Table of Contents
No.
Is it all you have to say?
Of course not, but I like to joke sometimes. But if you want me to be serious, this is what I have to tell you.
I re-started karate at thirty-two. I had no athletic background, I was overweight and barely moved. I was literally out of breath during the warm-up. I’m writing this about a year and a half later, as a green belt who spars regularly and also fought in his first tournament (and lost 5-0 in the first turn, but what an experience it was). So when I tell you it’s not too late, I kind of know what I’m saying.
Read this if you’re scared
The word “martial” comes from Mars, the Roman god of war. Whatever the modern reality of martial arts training, the origin is combat. Literally war, it’s a matter of life or death. Today it’s a sport, but still a fighting sport.
If you were forty and you were thinking about starting football, tennis, golf, or whatever else, you would implicitly accept that, at the start, you’ll kind of suck. That wouldn’t scare you, at best you will feel a little shame if you’re lowering the quality of your team (if you choose a team sport).
But why are people, especially adults, scared of starting a martial art? Well, to put it simple, you’ll get hit, and the fear of getting hit as an adult strikes much harder than as a child. If everything went as I wish for everybody, you’ve not been in a proper fight for many years, if ever, so the simple thought of fighting scares you. I know this was true for me, and it took some hits to understand that it actually doesn’t hurt so much, if you wear the proper gear.
I should also say that the fear of physical confrontation is engraved in the instinct of every living being, and we are no exception. In nature, a fight can mean that we are killed, and even if we win we might still get hurt, and so our survival chances are compromised. We have all the reasons in the world to avoid fighting, so the fear is understandable.
Add to this the image most people have of martial arts — flexible teenagers, effortless kicks, movies with spectacular movements (picture Bruce Lee, probably the most famous martial artist ever). Let me tell you, a high level karate fight looks very different than what you expect.
My first months (and yours, hopefully)
I was terrified and excited in equal measure on my first day. This gave me the strength of enduring huge amounts of pain, which I felt during and after every single lesson.
It did get easier, eventually. If today I had to fight the version of me who started a year and a half ago, I could probably fight five of them one after the other and beat them all. It doesn’t mean everything becomes effortless, though: adult bodies don’t move the same way as teenagers. Flexibility, reaction time, the capacity to develop new automatisms: all of these are harder past thirty (and honestly, past twenty, too). A teenager who has trained for years doesn’t think before striking; he doesn’t have an internal monologue going “His face is not properly covered, do I have the right guard and am I fast enough to kick him with an ura mawashi? Should I be safer and hit with a kizami?” (which, by the way, are the names of two techniques, the first one is a kick and the second is a punch). An experienced teenager won’t think at all, he will hit with all the speed he has and get the points awarded to him.
That’s not all. Your joints will have opinions (mine surely did, when I’m stretching they still call constantly for the couch). Things that look easy will be hard. You will doubt yourself, you will go back home at the end of the lesson thinking “Seriously? Not even a somersault? I remember doing them all the time on my parents’ bed, what happened?”. Luckily, things that look impossible will become possible with time, you’ll just have to wait a little longer than you thought.
Do I have any advantage at all?
Yes, absolutely.
Adults have chosen to be on a tatami. That sounds trivial, but trust me, it isn’t. A child in martial arts might have been put there by a parent who wanted to get rid of him three afternoons per week. A teenager might be there because a coach drafted them. An adult who starts at thirty-two, forty, forty-five — they’re there because something in them decided that it mattered. That makes so much difference, it’s unreal.
Many of us (like me) also carry something else: a desire for redemption. I had practiced briefly as a teenager and was forced to stop. When I found a dojo that taught the same style I had trained in as a kid, I didn’t hesitate for a second. That was my sport, my passion, something I should have had all along. That was mine, and nothing could stop me from taking it.
Even if you don’t have the kind of history I have, if you’re an adult who wants to start a martial art it means that you have thought about it, you know the reason behind your desire, you know what it costs to let things go unpursued. Teenagers, lucky them, don’t bring this awareness with them. They haven’t lived through it, and they don’t need to. Things come more easily to them. Adults compensate with determination.
Not just that, also discipline. Showing up three times a week when you have a full life, a job, maybe a spouse and children — that requires a level of commitment that most teenagers don’t have to develop, because they don’t need it yet. That commitment, compounded over months, produces real results.
What are your limits?
Despite all the amazing progress we can make, some things will always be out of our reach. Elite-level competition is certainly one of them. Certain kinds of physical fluidity are another — the body has its windows, some of them close with time, and cannot be reopened.
Most adults who want to start martial arts do not wish to become Olympic athletes, I have accepted that will never happen to me. What we want is to overcome our limits, find out what our bodies can do, how strong we can become. We want to build what we have never built, a new version of ourselves that is capable enough to realize something extremely difficult.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have limits. The study of a martial art is not a path that starts with a white belt and finishes with a black one. It’s not just combat, either – it’s discipline, respect, determination. All of this makes up the Do — the Japanese word for “way” or “path”. It’s a way of continuous development, a path of perfection that can never be reached. You will always be a student, and I find it magnificent.
This framing transforms the fact that you’re starting “late” from a disadvantage into something completely natural. Starting early won’t give you more chances to get to the end of the path, because it doesn’t end at all. It never did, it never will.
So, should I start or not?
If you got to this point, chances are you’re now aware that my advice will always be to start, even if you’re sixty.
Of course, find a reputable school with an instructor who takes adult beginners seriously. No legitimate teacher will introduce you to kumite (fighting) on your first week. You’ll spend months on fundamentals — movement, techniques, positions — before anyone is trying to hit you. That is probably the most important time you will spend in the dojo. Also the most painful, but where’s the fun in having it easy?
Don’t stress too much about which style to choose based on what’s “best for adults”, or what’s the “strongest”. There is not a such thing as a “strongest” martial art, there are only better athletes. Your choice should be based on what genuinely interests you (and what’s available in your location, obviously). Passion will take you further than any physical advantage. I prefer to fight with no weapons, so I chose karate (the word karate literally means empty hand, even though there are more metaphorical explanations for this term).The mind, when properly used, will take you to unimaginable heights. You will change, there’s no doubt about it. One day, you’ll be sparring with someone ten, fifteen, twenty years younger than you and realize that there’s not a huge gap. You can beat him.