Just injury. Had neck surgery a while ago. I kept training for about a year with some discomfort, but issues flared up again about the time I had mr first kid. I decided I wanted to be sure I could go hiking with him in ten years or whatever.
Miss it every damn day.
Totally agree with soulgravy.
The suggestion about just doing garage training is actually fairly accurate and something I’d consider
Daughter was born, priorities changed. Also fingers were getting wrecked.
Robobear -Fast Pitch -Injuries. Time with the family. Cutting into work. General lack of interest in the BJJ competition scene.
My whole reason for getting into BJJ was to be able to handle combative subjects (I’m in law enforcement). As a 15 year purple belt I feel like I’m capable of that. Now at age 49 I’m more into staying in the best shape possible and staying injury-free so I can stay on the SWAT team and stay in the game so to speak.
Very similar in age and do the same job. I train a bunch of LEOs in my day classes, I think getting like minded individuals like sarge said is key to avoiding injury and still keep in shape. Legit purple can handle most anything the job will throw at you though.
DONT LISTEN TO THIS MANIAC!......Most sane people can't survive a garage full of "like minded" fuggers like that!
:(
TheBearStare - Totally agree with soulgravy.The suggestion about just doing garage training is actually fairly accurate and something I’d consider
The good anout a garage gang…
On good days you can rip at eachother. You get that mutual "everybody feeling good and motivated" days and others is more like start off everybody feeling like laundry that just went through the wash, but as you drill and spar you might feel better and encourage eachother.....or maybe just maintain a moderate level or throttle it back. It's more personal and adaptable.
From a training aspect.....you get to focus. I'll do rounds of just rotating guys smashing me on bottom for an hour or defending my back. take a breather or water break when we want. I don't need to follow a class and someone's plan.
Way easer to work around chronic issues/injuries. We had a guy with a pulled groin muscle for couple months, he could still train and we all worked around it. When my chronic parts are acting up I ask guys to either work at something else, or I just adapt let them get through and I just work past that point.
Flexibility and focus of training is incredibly beneficial older you get.
Sgt. Slaphead -TheBearStare - Totally agree with soulgravy.The suggestion about just doing garage training is actually fairly accurate and something I’d consider
The good anout a garage gang…
On good days you can rip at eachother. You get that mutual "everybody feeling good and motivated" days and others is more like start off everybody feeling like laundry that just went through the wash, but as you drill and spar you might feel better and encourage eachother.....or maybe just maintain a moderate level or throttle it back. It's more personal and adaptable.
From a training aspect.....you get to focus. I'll do rounds of just rotating guys smashing me on bottom for an hour or defending my back. take a breather or water break when we want. I don't need to follow a class and someone's plan.
Way easer to work around chronic issues/injuries. We had a guy with a pulled groin muscle for couple months, he could still train and we all worked around it. When my chronic parts are acting up I ask guys to either work at something else, or I just adapt let them get through and I just work past that point.
Flexibility and focus of training is incredibly beneficial older you get.
Being able to work on specific things is something I miss about training at a garage gym. Maybe I want to drill double legs instead of berimbolos. Maybe I want to work on passing instead of inverted triangles. You get more partners at a commercial gym, but you lose the flexibility and specificity of garage training.
Bad Karma - Daughter was born, priorities changed. Also fingers were getting wrecked.
I can only imagine the arthritis that’s going to afflict a lot of the predominant gi players in their old age. My hands already hurt and I quit gi a long time ago.
HotSteppa -Soul Gravy -The Closed Guard -TheBearStare -walbjj - Wouldn't say I quit. I train maybe 6x a year. But time, injury and lack of interest. Plus ageThis.Would be cool to have the degrees on my black belt but after I got the belt I had several life occurences. The ratio of costs to benefits of training really shifted. Though I really enjoy teaching I had no desire to open my gym and had no intention of being some world champ so I felt my energies were better utilized when directed towards new endeavors. The personal satisfaction from training also greatly diminished.
Also Il the many changes in the sport really turned me off. Not at all the sport I started with. Honestly if I could find a gym to do just wrestling id probably train more. Bjj has become too much nonsensical pajama drama disconnected from reality
So you hate how chill everything is? Do you want a super aggressive room? Or more self defense?
While I can’t speak for BearStare, it’s my opinion that the competition game these days is completely removed from BJJ’s original purpose. Back when I started, and when I imagine he started, the people who were interested in BJJ were influenced by vale tudo/MMA. Yes, grappling competitions existed independent of these, but no one was practicing the art without real fighting in mind. Most of the big names back then either fought themselves or trained closely with someone who did. Now you have an entire generation of people who happily slide around on their asses like wormy dogs looking for an advantage point.
As far as BJJ vs wrestling, I’ve always appreciated how wrestling is treated, by both coaches and athletes, as a real sport. It’s not a hobby, it’s not something you do to lose weight, be social, or just get out of the house. Expectations are placed upon you and you’re forced to push yourself. You show up to practice and leave it all on the mat, blood, sweat, and pain. To put it bluntly, wrestlers and their coaches take their sport seriously. It’s the difference between real Muay Thai and cardio kickboxing (BJJ is cardio kickboxing in this example).
The difference is that wrestling is really a SPORT, where almost 99% of people who train for competition are under the age of 25. BJJ, like most martial arts, are ARTS where competition is one aspect. No one in their right minds would train a 40 year old like he is an 18 year old wrestling competitor. Wrestling is an Olympic sport and varsity/university sport.
But that’s really nothing to do with why people quit BJJ. In fact, it’s nothing irregular. The martial arts have a ridiculous turnover rate, something over 90% of a couple years.
If we are looking at BJJ as an ART, then it’s up to the instructor to tailor training to the group and individuals.
Sadly, a lot of school train similar to serious competitors, it wears bodies down, and they are forced to quit, or simply become injury managers.
It’s a matter of how you approach it. I’m in my 30s and I approach BJJ like a sport. I train hard and I treat it seriously. I also have no interest training into my 40s or 50s. When I stop being competitive, when I can no longer physically hold my own against other people, I imagine I’ll move on to something else in life. I know a lot of people feel differently and have a desire to continue training at a reduced intensity at older ages. I’m just not one of them.
I’ve also been just as dissatisfied with instructors tailoring the training to the group (read: older people, housewives, “professionals,” etc.) as I’m sure they’ve been with the more strenuous workouts we’ve occasionally had. I started BJJ and continue training BJJ as a component of fighting. It’s frustrating encountering people who want to treat it like a social hour. In the old days, the people you met in BJJ were there because they wanted to learn how to fight. Not because it was the cool thing to do.
That said, it’s not even the casual attitude pervading commercial gyms these days that makes me the most frustrated. It’s the jiu jitsu itself that’s taught and performed. Lots of competition-oriented stuff, so far removed from real fighting it might as well be origami. Lemme know how that berimbolo works on the 220lbs college football player who thinks you were mean-mugging him. Your worm guard will shut him down, no doubt.
So sure, slow it down for older participants, take some of the violence out of it for the housewives, make sure the professionals don’t go back to the office with black eyes. But teach them how to motherfucking fight.
Only so much time in life.