That's how I understand it to be as well. Emergency techniques for when "real life" happens and you're stuff doesn't go exactly as planned.
For example, one of the "escapes" that I extrapolated from the form to regain the center was if someone pressed your elbow in at the tricep, you could biu gee from underneath the elbow to control the pressing arm--perhaps going into a lap or gam or whatever.
Of course people have shown applications of the gwai jarn / jang to be also a way to smash into someone's guard, attack the limb, attack the body at extreme close range, or to escape a lapel grab using the jarn with the chor ma.
So there's a lot of things that can be taken from the form. At the same time though, I've seen some crazy interpretations that look nothing like the form sequence that it is claimed to come from.
"I don't know if anyone is known with the art of "sitting on your couch" here, but in my eyes it is also to be a martial art.
It is the art of avoiding dangerous situations. It helps you to avoid a dangerous situation by not actually being there. So lets say there is a dangerous situation going on somewhere other than your couch. You are safely seated on your couch so you have in a nutshell "difused" the situation."