Ok, lets go back to the basics and work up from there. In ANY conflict, person on person to army on army, there are 5 things that will determine the winner.
Speed
Strength
Stamina
Skill
Spirit
Any martial art will advance those five things, be it Karate, Judo, whatever. So taking a martial art is good. The question becomes, what are your advantages. Are you a huge hulk of a person so that strength is a natural advantage for you? Are you perhaps a smaller person but quick on your feet so that speed is your advantage? Just as people come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, so do martial arts styles. Also understand that asking which martial art is best is likely to cause a flame war. So here are some of my personal observations.
I have used Shaolin Chin-Na techniques to take a bruiser’s hands off of my throat and pin him to the wall. I have used a lunge move from saber fensing to knock the wind out of someone to end an fight before it started. I have also gotten my head handed to me from a standard boxer and have been pinned by a wrestler. Believe me, there is a lot more to a fight than just what you know
Offense vs Defense -
What is your spirit (mindset)? Beat the crap out of the guy or keep from getting hurt. I find offensive spirits tend to gravitate towards hard styles. Defensive spirits to control styles such as Akido, ju-jitsu etc.
At 65 you are getting on in years. Not trying to insult but just observing fact here. Your body does not heal as quickly. You can’t take the punch that you used to. Your strength and speed are going to start slowing down if they have not already. With all of that in mind, I would consider softer more controling styles.
Krav Maga to me is more combat and less control. My observation would be yeah, you probably could do well with it for the next few years. How about when you are 70? 75? At some point, you are going to have to change the approach and thus, the skill set.
So, perhaps a combination of study? Krav Maga or Wing Chun or Pa Qua for now. Add to that some occasional classes in Hapkido or Akido or Chin-Na. Having more than one tool is also useful at keeping yourself out of jail. Not all situations call for breaking the guy’s collar bone.
All the other martial arts take years of training while working their way up through their special moves and belts. Krav Maga is about immediately hurting your opponent through what we use to call "low blows" in my teenage years. Now, if I can learn to break an attackers knee, I no longer give a shit about a "fair fight". If you read above, I've actually wrapped my skinny fingers around an over-sized punk and sqeezed his vocal chords until his face turned red and he started to slink. I let go not wanting to hurt him permanently - he never came back.
Interesting story to prove my point: I and my wife and her girlfriend were in a familiar biker bar some years back. I walked up to my wife to talk with her and some Vato thought he would give me shit for getting in-between his pick-up sceme. I layed my drink on the bar in anticipation, but he jumped me from the side. We both went down.
Now here is the interesting part. As we went down we knocked over our lead waitress and not knowing what was happening from who, she immediately put me into a choke hold while the dumbshit was trying punch me out that I luckily avoided. My friends pulled the vato off me, but she was still hanging on for dear life. I manage to get enough strength and wind and twist my head around and tell her your choking me, Stacy. She then let go.
Moral of the story choke holds and other Krav Maga holds/hits work! That little girl could have choke the life out of me. It doesn't take much.
Entirely my point, Everything has slowed down, so now I need an edge. Glad you're enjoying your training, but for an olde fart like me, I want to know MORE pressure points. I want to know what hurts and drives the single attacker away.
If more, than I should be carrying and just kill them, although I do carry my Knucle Blaster when ever I take my wife out in public. Not as good as my Sig which I can't carry in Cali, but can disuade those who think we are an easy target. Zap them, they will look for easier targets. Thanks for your input.