Mine has mostly been through insight gained while playing my new hobby of fencing. Because, like real blades, all it takes to lose is for the opponent's blade to make contact, I've found yet another venue that demonstrates that, with weapons, it's often a much higher priority to move quickly than to move with perfection of technique. In fact, it's often the case that moving perfectly is no longer even a possibility, but something still has to be done to stop the blade from contacting you.
Another insight is just how useful it is to teach movement from the core out. Even with fencing, learning to move the body offline, then gradually add in footwork, shoulder, elbow then finally wrist movement, even though these are in nearly reverse order of actual reactive speed, has propelled my ability to not get hit tremendously. Often, all you really have time for at full-speed is arm movement, yet learning to move the entire body has proven useful for situations where the opponent's blade has not been sufficiently stopped by your blade/arm, so that you then have time to react by moving your body and employing your footwork.
I've also learned another context in which I've found just how useful thinking 3-dimensionally and using figure eights can be for smaller blades. My rapier skill is still in its infancy, while I'm already dominating long-term players with my dagger technique. My goal now is to gain the point control and get used to the weight balance and length of the rapier to a point where I can bring my Kali skill online with it as well.
Another good point is that I'm learning that my 40 year old butt can still move lightning fast, and still typically much faster than my opponents.