Not every frail person is a 'breather" (vaguely meaning totally accepting of the present moment). Just as there are a plethora of 'energetics' who fear the present moment, the same can be said of 'frails'
I like to frame it as the old samurai/zen story of the bad-ass and the monk ... "I'm the one that could run you through without a thought" and "I'm the one who could be run through without a thought" Of course the bad ass withdraws (not much of a story otherwise).
The reason why it's repeated as a story is because it's so unusual that it virtually never happens.
Is it possible to face someone down with chutzpah and "being there in the moment"? Sure - but it has nothing to do with conditioning in the body - of which they have none. If it did, then monks with a long history of breath training would regularly have faced down the fighters who killed them - but historically that is just not the case.