When you are training self defence techniques for real life situations there is a simple rule I follow;

If it's too easy...you're not doing it right!

Now I'm not saying your eyes should be bulging, heart rate 240bpm, standing in 4 inches of sweat...but the truth is effective training in any discipline or walk of life has to be as close to the real endeavour as possible or you are just not making best use of your time and effort.

This is absolutely critical when it comes to a self defense situation. When the adrenaline has 'dumped', your base insticts have kicked in, you are in a real 'danger' situation and you possibly have loved ones to consider/protect also....FINE MOTOR MOVEMENTS, EXQUISITE TIMING AND PRECISE TECHNICAL DETAIL ARE JUST NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.  You CAN be tactically aware, technically much superior, psychologically and emotionally prepared and cognitively sharp during an aggressive encounter. However, You have to spend your valuable training time under that physical and mental stress (within reason of course)

This is why at a Krav Maga Academy Scotland class we warm up PROPERLY before we begin training in earnest. We have to prepare...

1. Physically - heart rate up, blood oxygenated, core temp up, joints, tendons etc. warmed up. Body stretching, and overall loosened up for training. We also want to be  fatigued up to a point, we should always try to train from a position of disadvantage.
2. Psychologically - under a certain amount of stress (simulating your response to a 'real' situation), Our goal is to get to a point where we react instinctively, especially when under physical and psychological stress.

Now we are confident we can train powerfully, realistically and effectively in terms of realism and reduced risk of injury.

As we improve and progress technically we must also 'ramp' up the speed' agression etc. of the attacks we are training to defend. We learn much more from defending one realistic attack poorly than we do from defending 10,000 completely un realistic attacks beautifully.

We are here primarily to learn a self defence system...like most things...we learn better by experience...so that experience has to mimic the real event as closely as possible.

Train hard, be safe.