The Martialist: The Magazine For Those Who Fight Unfairly

“Stay ‘unreasonable.’  If you
don’t like the solutions [available to you], come up with your
own.” 
Dan Webre

The Martialist does not
constitute legal advice.  It is for ENTERTAINMENT
PURPOSES ONLY.

Copyright © Phil Elmore,
all rights
reserved.

Truth of a modest sort I can
promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, praiseworthy sincerity which,
while it delivers one into the hands of one’s enemies, is as likely as not to
embroil one with one’s friends.

– Joseph Conrad

This publication has as many detractors as it has fans. This is because, in part, we dare to express opinions and then support them with reason, substance, and vigor. To paraphrase a contributor to the Internet’s most pretentious international graffiti board, the Wikipedia, the only way never to be controversial in the field of martial arts is
never to express an opinion of any kind.

Nothing enrages certain spectators quite so much as unabashed honesty expressed aloud. Well, that’s not absolutely true; one thing that enrages them more is not to care what they think about those opinions. The Martialist makes many enemies because it is geared to no political agenda and to only one goal: success in the pursuit of pragmatic self-defense. To those with myriad axes to grind
– be they traditionalist apologists for elitist attitudes and outmoded methods, contemporary thug-fu practitioners ignorantly dismissing everything that has come before them, sportfighters reassuring themselves that their unrealistic approaches and wishful thinking supersede reality, or a legion of nutballs and whackjobs pushing specific contrived “solutions” in a desperate search for non-existent problems
– independent, critical thought is as often an enemy as it is an insincerely invoked excuse.

Google “Phil Elmore” or “The Martialist” and you’ll find a lot of people across the Internet who really don’t like me. They don’t like what I write. They don’t like what my contributors and I accomplish here. If I was willing to align this publication with one or more martial camps, I could at least count on the support of some among them out of some perverted sense of loyalty. This, I will not do. When you read The Martialist you are reading the earnest contributions of our participating writers or you are reading what I honestly think. I have never soft-pedaled my opinion. I have never compromised what is true for the sake of what is expedient. As a result, we step on a lot of toes. We tip a lot of sacred cows. We cheese off a lot of people. There is no authority figure we will not challenge, no conventional wisdom we will not question, no accepted practice or tradition we will not revisit, if we can do so in a constructive, substantive, and reasoned manner. Controversy inevitably follows.

The Martialist does not deliberately court controversy. While this is a proven tactic for increasing traffic and getting attention, that’s not the point of what we do. The revenues from our online store and our subscriptions are sufficient to cover our bandwidth costs and provide a fund for review items and other expenses, but I’ll never make much of a profit and I don’t publish The Martialist to “make a buck.” I have never deliberately positioned myself in opposition to a concept, a product, or a program simply to be opposed to it. When I like something, I tell you
– and I tell you why. When I don’t, I do the same.

(In the interests of trying to find fault with this
publication, some individuals have even tried to submit fraudulent articles —
the idea being that if they can get these into print, they must be proving…
something, one presumes.  Recently I let
one of these through specifically to make a point.  It is strange that
the only time such people prove useful to the cause of legitimate self-defense
is when they’re trying to do just the opposite.)

It’s been my experience that no reasonable person who is reasonably confident in what he or she does and believes can have any serious problem with this publication. Either such a person disagrees and can articulate, without rancor, precisely why, or such an individual doesn’t bother to consider us at all. By contrast, those angered by our approach or our content, those given to repeated and vehement denunciations of me and of this ‘zine, usually prove to have some serious issues of their own. Our most vocal critics are most often those who need to spend some serious time thinking critically about what they believe and why. They need to ask themselves why they are so insecure in their beliefs; they need to challenge the “experts” at whose feet they’ve been groveling. Sadly, most people of this type will never engage in the introspection required. Change
– true change, starting from within and traveling without – terrifies these people. The cognitive dissonance created when challenging their cherished assumptions and their individual training biases is too much. It is easier for them to lash out, to ridicule, to deride, to attack. It is these people whom you’ll find criticizing me and The Martialist.

“Better is the enemy of good,” according to Voltaire, and The Martialist is the enemy of those who refuse to consider, critically and logically, why they believe what they believe about self-defense. We will continue to work toward this goal and we will continue to face, undaunted, our critics. Ultimately, they define us
– favorably and charitably, considering the character and the content of their histrionics. Consider that the next time you read a negative opinion of me or of this site. When you’re ready, join us.

We’ll be here.