--- title: "Taking up a martial art when you're older" date: 2026-07-30T14:03:00+02:00 author: "henk@noregt.com" canonical_url: "https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/news/taking-up-a-martial-art-when-youre-older" section: Nieuws --- # Taking up a martial art when you're older *30 July 2026* | [Lees dit in het Nederlands](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/nieuws/beginnen-met-een-vechtsport-na-je-40ste) ![Henkvanmierlo](/afbeeldingen/nieuws/_groot/19628/henkvanmierlo.avif) You're 38, you spend most of your day in front of a screen, and a few times this year you've thought you really ought to start doing something again. A martial art isn't usually top of the list. That looks like something for twenty-year-olds whose lower back doesn't bother them yet. So are you too old for this, or is it a case of 'never too old to learn'? At **Renzo Gracie Tilburg** you'll find people who first walked onto the mat at 35, 42 or 49, training in the same classes as the competitors. One of them now teaches those classes. If you want to find out how that feels without committing to anything: you can [train for 30 days for 30 euros](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/trial-class), or have a look at [the prices](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/prices) first. [Try the classes!](/en/trial-class) ![Kemail](/afbeeldingen/nieuws/vechtsport-op-leeftijd/_klein/19634/Kemail.avif) ### Are you too old to start a martial art? No. There is no upper limit for training recreationally, and there isn't one for competing either. The international jiu-jitsu federation IBJJF runs separate competition divisions for people over thirty. Master 1 starts at 30, Master 4 runs from 46 to 50, and Master 7 is for anyone aged 61 and up. So there's an entire competitive structure built for people who, to a twenty-year-old, started far too late. What changes after forty is your recovery, not your ability to learn. You need more time between two hard sessions and you notice straight away when you've slept badly. You plan around that. Training well twice a week gets you further than training four times a week until you're wrecked. ![Promoties 2025 07 0869 web](/afbeeldingen/nieuws/vechtsport-op-leeftijd/_klein/19638/promoties-2025-07-0869-web.avif) ### Why starting later is also an advantage As a twenty-year-old you rely on speed and muscle. That works fine, right up until you run into somebody faster and stronger. By your thirties that option is gradually closing off, and you start to notice that timing and technique are a good deal more efficient. That's exactly what martial arts are built on, and you learn it faster when your body forces you to train smart instead of hard. On top of that, at this age you usually have a clearer idea of why you're there. You're not training to prove anything to anybody, you're training because it does you good. That sounds like a detail, but it's the reason people over thirty tend to keep turning up more consistently than the twenty-year-olds who start harder. Patience and showing up matter more in the long run than explosiveness. ![Henk van Mierlo](/afbeeldingen/_klein/84/henk-van-mierlo.avif) ### Henk started at 49 and now teaches BJJ himself Henk van Mierlo first stepped onto the mat for a Brazilian jiu-jitsu class in 2012. He was 49 and by then had thirty-five years of martial arts behind him: judo as a child at sportschool Ooms, Kyokushin karate from the age of eighteen, and then twenty-odd years of Pencak Silat, Wushu Kung Fu and Wing Chun. That helped less than he had expected. > "I had thirty-five years of martial arts behind me and spent my first months getting tapped out by nineteen-year-old students. That was exactly what I was after, and I learned an enormous amount from it." His entire background was built around keeping distance and coming in at the right moment. Jiu-jitsu starts precisely where that ends. There is no distance, and the reflex to make space works against you. A large part of what he could do had to be unlearned first, and that took him longer than it would have taken an actual beginner. He is 63 now and teaches part of the jiu-jitsu programme at Renzo Gracie Tilburg. > "By now I see jiu-jitsu as a game that never gets finished. Someone always turns up with a solution I hadn't thought of. That it keeps me fit along the way is a bonus." The mental side does as much work as the physical one. On the mat everybody is equal and whatever you've achieved elsewhere counts for nothing. You have to concentrate on the sport and on who is getting to the better position. Everything waiting for you at home and at work drops away for an hour. ![Leonie](/afbeeldingen/nieuws/vechtsport-op-leeftijd/_klein/19635/Leonie.avif) ### Leonie, started at 41 Leonie had always played sport. Ballet, speed skating, years of going to the gym. None of it ever became a passion. With jiu-jitsu it did, and the reason she walked in was hardly a noble one: she had put on too much weight. > "I came out of the covid years overweight and depressed. For me jiu-jitsu is a form of therapy that happens to get you fit." What keeps her here is exactly what made it hard at the start. The sport exposes your limitations, including the ones that come with your age, and it does so painfully directly. Anyone who keeps turning up during the months when nothing improves, or when it even seems to be going