I know many people who teach martial arts in their 40es, 50es, 60es and above. Few of them are actively training with their students, particularly when they practice high impact styles like kickboxing, muay thai and boxing. As I recently turned 60 I saw this age a kind of a turning point. Having seen my original karate and kickboxing teacher still practicing in his 70es I took his inspiration and follow my motivation to keep running my classes from within rather than outside the group. Another inspiration for me is Bill “superfoot” Wallace, 20 years older than me, who still runs hundreds of seminars per year and showing to youngsters how to do double and triple kicks.
Training kickboxing at 60 has its inconveniences:
- injuries at muscles and tendons happen more frequently, kind of regularly
- recovery takes a long time and annoying little aches and pains are always there
- even if fully warmed up when I try a technique which I have not practiced in a while I might wake up the next day with a new pain which will last a few days
But what are the alternatives? Stop training and:
- getting fat, slow and sluggish
- experience natural pains of getting older
- accepting that age forces to slow you down…
I don’t think so! My policy is to keep training, ignoring the niggles and aches and keep practicing as regularly as possible. I can gently increase and decrease the level of pressure on my body following my natural feedback. Do I feel great today? I’ll go for it and train hard with big and fit guys. Do I fell a bit less ok? Great I can still run a class and train with less fit people but keep moving. Having experienced a couple of major traumas since I turned 50 I learnt to listen to my body and slow down a bit from time to time but trying to catch up as soon as physically possible.