If you have constantly been asking yourself, “Am I too old to start practicing martial arts?” Know this – Martial arts is always older! And no, you are never too old. As Bruce Lee once eloquently said, “having no limitation as limitation.” Anyone can benefit from beginning to train in martial arts and here is why you should shake thoughts like these off:
Training for health
The foremost reason to start training in martial arts, regardless of how old you are, is that it keeps you physically active and moving. Take baby steps and start from the bottom. Most martial arts begin with body conditioning, and by doing it right and being consistently, you will notice you are in better shape than you ever were before.
You will feel younger the more you train as you see your physical progress and improved limberness. Prior to most classes, you are required to do stretching, which serves to strengthen your muscles and make them more pliable. This reduces your susceptibility to injury in your daily life, as the muscles around your joints growing stronger provides additional support and reduces strain on the ligaments.
There are also arts which have emphasis on breathing. Nothing is more essential to the success of how we move our body than tapping into the life force of our essence – our breath. Ask a professional athlete, or an actor, dancer, or signer, and they will tell you that to succeed in any physical craft is to access your breath correctly under physical exertion.
Training for mind
As they say, “Healthy Body, Healthy Mind” and when we age, all the more important it is to walk into the training and releasing all the pent up stress or frustrations in life. Many martial arts have the stress-busting effect where working out intensely helps your body to generate endorphins that empties away the negative emotions, leaving you feeling refreshed and anew.
There are also martial arts available that do have activities that when practicing, instill a meditative element to help keep you in a balanced state of mind. This will allow for a sharper state of mind that is void of clutter, as well as a refine intuition. To have refocused the negative feelings inside into something positive helps relief stress and improve overall mood too.
This can be found especially but not limited to just Qigong and Taichi, any art can be meditative and one just needs to put their mind and time towards the cultivating it. When the abovementioned is achieved, a lesser stress mind is less susceptible towards mental illnesses such as dementia! And will carry on being active will into our golden years.
Training safely
The biggest misconception about a martial arts age limit is the fear of injury at an old age. If all you know about martial arts comes from watching MMA fights on TV, the thought of partnering someone in their twenties and fighting can be off-putting. Fortunately, that’s not how classes at any reputable training center usually operates.
A heavy emphasis on safety while training is usually implemented by the instructor. This is because If your training partner is injured, there will not be enough training partners. Therefore, instructors usually will stress on a safe and co-operative training so that everyone has fun and improves together.
