No Irish youre the one who doesnt understand. IM NOT ONE OF THOSE MEATHEAD UFC FANS IN A TAPOUT T-SHIRT. Im just really believe judo and other grappling arts are lacking in peoples training. Many many hours of my life have been spent on situational awareness and takedown defense. I actually have real world experience with these as well.
But if youre fighting for your life and think youre going to reaaon every move slowly in your head youre going to lose, most likely. Muscle memory and balance are key. Judo skills make for a pretty quick fight. And most of the skills Ive practiced are exactly what your last paragraph talked about.
My question to you is- have you ever visited a judo club or even a jiu-jitsu dojo? Not one of these newfangled mma mall ninja places. A real dojo.
Takedown avoidance and keeping your opponent off balance are the basic things you mostly practice in judo. And yes- you do learn throws,falls, and groundwork. But when you take the sport part of jufo out of it, there are lots of "dirty" methods of self defense involved. Its all about being smaller or weaker than your adversary and using physics and technique to defeat them. Going to the ground would mean the fight is being controlled by the other guy. But knowing that you can fight a larger stronger man from the bottom and still defend youself isnt a bad thing. Its not ideal, no, but fighting isnt ever going to be ideal anyhow.
If its fighting for my life, bones will be broken, eyes gouged, genitals destroyed, whatever tools I have to use will be employed to completely ruin the attackers chances of hurting me or whoever.
Of course, I carry a gun all the time, but being quick to respond to physical threats includes all forms of combat. Ive used judo for self defense WAY WAY more than a gun.