I didn’t start Brazilian Jiu Jitsu at twenty.
I first stepped onto the mat at around thirty. I trained for a while, then life took over. Work, responsibility, other priorities. I stepped away.
I came back around ten years later.
And coming back in your forties is not the same as starting in your thirties.
In many ways, it felt like starting again.
Your body feels different. Your responsibilities are different. Your ego is different too, whether you admit it or not.
When you walk into a room full of younger men who move faster, recover quicker and seem to absorb technique like sponges, it does something to you. You feel behind before you’ve even begun.
And if I’m honest, that bothered me.
Coming back after a decade away is humbling. You remember how things used to feel. You remember being quicker. You remember movements being easier. Then you realise you are not where you thought you were.
Even now, as a black belt, I sometimes feel like I’ve got areas of skill to catch up on. I spent far too many years at lower belts fighting wars and trying to keep up with younger guys. I confused effort with improvement. I built toughness, but I didn’t always build refinement.
There is a difference.
At forty-five, you cannot rely on chaos. You cannot rely on athleticism. You cannot rely on simply pushing harder. Recovery is slower. Injuries linger. Training time is limited.
But the hardest part isn’t physical.
It’s comparison.
You look across the mat at someone half your age, improving quickly, rolling hard, competing regularly, and you start measuring yourself against them. You start thinking you should be further ahead. You start forcing rounds you shouldn’t be forcing. You start training in a way that proves something rather than builds something.
That’s ego.
Not loud ego. Not arrogant ego. Quiet ego. The kind that whispers, “You used to be better than this,” or “You should be better than this.”
I felt that.
There were sessions where I left frustrated because I had “lost” rounds. There were times I rolled harder than I needed to, not because it was smart, but because I didn’t want to feel behind. I paid for that later in sore joints and slower recovery.
That is not the long game.
One thing I emphasise in every class now is this: the goal is not the submission. The goal is control.
Most people chase the tap. They measure success by who they submitted in a round. But if you cannot control someone properly, your submissions are expensive. They cost energy. They cost strain. They cost longevity.
Control is the real foundation of jiu jitsu.
And if we take that one step further, the aim should be effortless control.
Effortless control is when you do not need to brace constantly. When your weight is doing the work. When your positioning is correct. When you are calm enough to think. When you do not feel like you are fighting for your life every round.
At forty-five, that mindset is everything.
If I could restart again at that age, I would care less about “winning” rounds. I would choose my hard rounds deliberately. I would focus on being difficult to move, difficult to control, difficult to exhaust. I would build durability alongside skill. I would train to be here in ten years, not to impress anyone this week.
Starting later forces you to confront your ego.
It forces you to accept that you are a beginner again, even if you once weren’t.
And that can be uncomfortable.
But it can also be freeing.
Because once you stop trying to prove yourself, you can start building properly.
Starting at forty-five is not a disadvantage. It is just a different path. You bring patience. Perspective. A willingness to think rather than react.
Jiu jitsu does not reward chaos long term. It rewards structure.
And if you are willing to let go of comparison and build control instead, you can progress in a way that is quieter, slower, but far more sustainable.
That is what I have learned.