On further reflection (following on from the last post), I think this is what I'm looking for (even if it isn't 100% fitting my "ideal" martial arts):
I want something that's essentially the martial arts (or rather, "defensive arts") equivalent of yoga.
Yoga is an effective physical practice that can also be an effective spiritual practice. You can do it in a class under the instruction of a more experienced teacher, and then you can take that knowledge home with you and have a personal practice that's just you and your breath and the moving meditation.
In all of the yoga classes I've been to, the assumption is not that the students are empty vessels who need to learn from the much superior master, but rather that we are yogis in our own right who are working towards our own goals in our own time. You can have a wide range of abilities in the one classroom, and they all have the invitation made to them to "do what serves you" - take the movements and forms to the edge of your ability so that it pushes you exactly as much as you need to be pushed today and no further.
When it works well, it calms and centres you, but leaves you feeling like you've had a proper work out.
I'm looking for something like that, that will also let me walk through a dark carpark safe in the knowledge that I can take on anything/anyone that might come at me.
The other stuff would be the icing on the cake, really.
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