What We're About and why Phil Elmore is Still a Twit

Phrost · 1/03/2009 9:12am

I literally just wrote this. In browsing around the Internet on a Saturday morning I came upon a discussion thread on BladeForums.com, about our humble website and its merits. Perennial LARPer and Walter Mitty, Phil Elmore had done his best to defecate all over it, so reason and good faith dictated that I should respond.

Here's the response, as I posted it a few minutes ago.

Whoa, hey... I do have an account over here. Nifty.

Hi Phil. I tried to register for your forums a while back to politely discuss things (with all sincerity), but you refused to let me. That's unfortunate because there are one or two things we actually do agree on.

But I understand why you couldn't. After all, you have notable forum members who want to, literally, kill me and my family (I've got screen shots) for exposing them as liars.

Back to the topic; this discussion could have had some merit. We're open to criticism because it helps us improve at what we do. Instead, however, the main criticisms here read like the pining of jilted girlfriends. I'll explain why, later.

If you want to know what we advocate I'll do a swanky little bullet point list for you:

Self Defense

Get a CCW permit
Learn to draw and accurately shoot your firearm in a threat situation
Practice regularly and compete in shooting competitions to hone your skill
Use common sense and situational awareness
Learn basic throws/trips so you can extricate yourself from a situation as fast as possible
Learn how to sprawl/stay on your feet
Learn how to get back to your feet if knocked/taken to the ground

Martial Arts Training

Regular full contact sparring is absolutely essential
Fighting is an athletic activity, and your ability to do it successfully is built upon the foundation of a healthy, fit body. Everything from your reaction time to your ability to continue fighting after injury, to the amount of stamina you have are determined by your physical condition.
Competition is essential to a healthy, realistic understanding of your abilities and limitations
Focus on both Sport and Self defense applications of every technique (learn to "add dirt").

Notice that we don't mention MMA in any of that. However, it's the logical extension of many of our views that training and competing in MMA would be one of the best ways of achieving the goals needed to become good at empty handed fighting.

If you want to become good at anything, you need to do that thing, over and over again. If you want to be a good race car driver, you don't sit in your car, parked in your driveway, and make "vroom vroom" noises; you go to the track and burn through a few sets of tires. Similarly, the idea that you can learn to be good at fighting by standing in lines and learning dead patterns is just as asinine; you need to fight to be good at fighting.

Now, here's why the criticisms of our philosophy don't stand up. We'll take Phil as an example. Mind you that these aren't simple ad-hominem attacks. These go to the credibility of the individual's opinion and the agenda behind it.

Phil Elmore

Has never served in the Military, yet does everything he can to affiliate himself with the culture and lifestyle.
Is visibly overweight, out of shape, and unathletic.
Quit his Wing Chun school in a huff when the instructor started including more sparring in their training.
Operates a forum where he bans anyone who demonstrates an opinion contrary to his, and pressures the staff of other forums to ban those who disagree with him there.
Quit Bullshido.net's forum when we wouldn't ban individuals with whom he disagreed (labeling them "trolls").
Has, presumably (no evidence to the contrary, if so, please provide it) never been in a full contact fight of any sort in his entire life.

Phil is actually a very typical case of the individuals who take exception to our views and approach to things. Many of these people simply don't have the character, discipline, or dedication it takes to commit to keeping themselves in shape and working on their athletic abilities. So instead, they attack the notion that you should pursue such things either directly or indirectly, by going out of their way to try and marginalize the need to do so.

For lots of folks, the idea that you should have to fight to be good at fighting is a threat to their entire self image. And like anyone whose fundamental concepts of reality are threatened, they lash out. This is because deep down, they know they can't empirically prove what they want to believe is true. Whereas some who believe they have psychic powers or talk to fairies or other such nonsense weild a plethora of excuses as to why they can't or won't demonstrate said abilities; individuals like Phil have to work overtime to justify why they can't or won't demonstrate theirs.

And the reason for that, is MMA. MMA provides a means for individuals to demonstrate mastery of fundamental empty-handed fighting techniques, or lack thereof. The advent of MMA effectively blew down the straw houses in which many so-called Martial Artists sheltered their beliefs from scrutiny or the need of proof.

That's why we're here. We represent the idea that in order to be a real martial artist, you have to be a fighter. We've held "Throwdowns" on 3 continents in over a dozen different countries, for regular folks to get together and test their skills against each other. We've exposed frauds who professs and/or claim to teach fighting ability, while having demonstrated none themselves. And we expect people to put up, or shut up.

It wouldn't take much imagination to see why these "lofty" views would be a threat to those individuals who know themselves to be unworthy of living up to them.

**SFGOON** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 9:54am

Why bother with that fat dumb **** Neal? One day some bum with down's syndrome will carve him up with his own ninja sword, and that will be the end of him and his gyneclomastia-induced bitching.

All the people you picked on in high school wound up like Phil. Do you know what nemesis means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent.

Personified, in this case, by a pedantic corpulent ****, Phil. This is your karmic debt for all the wedgies, all the swirlies, all the fat kids you taped to flag poles, Phrost. One day, your karma will be satisfied and Phil will die of hypogonadism.

In the meantime, why give titty-walrus-man a soapbox.

**Phrost** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 10:22am

Haha.

The guy already has a soapbox. And even though very few people stand around and listen to his ranting, it's an amusing pastime to kick it out from under his fat ass whenever I happen to be passing by.

I spend less time thinking about Phil than I do about the economy of Azerbaijan. But he'd like to think otherwise, and so it's even more gratifying to point at him and snicker.

**Rivington** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 11:18am

And if he goes on about how he is a WRITER and how he ARTICULATES his views, you can point out that he's a damn failure there as well. I just did a Bookscan search on his name. Now Bookscan doesn't record every sale (often as many as 65%, but they could record as few as 20% of all sales), but these numbers are laughable by any standard.

First number after the date is sales this week, second is sales this year, third is sales since release.

ELMORE PHIL DEMON LORD 2003-05-01 0 0 11
ELMORE PHIL FLASHLIGHT FIGHTING 2006-04-01 3 73 101
ELMORE PHIL MECHANICAL WAR 2006-06-01 0 1 5
ELMORE PHIL SHORTHAND EMPTY HAND 2005-04-01 0 14 42

**Vorpal** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 11:18am

Making the case very well, good read for anyone who stumbles upon their nonsense. Why is it so cold in here though?

**Sam Browning** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 1:36pm

Link to Bladeforum thread?

**1point2** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 1:47pm

Excellent bullet points. Man I love lists.

You're also very even-handed. AND RIGHTEOUS

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 2:24pm

Originally Posted by Samuel Browning

Link to Bladeforum thread?

I was gonna ask the same. Nice write-up btw.

**danniboi07** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 3:25pm

blarrghhrhghrhg phil dickmore is t3h suck! i R bullshido and i r right all times! yu don't know me i do wat i want!

Seriously, though, nice response. I tried searching up this thread on their forums, but I'm not a registered member and I've got yardwork to tend to. Can you post any replies?

**johnny3443** · Posted On: 1/03/2009 3:28pm

Here's a link to BF, I have not found the thread yet. http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/fo...s=&forumid=669

I've been a member for a few years, it seems that you have to pay to use the search function now.

BTW Good stuff Phrost.