Despite the rapid pace of change prevalent in today’s world, there remain some constants. One of these is that in a family of three brothers, I am the youngest. I was appointed to this office on the day I was born and I will remain “the baby of the family” my entre life, even though I’m now in my fiftieth year. Some baby.  

I’ve always been interested in martial arts in the most general sense, but I’ve never found the time to do something about until relatively recently. The impetus for change came from a German colleague whom I saw perform mid-last year. I was surprised and impressed at the energy that came from such a slightly built woman and determined at that point that I should do something about my latent interest. Following some local research I ended up visiting and subsequently joining the Shinzato dojo in late summer 2009, having never done anything remotely like karate, or any other martial art, at any point in my life.  

Suddenly, I was the baby of the family again, the neophyte with poor coordination, minimal strength and mediocre stamina. It would have been very easy for Sensai Gouldson to have quietly and gently eased aside my initial email enquiries, but it was his initial enthusiastic response that got me to visit the dojo in the first instance and it was the welcome I received from the members that encouraged me to return. 

So, roughly six months and one grading later, what do I think of it all? Here’s my summary for those who have maybe never done any martial arts before and being over 40 years old might be asking yourselves whether you should even consider starting in the first place: 

Plus: The physical exercise alone will do you good

Minus: You’ll be stiff for a while until you get used to it 

Plus: Your coordination will improve and this will have benefits elsewhere in life

Minus: It’ll take a long time coming and you’ll need to do extra practice  

Plus: You’ll have the opportunity of benchmarking your fitness against younger people

Minus: The older you are, the easier it is to pick up training injuries  

Plus: You’ll be given a warm welcome by people just want to help you

Minus: You’ll need to rearrange your entire life to find the extra time to visit the dojo! 

There are other, perhaps more subtle points. To some extent I was prepared for (or at least accepting of) the hard work I was volunteering my body for, what I missed though was the extent to which my mind was to be turned upside down and inside out. I’d been so focussed on building my own business that I’d failed to grasp what my mind was going to have get to grips with in order to support my body on its new journey. This is clearly “work in progress” and I imagine remains so, whatever your level. 

I am deeply grateful to the sensai and dojo members for their lack of age bias. I get stuck in and do what I can – and they both let me and help me, without leaving me on the sidelines.    

I’m not much into regrets really, I don’t find them comfortable bed fellows, but I do wish I’d started all this 30 years ago – which is a polite way of suggesting that maybe you ought not to be reading this article, but doing something about it instead…

 - by Chris Davidson. Shinzato dojo.