Old dudes

We oldies who do BJJ often get talked about, especially dudes like me who started in our late 50s or later, and even people who began in their 30s. When I was in my 20s, I thought I was too old to go back to Taekwon-Do after 10 years.

But let’s look at this from another perspective. For example, in my academy there is a 74-year-old blue belt. Some time ago, I heard two young students talking about him in the changing room. They were surprised that this old man does everything and is one of the most regular members. I remember one of them saying, “Imagine me telling my dad to do a forward roll! And this guy does every training session the same as the young ones!”

No matter how bad our performance was, or how bad we think it was, or how old and broken we feel during or after class, we are much, much better than all those dudes who aren’t there and are just sitting on the couch, watching TV or drinking beer at the bar.

Yesterday, after a good warm-up, we did a lot of back control. The person in the dominant position had to try to finish, in other words choke, and the other had to try to escape and take over mount or side control. For the first time, I learned to escape by rotating my body. At least it works against guys who recently started BJJ. After many short rounds with different partners, we had to bear crawl for a couple of rounds and then do different core exercises. I was exhausted but happy at the end.