Reflexive Memory

In lieu of the term or phrase muscle memory. Muscle memory leads to thinking that simply repeating a movement over and over again without all the other principles will encode that movement into instinctive and reflexive memory. This is a misnomer. There is no such thing as muscle memory. To use this phrase or term can lead to misunderstanding when practicing for reflexive action in the heat of conflict.

Reflexive memory is where the mind, body and spirit act as one. When properly practiced and trained it refines movement and motion to help us fill other fundamental principles of martial systems, i.e. like economic motion. This type of action, reflexive and instinctive, is superior to such contrived actions you might find in typical self-defense drilling (drilling is a necessary tool for the initiate to martial arts but not to action in defense, ergo why it is important to make distinctions such as this).

To develop reflexive actions and thus reflexive memory you have to practice, practice and practice meaning repetition, repetition and more repetition. But, that is not the end of the story about reflexive memory-actions. You have to be selective about what techniques you encode this way. Learning many, many techniques are not productive and effective. Initially you learn a compete set of such techniques so you can whittle them down to the essential for defense. Accumulating more and more tend toward diminishing the actual reflexive action-memory capability you encode where they leave you in the lurch when you need them in a conflict. 

Remember that once you encode a reflexive action into reflexive memory it takes twice as long to remove that byte from memory to make room for the more appropriate. 

There are many more avenues to take in reaching reflexive memory-actions such as reality based simulations and scenarios along with visualizations when performing repetitive practices. This involves all the fundamental principles of martial effectiveness. 

Bibliography:

Perlman, Steven J. "The Book of Martial Power: The Universal Guide to the Combative Arts." New York. The Overlook Press. 2006.