Adaptability

Adaptability is to respond rapidly and effectively to unexpected events, i.e. think violence. It means a martial artist or self-defense person must have an ability to quickly drop a planned sequence of actions and replace them with a more appropriate set of actions or action. Using intuitive abilities you are alerted to unintended actions and those same intuitions alert you to unintended consequences coming from last second intuitive improvisations or adaptations. 

Fostering malleability along side or in tandem with adaptability is a good part of what self-defense must be to protect against violent encounters. You have to shape and mold your self-defense actions so they remain pliable enough to form new actions as the moment dictates especially in violent encounters. This is even more important in those blitz like violent attacks that come from seemingly no where.

How is this accomplished, you accept the unacceptable through training, more training and practice along side more practice then you begin to supplement it all with as much reality based experiences as humanly possible. You work outside your comfort zone and you think outside the box. You adapt, improvise and overcome all obstacles of the mind, body and spirit. 

Ideally you plan like this till you reach a point of experience that you may not need to plan. You are then at a level where that experience, all experience, allows you to act without the need to plan. You are then in the mode of expertise that carries in the moment.