Similar background, although I am younger. Used to be a club bouncer, and took different martial arts from the age of 4, including judo, boxing and traditional karate to black belt level. I enjoyed Krav Maga training the most, no forms or endless yelling and stretching. I did it for about 4 years in my mid 30’s and wish I knew some of the techniques when I was working the door. It is effective and the focus is to do enough damage to allow you enough time to escape or until help comes, or put an attacker down and out if escape is impossible. I teach my kids the techniques from KM, not from any of the other martial arts.
As with any martial art, seek out a good instructor that has walked the walk, not some paper tiger.
I would suggest combining that with some of Hoch Hockheims type knife and stick fighting to have a pretty complete non-gun self protection training set.
Thanks, that is what I thought about KM. Like I said in some post above I instinctively went for the guys larnx as he was at least 4 inches higher than me. I knew I couldn’t fist fight him or wrestle to the ground for the other bouncers to join in. I knew I had one surprise so went for the jugular with fingers around the larnyx and tighten to where he couldn’t speak. The poor over-sized jock was gasping for air. I actually start feeling really bad, so I let off thinking if he gets his wind he could knock me out. He learned his lesson and went back to his car.
Thank you, that is my understanding of KM also. At 63 while in good shape, I no longer have the strength nor speed nor agility of younger opponents. My objective is to go for what really hurts the attacker, whether it be a larynx grap; a finger in the eye; a ball grab, what ever. My days of "fair fighting" are over.