Years ago, the term "martial artist" meant an individual who studied serious martial arts: arts whose purpose was totally self-protection, even to the exclusion of martial sports and martial ways.  Today, however, "martial artist" has come to include all who study anything "martial" including the 13-year old black belt from Karate-mart.  Because of this I no longer wished to identify myself a martial artist.  Then I came across Phil Elmore's web site, The Martialist.  What a great word!

By dictionary definition, a martialist is a warrior.  While I do not like to call myself a warrior -- real warriors are those who willingly place themselves in harm's way, protecting us from the enemies of our nation -- I do, in fact, study any and all martial arts that will provide the skills needed to keep safe my family and myself.  This includes firearms, but excludes all martial "sports" and martial ways.

You might ask, "Do your interests include mixed martial arts (MMA), like the Ultimate Fighting Challenge?"  My answer remains the same.  To the extent that this sport can help me refine my martial skills, then yes, I am interested and learn from them whenever I can.  But I have no interest in the sporting aspect of MMA.  After all, their objective is to have fun or to entertain an audience, but explicitly, it seeks to have an evenly matched, fair fight.  I have absolutely no interest in a fair fight.  If I cannot avoid a fight, my objective is to make it as unfair as possible with the odds stacked in my favor.  For these reasons, a  martialist  is what I prefer to call myself.