Mr. E
Blue Belt
Althaur,
I failed to find a review by you at for Mr Elmore's book at Amazon.com. Maybe you might want to post it there as well.
I do have concerns about the qualifications, or rather lack of them, for Mr Elmore.
I understand that he has not sought out instruction in sword work, or really any art, to a level that would allow him to instruct and use the name of the school. He also makes a lot of fun of people who do get that type of instruction and pokes fun at their use of tradition and such.
But here is a quick, blunt question for Mr. Elmore and anyone else who wishes to come up with their own stuff....
As an adult, have you ever been so scared in a violent situation that you lost control of your bowels?
I fear that this will only get me some nasty comments, but it is a very valid question.
Under states of extreme fear your body does certain things. These things are not an issue as you train or put things together in a safe place. But when you are really sacred for you life you lose fine motor control, your vision goes tunnel, your sense of time changes, you can't access certain skills and your body tries to void your lower intestine out your anus.
So if you have not soiled your trousers, you have never experienced all the other things that could take what you do and make it very, very different. What seems to work in a dojo or in sparring just might fall apart as your body changes under the influence of adrenaline and your mind is controlled more by the amygdala than by the rational portions of the mind.
And in that state, you might find that many of the things you tossed away as being kept for mere sake of tradition actually had a use. They may not be obvious until you actually get in that state, but that does not mean that they are not there.
It may be that if you were to study something so deeply that you achieved master status along with a lot of inquiries into the nature of the body under stress you might someday be able to tell what is useful and what can be tossed away. Maybe. Maybe not. But as I understand it, Mr Elmore has claimed to be a student of physics as his qualification for coming up with his method of swordsmanship. That seems very far from even the minimum to tell if what he does will stand up even when someone is so scared they soil their trousers.
I failed to find a review by you at for Mr Elmore's book at Amazon.com. Maybe you might want to post it there as well.
I do have concerns about the qualifications, or rather lack of them, for Mr Elmore.
I understand that he has not sought out instruction in sword work, or really any art, to a level that would allow him to instruct and use the name of the school. He also makes a lot of fun of people who do get that type of instruction and pokes fun at their use of tradition and such.
But here is a quick, blunt question for Mr. Elmore and anyone else who wishes to come up with their own stuff....
As an adult, have you ever been so scared in a violent situation that you lost control of your bowels?
I fear that this will only get me some nasty comments, but it is a very valid question.
Under states of extreme fear your body does certain things. These things are not an issue as you train or put things together in a safe place. But when you are really sacred for you life you lose fine motor control, your vision goes tunnel, your sense of time changes, you can't access certain skills and your body tries to void your lower intestine out your anus.
So if you have not soiled your trousers, you have never experienced all the other things that could take what you do and make it very, very different. What seems to work in a dojo or in sparring just might fall apart as your body changes under the influence of adrenaline and your mind is controlled more by the amygdala than by the rational portions of the mind.
And in that state, you might find that many of the things you tossed away as being kept for mere sake of tradition actually had a use. They may not be obvious until you actually get in that state, but that does not mean that they are not there.
It may be that if you were to study something so deeply that you achieved master status along with a lot of inquiries into the nature of the body under stress you might someday be able to tell what is useful and what can be tossed away. Maybe. Maybe not. But as I understand it, Mr Elmore has claimed to be a student of physics as his qualification for coming up with his method of swordsmanship. That seems very far from even the minimum to tell if what he does will stand up even when someone is so scared they soil their trousers.
!).
