The Martialist began. In 2003, thanks to encouragement from RBSD instructor Dan Webre (and some stinging criticism from the lady behind the Hideaway knife, who read me the riot act regarding what I had to offer the self-defense community), I leveraged the minor success of PhilElmore.com’s marrtial arts pages to create an entire online magazine devoted to self-defense. We didn’t have much of a subscriber list when we started — to be honest, I don’t recall how long it took us to build a respectable base of customers — and the frames pages I cobbled together sure weren’t much to see. What he had, however, was a concept. It wasn’t fully defined, but it has remained our vision for the last three years. The Martialist is dedicated to success in pragmatic, real-world self-defense, regardless of provenance, without dogma and irrespective of tradition, dismissing nothing that is useful and aligning with no political camps save expedience in self-preservation.

In the intervening three years my own work has become more focused. The Martialist is a collaboration. while I am its founder, its heart and soul are the contributors and readers who have made it so relevant and so popular. I have learned a lot from everyone involved with this publication. What I came to realize — and the idea at the heart of the whole matter, really, though not explicitly stated in our early months — was that there exists a real need for practical self-defense information by and for average people. Yes, the market is overflowing with former SEALS and umpteenth degree grandmasters selling their self-defense programs, but along the way, a lot of the relevance of these programs is lost. The lack in so many of these materials — produced by well-meaning, respected individuals with impressive credentials — is that those producing them are sometimes too far removed from the average man and woman. That is the point at which The Martialist — its perspective, its voice, its mission — becomes relevant.

Self-defense by and for average people takes into account the very real sensibilities, needs, limitations, and concerns of ordinary people trying to survive and prosper in a dangerous world. The average reader of The Martialist isn’t a soldier or a law enforcement officer, though we have plenty of readers who are one or both of these things. The average contributor to The Martialist isn’t the owner of a martial arts school, though we’ve had plenty of contributors with impressive backgrounds. No, by and large (though with plentiful exceptions), The Martialist is the creation of mere mortals — people with jobs, families, and lives that don’t revolve around fighting, who want nothing more than to keep their families safe, to walk from their doors to their cars without fear, to gain and keep what they’ve earned while preventing society’s predators from taking it by force.

It has been very gratifying to see this idea — and the philosophy of dynamic, assertive, pragmatic self-defense that is martialism — resonate with so many people. When The Martialist became an idea, rather than simply the thoughts of one man (or of multiple men and women), it showed potential for greatness. It continues to demonstrate and meet this potential. The more people who tell me they, too, are martialists, the more I realize just what we’ve managed to contribute to the self-defense community. Martialism and The Martialist are ideals, principles that anyone can uphold. They are, they epitomize, success in self-defense. That is the mutual goal that binds us together and gives us common cause as we move forward into Year Four.

One of the things that has surprised me, as The
Martialist has risen to prominence, is just how incredibly angry some
people get about it.  While I wouldn’t say I’ve made enemies (because
I simply don’t know my critics well enough to call them enemies), I’ve
certainly upset a lot of brittle, insecure, and foolish people in the
martial arts and self-defense community.  Given the character and the
opinions of these people, we must be doing something right.  If a man
can be judged by the quality of his enemies, I’m comfortable with whatever
conclusions you draw in reading commentary about me and this ‘zine.

If you haven’t already done so, I strongly encourage you
to register and participate in
the official discussion forum of The Martialist: 
Pax Baculum, a play on words that
loosely means “peace through force.”

Once again I encourage anyone considering writing for us
to go ahead and submit their work.  We’ll seriously consider
anything that is sent here, so if you’re throwing around an article idea,
please do feel free to send it along.  If we can’t use it, we won’t,
but we like to look at everything.

Don’t forget that half of the magazine
is available for free, right here, every month.  Just so you can
catch up, if you haven’t read the free content for our issues so far this
year, here are links to them:

Issue 3.11 ♠
Issue 3.12  
Issue 2.11  ♠
Issue 2.12  ♠  Issue
3.09/3.10
Issue 2.10  ♠
Issue 2.09  ♠ Issue
2.08
Issue 2.07  ♠ 
Issue 2.05-2.06  ♠ 
Issue 2.04  
Issue 2.03  ♠ 
Issue 2.02  ♠ 
Issue 2.01  

YEAR ONE 2004  ♠ 
March 2004

Jan-Feb 2004  ♠  December 2003  ♠ 
November 2003
October 2003  ♠ 
September
2003  ♠ 
August
2003
July
2003  ♠ 
June
2003  ♠ 
May
2003

In the column to the right you’ll see a link to this
month’s free content repeated.  Below that is the listing of this
issue’s subscriber content.  Each issue contains such a list –
so you can see what you’re missing.  We hope that if you like what
you see for free online, you’ll be intrigued by the topics covered in our
subscriber mailing.  To subscribe and receive these articles each
month via e-mail, click here.

Our goal at The Martialist is to
provide you with quality information, education, and entertainment – material that will help you make choices about realistic self-defense.   
You may not like everything you see, but that’s okay – because I don’t agree with everything I publish from others, either. 
(We encourage you to submit your own articles from different perspectives,
too.)  As you will read many times in perusing our articles, the choice is yours. 

Make it wisely.

Click here For the free content

This issue’s subscriber content:

The Coming Dark Times
By Phil Elmore

The JP Short Slugger
Review by Chris Zaccara

Loading and Unloading
By Phil Elmore

Baton or Stick Applications for the Civilian Defender
By Chris Fry

The Myth of Pressure Testing
By Phil Elmore

Raging Ignorance in Self-Defense
By Phil Elmore

See No Evil: The Machete As Expedient Weapon — And the Media Push to Vilify and Ban the Tool
By Phil Elmore

Call to Arms: Fact, Fiction, or Faction?
By Chris Zaccara