backwards, will at some point notice they can do things they'd thought were beyond them. Four years after her first class, Leonie wears a blue belt. > "That experience gives you the confidence to apply the same persistence to setbacks off the mat. And I've probably never been as fit in my life as I am now." ![Piotr fundamentals](/afbeeldingen/nieuws/vechtsport-op-leeftijd/_klein/19636/piotr-fundamentals.avif) ### Piotr Krol, started after 40 Piotr was never unfit. He had trained in the gym for years and was in good physical shape, but he had never done a martial art or any kind of self-defence. What he was missing in the weights room was the company. There everybody trains next to each other rather than with each other, and he was after a sport where people keep one another going. The first few months turned out harder than he had expected. > "Being fit in the gym doesn't automatically mean you have the conditioning for jiu-jitsu. For the first six months almost every session was a fight just to keep up physically." On top of that, jiu-jitsu asks you to think the whole time. Every new technique was a problem to solve before he could execute it. What carried him through was that the coaches and his training partners kept telling him the same thing from day one: be patient, every session makes it a little easier. They were right. His conditioning caught up, he became calmer on the mat, and the sport started to make sense. He's now in his third year and is one of the older members of the group. There are still evenings when his biggest opponent is himself, but he goes about it more wisely than he did at the start. > "I no longer try to remember everything at once. I take one technique and keep repeating it until it becomes natural. Progress is never linear, it comes in waves, and accepting that is simply part of it." What he values most in the end is the people. > "I don't put pressure on myself. I just want to keep improving at my own pace, and being part of this group is already something I appreciate." ## Cardio kickboxing when you're over thirty Alongside BJJ, cardio kickboxing is the obvious sport to pick up if you want to get physically fitter and stronger but feel some hesitation about facing off against other people. It's still a serious challenge and you learn the techniques properly, but you never have to spar. The advantage at Renzo Gracie Tilburg is that those techniques are taught by instructors who actually use kickboxing techniques in sparring themselves, so what you learn is realistic and not just a form to go through. In this video you'll see people of all ages, men and women together, which shows it suits just about anyone. ### Which martial art suits you if you start later? The answer mostly comes down to one question: do you want to hit people, or would you rather learn to fight a different way? ### Brazilian jiu-jitsu BJJ is a ground fight. You take your training partner down, work towards a position where there's little they can do, and finish with a choke or a lock on a joint. If you're stuck, you tap your partner. They let go and you start again. There's no punching and no kicking. For someone starting at fifty, that's the decisive difference with most other martial arts: you can train at full intensity for years without ever taking a shot to the jaw. Sparring, known as [rolling](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/bjj-tilburg), happens in five-minute rounds in which you and your partner decide together how hard it goes. If you'd rather train without a gi, [grappling](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/grappling-tilburg) is the same sport in sportswear. Faster, less to hold on to, and technically a bit harder to start with. ### Kickboxing and Muay Thai [Cardio kickboxing](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/cardio-kickboxing) is the easiest start of them all. You learn kicks, punches and footwork without ever sparring. It's purely about building your conditioning. [Kickboxing](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/kickboxing-tilburg): you learn a punch, a kick and your footwork, and you hit pads or the bag. Your fitness improves visibly within a few weeks. [Muay Thai](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/muay-thai) adds the elbow, the knee and clinch work, which makes it technically richer and physically a bit heavier. Sparring is part of it, but it isn't a fight. Anyone who wants to spar lightly, spars lightly. Anyone who doesn't want to spar for now does the technique classes and the conditioning. ### Boxing Just your hands, which makes it the discipline where you can keep refining the same handful of movements the longest. At [boxing](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/boxing-tilburg) we regularly see people stick with it who never managed to keep up a sport before, purely because the technique is never finished. ### Is a martial art dangerous when you're a bit older? The injuries that turn up in people over forty almost always come from the same place: tapping too late because you don't want to lose to somebody younger. After that comes sparring harder than agreed, and a distant third is skipping the warm-up because you came in late. All three are choices. > "Tapping isn't a defeat. It's the reason I'm still training at 63." > Henk van Mierlo, Brazilian jiu-jitsu instructor The experienced people on the mat