Therein lies the problem for some. You are not going to achieve muscle memory from a one or two day class- it is going to take some time and probably money to do so. That is assuming that the person even has access to a suitable training facility in their area. Speaking of people who are older and/or have physical conditions, the potential for injury during training may outweigh the odds of having to use a hand to hand technique for defense. And if they don't have the strength or agility to practice a technique the way it needs to be done on the street, that training may also be of limited value.
The point that a gun is not always an appropriate or possible response and that other skills are a good idea is well taken, but it is not always that easy.
Oh I definitely agree with you on this.
There comes a point in your life where physical conflict, even of a limited nature, can easily and severely damage a person. A 70 year old woman with osteoperosis would be a bad idea in a self defense class - the risk of bone fracture just doing warmups or stretching exercises would be way too high. Heart conditions, past physical damage or trauma, etc all could make it impossible for a person to realistically put any effort in to self defense training.
This is why the "reasonable man" discussion above is so very relevant, with regards to an elderly person going for their gun against a younger, UNARMED attacker. Depending on circumstances of the individual, taking a single punch might very well be a lethal proposition for an elderly person.
(Whereas a 40 year old male in good health should be able to take a pretty solid hit and wouldn't be justified in escalating to lethal force...)
It's best if folks build a baseline skill well before your golden years. But in some regards there is still some viable things you can learn regardless of your age or physical condition. You don't have to buy MUCH time. Just a little is enough to get to your gun.
In the case of an elderly person any physical conflict already *has* escalated to the level of lethal force as defined by the "fear of severe bodily injury or death."
For elderly folks, you would need a very responsible instructor who took the time to go over your full medical history, evaluation of your physical condition and capabilities, who could then tailor some specific regimen to your exact situation. Very much a one-on-one proposition, or at most small group seminars.
That is where someone could learn to effectively utilize a cane, etc in self defense.
Muscle memory is important from a proficient, "always repeatable" standpoint. When your fight or flight kicks in and your brain switches to survival mode, your body reverts to a base level of motor coordination and your very patterns of thinking change.
Of course any shooter should know or learn this at some point - this is why good firearms self defense instructors teach things the way they do (slide manipulation using the palm and fingers, instead of pinching with the fingers, etc). Anything that can be done with "gross" motor coordination skills should be, since you lose so much fine motor coordination during an adrenaline dump.
Physical training is very similar in that you can only rely on techniques that use gross motor coordination, OR techniques that have been ingrained deeply in to muscle memory, if they involve fine motor coordination.
Any technique (physical motion) which involves fine motor coordination which has NOT been committed to muscle memory is useless during a confrontation. You just won't have the coordination to put it together and have it "on target".
(Think "reloading under stress", or how first-time competitive shooters universally and suddenly realize "man I suck at this" when they go to their first competitive shoot and get the stress of the buzzer going off.)
Anyway partner practice is needed to get the sense of timing built up. Without a solid grip on timing (a natural feel for it), you'll miss more often than not.
I actually have a video handy that covers a few timing concepts, from a friendly impromptu bought with my brother. We were playing dungeons & dragons and he was going on and on about how an unarmed person stands no chance against a person with a weapon, and how if you put a weapon in his hands (any weapon) he could take me out.
We went in to a lengthy discussion / debate about timing concepts and did a series of drills to discuss go no sen, sen no sen, and sensen no sen. (Japanese concepts on timing of attacks or counterattacks). He absolutely would not believe that in sensen no sen, I could actively make him attack me in just the way I wanted him to.
Go no sen is your classic "block and counter".
Sen no sen is acting before your opponent, seizing the initiative. You sense your opponent is about to act (through telegraphing, whatever) and you seize the opportunity to strike faster, first.
Sensen no sen is a bit more refined. You subconsciously provoke your opponent to attack just the way you want them to. You "draw" the attack so that you can execute your technique taking advantage of their body motions, that you got them to make.
I happened to have a training tomahawk in the room (useful as a prop when playing) so one thing led to another and ... (I'm the long haired hippy guy, my brother has the tomahawk)
Now when things DO happen they happen so impossibly fast you can't see what is going on unless you step through the video and freeze frame them.
I leave an opening in my guard while using my front foot to feint a foot sweep. This draws an attack from him using the tomahawk.
I immediately push off of my loaded, sprung back leg as he initiates his upper level attack (which I'd coerced out of him),
while gently tapping his attacking hand with my front hand to deflect the tomahawk away from hitting my head.
Note that the sudden forward momentum I built generates a defensive posture on his part which I use to trap the weapon.
If this were a street fight he would have been closely introduced to my knee at this point.
But it's a friendly bought between brothers so I execute a guillotine instead. Weapon is out of play at this point with my arm knocking it up as I moved forward; it will then be trapped under my left arm as I execute the guillotine.
Now the weapon is trapped and the guillotine is executed - he shoves forward just as I was about to arch my back, but it only makes his predicament worse. To escape a guillotine against a right handed opponent you have to rotate your entire body counter clockwise and there's no room for him to do it. I didn't even need to complete the guard to get a submission from him. (Keeping his legs up and off the ground also prevents him from getting any traction to try to rotate out of it, and keeps his weight on his head which is rather damn uncomfortable for him.)
Anyway since the dogs got in the way it took me 13 seconds to submit him while he was armed, which was 3 more seconds than I told him it would take while he was so busy bragging for 15 minutes about his prowess with handheld weapons. At least he tapped when I said to, saved him from waking up a few minutes later with a nasty headache.
The point of this is to show how timing MUST be fully integrated in to you so that you can act naturally, and without thought. It's difficult enough to explain in writing. It's even pretty difficult to explain with a reference video and freeze frame! But should give some idea of how tiny things happen in milliseconds which direct the course of a struggle.
Human reaction time is .2 seconds give or take - if you have to wait for your brain to decide how to react to something, you lose. If you are able to act naturally through training you can move freely.
"Mind like the moon" is the Asian concept - no surface thoughts, just here and now, allowing your body to react through conditioned responses which take absolutely no time to process. There's no "hiccups" in your actions, you can respond instinctively and immediately to things.
In other words, you *are* the weapon, there is no conscious involvement at any point to decide "I'm going to do this, or if I do this then x/y/z" - because in a hand to hand fight,
you don't have time to think.
Anyway figured that'd be a useful demonstration / introduction to timing concepts.
Go no sen = he attacks, I block the tomahawk, and counter with a response. With no room to maneuver or use body shifting, that means I take an impact to something (arm, whatever).
Sen no sen = I feel he is about to attack, through telegraphing / etc, and execute a move to hit him before he can complete his move. I'd never hear the end of it from my mother if I jacked him in the face with a jab.. and he wasn't initiating an attack (while remaining a serious armed threat).. sooo...
Sensen no sen = opponent is a valid threat but they aren't swinging yet, just maneuvering or waiting for an opening. I provoke him to swing to create an opening while simultaneously executing my own attack against him using that opening.
You simply cannot get to that level of natural response or timing, and an ability to move freely and respond instinctively, without a lot of practice time with partners to get a firm grip on your own body and an innate feeling for the movement of an opponents body.
Again, if that were an actual fight I would have used my knee (hard part) against his face (soft part) instead of executing a submission -
never EVER take a fight to the ground intentionally on the street. Period. Ever.
The moment you do is when the attackers friends jump in, you lose 100% of your perception of what's going on around you, and so on. If a fight hits the ground you do EVERYTHING you can to get back up on your feet again so you can be aware and respond to any other threats that develop.
