Steel and Flame.

Reinventing the steel is not necessarily going to improve the sword, nor should improvement try to reinvent the steel.
Steel is fine just the way it is, so is the wheel, there are limited uses for everything and everything has its' place - it would seem the architect behind the design was a bit OCD in that regard.

Improving upon something does not eliminate limitation, it only accentuates them, brings them to the forefront so that they are plain and obvious.
Are you going to bring a knife fight to a gun fight? Perhaps it is better to bring a big pipe or a gun to a knife fight?
Assaults happen fast, sudden, they may know what is going down, you probably have no clue - the limitations are obvious.

Opportunity knocks once in a great while and you may get the upper hand, but generally it is only after you are in need of medical care, at that point you may walk away, but the damage down the road has already been written.
There is a major difference between walking away from a good workout and a violent encounter, yeah, that is beating a dead horse, but will it sink in?

No, it isn't about reinventing the steel, it is about understanding the steel, about gaining perspective, about stripping down to the bare essentials while knowing that you cannot know the whole truth about the nature of chaos.
Will you automatically drop into posture and do what you need to do? Will you freeze? Will you act in a way that does not cause permanent injury to yourself as well as your assailant?
The complex issue is generally best answered fast, forward, and blunt, so why do we have so many complex 'responses?'

The way seems to get a bit hazy at this point, and everyone has their own theory, but theory means zip when it comes to performance.
What does perspective say? Perspective seems to say that differentiation is needed for understanding to take place; that does not subtract from skill, it simply puts things in perspective.
Look at how well we seem to be dealing with 'natural' disasters around the globe, then tell me why we cannot even wrap our noggins around something as basic as survival? How have things become so far removed?

There are a few out there who know the difference and know the problem, who grasp for the answers and seem to have a few.
Some of them may be found in those traditional places, little out of the way places usually, others may be found on the outskirts, bordering what is considered taboo by the theorists that claim to have insight into the 'real book' of the 'one true church.'

So perspective seems to say that things may not necessarily need to change, but how we go about things needs to change drastically.
Mindset and outlook, perspective, understanding, and acceptance. This must all be within the moment as we no longer attach to what came before, and we have no judgment of what comes after, but faith in the unfolding as we participate fully in the process.

That is living, and not mere survival.