I Started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) at 46 year old - And It Changed More Than My Fitness

Today marks 1 full year since I’ve been doing Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

I joined because I’d put my Son into it back when he was 9 years old.

I never did martial arts as a kid, I was the ball & stick kid. To one honest, I still am. I still wear Jordans because of it!

But now, at the ripe old age of 47 I sit here at 6am, preparing for a 7am “jits” class, as they call it, writing about my experiences.

Jiu Jitsu is hard. The learning curve… steep.

Being a man and starting at the essentially geriatric age of 46, I had a lot of internal mountains to climb. BJJ at 46 years old has been a journey.

Will I win? Will I get hurt? Will I really get thrown around by people younger and smaller than I am? These were some of the questions I asked myself.

In short… No, yes, and absolutely yes!

Back to that in a moment.

The community of Jiu Jitsu is something like I’ve never seen. It’s very tight knit and self-supportive.

The older you get, you’re not really out there to meet new friends because you’ve established a solid base of them through your life. But in this past year I’ve met some amazing people whom I call my close friends.

Dinners, nights out, nights in, kids’ sleepovers, impromptu meet ups. It’s kinda like being a kid again, but bonding over something completely different.

We recently had a Thanksgiving potluck at our gym; there was food from all the international cultures of our members! We had so many people out. It really made me smile.

Our Coach tells everyone that “Jiu Jitsu isn’t about Jiu Jitsu”. This is a prime example of that.

But back to my mountains.

In my first 5 classes I was matched with a 115lb Vietnamese women who rag dolled my limbs and tapped me out in a triangle choke.

What on Earth is this sorcery!?? I must learn it!

2 months into my time, I rolled (I use that term very loosely) with a 5-stripe black belt who was also an MMA fighter who fought Canada’s Georges St. Pierre.

Joe Rogan once said “you don’t know how useless you are until a BJJ black belt grabs ahold of you.”

I couldn’t move forward, backward or left or right, or up or down. I was literally just stuck where I was until he was ready to move me. Just think about that for a second. I don’t have function over my own body. I’m not being rag dolled, I’m being completely controlled.

But these experiences drove a certain hunger to learn, and a discipline to continue showing up.

Learning fundamentals is so pivotal in learning more advanced skills. And showing up, even when you don’t want to pays dividends in the end, as for anything in life (see Coach’s quote above).

And finally, I couldn’t truly talk about Jiu Jitsu without dropping a line about my Son. My Son’s progress has been astounding. He is so much better at jits than I am and has recently posed a legitimate threat to me on the mats when we roll. Imagine that; a 110lb, 5’3” human being rag dolling me when I don’t pay attention to what I’m doing… sound familiar?

BJJ has allowed him and I to bond in a way that I’ll forever be thankful for. From talking about the sport, to road trips to other Provinces for competitions. It has been a joy.

I’ve learned so much in my first year in jits, 49% of it being Jiu Jitsu itself and the other 51% being from things that are only branch-offs from the sport and not specific to it.

I’m getting better everyday as a practitioner, but I’m continually humbled by how much more I have to learn.

I guess all this means is that I’m in this for the long haul… I welcome that.