I don't think that identifying and creating a curriculum for teaching effective self defense is necessarily impossible or purely academic. If you look at the common factors in some of the analogies they've used; aviation, medicine, combat. One of the effective methods of analysis that is used in all of these is some sort of retrospective analysis. A plane crashes and there is an investigation. Something goes wrong in surgery and there is a morbidity and mortality conference. Military engagements have after action reports. In the first two examples (I am uncertain about the third), free and open communication is maximized by placing protections on the discussions and fact finding from civil litigation. Events are then analyzed in detail. Experts in various aspects of the process evaluate such factors as mechanical failure, pilot/surgeon error, and much else and really pick apart the facts of the event to determine what happened, what went wrong, what was done to manage the situation, what wasn't done and what could have been done. And ultimately; if the accepted correct actions had been taken, would the outcome have been changed. The process yields results in these fields in a number of ways. It identifies fundamental flaws in design or concept. It identifies errors made by humans in performing required tasks. It seeks to identify ways of modifying design and human conduct so that mishaps and misadventures can be prevented or if not preventable, the damage can be minimized.
In theory at least, those same principles could be applied to case studies of actual self defense occurrences to identify multiple factors relevant to what occurred and what can be learned from the analysis that would be of benefit in handling such occurrences most effectively. Was the persons ability to avoid a conflict inadequate or ineffective. If so; what could be changed in that person's behavior to avoid the the conflict. The details of the encounter can be analyzed to determine if a technique was effective or ineffective and recommendations could be made as to how the event could have been managed better.
Repeated analysis of such occurences could yield insight into unifying themes as to what is effective and be used to refine or revamp instruction of techniques. It would be a daunting task, but not impossible. It would require some level of consensus as to what individuals were qualified to do such investigations and reports. And it would require commitment among practitioners to incorporate recommended changes into their curriculum. Over time, the constant reassessment could lead to more effective principles based on real world experience. It may sound outlandish, but that process is done constantly in the fields I have mentioned and has resulted in remarkable advancement in quality. IMHO it is possible. The question is; is there enough need for such an effort and is there the collective will to change how very traditional techniques are approached in order to systematically improve self defense technique?
...just rambling through a train of thought.
