| Friend,
This is an old Gracie Breakdown video, but I thought it was worth sharing. In it, Rener talks about why size, strength, and age matter in jiu-jitsu (and combat sports in general).
It's funny, because as aging instructors this is something that's worth considering. There are few things more frustrating than dealing with an extremely athletic student.
I had a discussion once with a very accomplished martial artist who said he was crushed by being beaten soundly as an adult black belt by a 14-year-old brown belt from another school.
As it turned out, that "kid" was Alvin Prouder, who went on to become one of the greatest kickboxers, pound for pound, of his era.
I had the same thing happen to me as a new TKD black belt. One night one of our green belts who was just a phenomenal athlete out-pointed the crap out of me during sparring. It made me feel foolish, but ultimately he was just a helluva lot faster off the line than I was, and after that experience I was forced to develop attributes I didn't naturally have.
At some point, you have to come to grips with the fact that athletic ability is a factor in sparring. And athletic ability has a lot to do with age and size (as well as how naturally gifted and fit someone is). Listen in as Rener explains his take on this, and how you need to deal with it in training as you age.
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
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P.S. - Not being naturally gifted as an athlete, I've always had to work harder to gain skill and to improve. Sometimes I think this is better in the long run, because it forces you to understand tactics and strategy a whole lot better than your training partners. Still, there's nothing that pisses me off more than seeing someone "get" a technique in a night that took me weeks or months to acquire. But, that's just life, and it's also what makes martial arts training such a fun challenge. I mean, we can't all be a Bruce Lee, Anderson Silva, or GSP. :)
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