(Approx 2 minute 45 second read)

In my last article, I spoke about the uncomfortable reality of aging. The biological fact that a 66-year-old cannot reliably out-athlete a bigger, stronger, violent 20-year-old.
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The response was telling. Some found it liberating, while others found it insulting. But once we accept that our hardware has slowed down, we are forced to ask the most important question in martial arts: Now what?
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If we can no longer rely on speed, durability, or explosive power, how do we actually survive?
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The answer isn’t in training harder; it’s in training differently.
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I’ve seen that violence is rarely a duel; it’s an ambush. In your twenties, you have the physical hardware to survive a mistake. You can be caught off guard, take a punch, and let your reflexes and athleticism claw you back into the fight.
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At 66, I no longer have that luxury. My hardware has lag. But my software, the ability to read an environment, recognize pre-attack cues, and understand human psychology, is better than it has ever been. The strategy must shift entirely from reaction to prediction.
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If I am forced to use my hands to defend myself without needing to, my software has already failed. At this stage of life, my best move happens thirty seconds before the first punch is thrown.
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Many seniors still practice high-dexterity joint locks or complex combinations in the dojo, but those moves can become liabilities. We have to stay with what we know works best – gross motor skills.
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In a high-stress encounter, fine motor skills evaporate for everyone, but for the older practitioner, this is doubly true. Our arsenal must be stripped down to the “ugly” but effective. Remaining standing at all costs, using the environment, physical obstacles like cars or furniture between ourselves and the threat.
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There is also a tactical advantage to being 66 that most people overlook, which I think of as the predator’s assumption. A young aggressor looks at a grey-haired man and sees a soft target. They expect compliance or frozen fear. They don’t expect a man who understands distance management and possesses a short-fuse mindset for violence.
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While the young man is posturing and revving his engine, the experienced martial artist is already positioning for the exit or the preemptive strike. We don’t need to win a three-minute round. We need to create a one-second window of chaos that allows us to escape the situation entirely.
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In my youth, winning meant dominance. It meant the other guy was down and I was standing. Today, my definition of winning has changed to “zero impact”. If I de-escalate with words, I win. If I spot a dangerous vibe in a parking lot and walk back into the store, I win. If I have to strike, I do it once, and I do it hard, and I disappear before his friends arrive, I win.
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At my age, a victory that ends with a torn rotator cuff or a cracked rib is actually a loss. The recovery time is too long, and the cost to my daily quality of life is too high.
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The hardest part of aging in the martial arts isn’t the physical pain; it’s the psychological shift of admitting the lion has become a fox. We have to stop training for the person we were and start training for the person we are.
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That means more time spent on situational awareness and less time trying to prove we can still hang with the young guys in sparring (though I still do, occasionally).
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True maturity is realizing that my experience doesn’t make me bulletproof; it makes me smart enough to know when to walk away before the chaos begins.
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Actually, age has a way of forcing this lesson on us. But the principle works for everyone. Be smart, don’t let ego try to win when the odds are against you.
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Written by Adam Carter – Shuri Dojo