are the ones who tap most often, precisely because they feel when a lock is about to catch and don't wait for their elbow to sort it out. Stick to that from your first week and you can keep this up for decades. The same principle applies to the stand-up work. Mouthguard in, shin guards on, intensity agreed beforehand. Our instructors walk around during sparring and step in the moment somebody starts taking it too seriously. ### How do martial arts fit around work and family? Two fixed evenings a week is enough to genuinely make progress. That sounds like very little if you're coming from the gym, but a martial art works differently. You don't design a programme, you don't track your progress, and you don't decide for yourself whether you feel like leg day today. The class starts, somebody tells you what you're going to do, and an hour and a half later you're done. For people who spend all day making decisions, that's a large part of the appeal. The [schedule](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/schedule) shows you which evenings fit into your week. ### What a training session does to your head You can't think about work while somebody is busy wrapping up your neck. That isn't a nice line for a website, it's literally how it works. An hour of rolling demands so much attention that nothing else fits alongside it. No phone, no half-listened-to podcast, no room for that one email from this afternoon. Plenty of people say afterwards that this is the real effect of the sport, more than the fitness. You come in with a full head and you leave with an empty one and sore muscles. ### Training at Renzo Gracie Tilburg The gym is on Ketelhavenplein in the Reeshof, next to Tilburg Reeshof station, and is part of Renzo Gracie Holland. Kemail Verhoeven trained for five years in the United States, including at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York, and teaches [MMA](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/mma-tilburg), BJJ, Muay Thai, kickboxing and boxing here. Henk van Mierlo teaches part of the jiu-jitsu programme. All of our [instructors](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/instructors) are listed on the site with their background. We don't put beginners in a separate group. You train in the same class as the advanced students, with techniques explained at your level, and you roll or spar with whoever is there that evening. That teaches you faster than a separate beginners' class, and it's the reason you'll know most of the names on the mat within a month. Come and [have a look](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/contact) some time, or jump straight in with the [30 days for 30 euros](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/trial-class). If you're unsure about your age, walk up to Henk after class. He's done it himself. ## Frequently asked questions #### I haven't done any sport for years. Do I need to get fitter first? No, and putting it off for that reason costs people about a year. You build your conditioning in the classes themselves. In your first weeks you'll step aside more often to get your breath back. Nobody thinks anything of it, and after a month or two you'll notice you need those breaks less. #### Do I have to spar if I don't want to? At kickboxing and boxing you can do the technique and conditioning classes without sparring. At BJJ rolling is part of the class, but it still isn't compulsory, and it's something other than fighting anyway: it's solving a problem together, and you decide how hard it goes. Just say so before the round starts. #### What do I need for my first class? Sportswear, something to drink, and flip-flops for between the changing room and the mat. For BJJ you can borrow a gi for your first few classes. A mouthguard and shin guards, for MMA and kickboxing, you'll only need once you start sparring. #### I'm 45 and I have an old injury. Is that a problem? Usually not, as long as you mention it beforehand. We'll give you a variation on the techniques you're better off avoiding, and put you with someone who'll take it into account. If it's recent or serious, check with your physiotherapist or GP first. #### How long before I can actually do something? At kickboxing and boxing you'll feel your balance and your punch change within a few weeks. At BJJ it takes longer to click, usually three to six months, and that's exactly the period in which most people drop out. It took Leonie four years to earn her blue belt while holding down a job. That's a more realistic picture than the two years you often hear quoted. #### Is there an age limit? Not for the adult classes. The oldest people training here are in their sixties, and that works fine as long as you keep an eye on your own pace. For children there are [separate BJJ classes](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/brazilian-jiu-jitsu-for-kids-juniors). #### Can I do a trial class first? Instead of a trial class we have an offer where you [train for 30 days for 30 euros](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/trial-class). That month gives you a fairer picture than one class, because the first session is mostly about getting used to everything that's new. ## So get out of that chair And try our gym for a whole month, unlimited, for just 30 euros. [30 days 30 euros](/en/trial-class) [Ouder >](https://www.renzogracietilburg.nl/en/news/what-is-grappling)