Thinking about getting into martial arts as an adult but not totally sure what you're after? That's a good place to start. The first thing I'd tell you isn't to sign up for anything — it's to figure out what you actually want, then go get in the door somewhere and see how the room feels. Here's how I'd walk any adult through it.
First, Ask Yourself What You Really Want
Before you get into any martial art, you've got to question yourself and ask: what is it you really want to do? What appeals to you more? A few things to figure out:
- Do you prefer striking, or grappling?
- Are you looking for something purely for self defense?
- Do you want something that's going to give you a good workout?
- Or are you looking for something that's a community builder?
That's the first thing I'd ask an adult. Identify what you like the most, and then start looking into different arts and go visit the places that fit the idea of what you might want to get into.
Then Go Meet the People
If you're unsure about what you want to get into altogether, go to the place and meet the people who train there. See if they're the sort of people you'd like to be around. That matters more than the style on the sign out front.
Before I'd try to coax anybody into one particular art, I'd get them in the doors of a facility and let them see how they feel when they look around the room.
If you walk into a place — no matter what kind of place it is — and everybody's just going crazy trying to take each other out, and that's not what you're looking to get out of it, then it's probably not the place for you. So I highly suggest going and getting a feel for a place and whether it fits your personality. (We wrote honest guides on how to choose the right gym and how to fit into a new academy if you want to dig in.)
Why an Adult Should Start in the First Place
Starting to train can be a very, very good thing for you, for multiple reasons. For one, it gets you physically in better shape while you learn a whole new skill set. And it gets you around a good community of people.
Building that community is enormous — I believe that's true for any martial arts facility. If you can build a real community, then you've got people who will be there for you. That's exactly why I'm such a big believer in telling people to go try a place first and see what they think. You only want to be part of a community that makes sense to you and that you actually like, instead of forcing yourself into something that goes against what you'd naturally enjoy.
What Training Here Is Actually Like
A lot of people are scared of walking into a room full of young, jacked-up athletes who look like they belong on the set of 300. We don't have a room like that. What we have is a room of people who are pretty tough regardless of age, pushing each other at the right level for everybody to improve.
Here's why that works: we don't emphasize winning in the gym at all. That happens at a lot of places — people want to compete with their training partners — and we make it very clear that doesn't matter to us. Training is training. That keeps the whole room a lot more mellow and laid back, and it actually lets people learn more.
Because of that culture, we've got a big age range training together. We've got teenagers still in high school training right alongside people in their fifties, and everybody does a good job working together. We care a lot about safety and "winning the tap" — teaching people how to work with one another during drilling. And when we roll, we don't turn it into a death battle nobody's prepared for.
"I'm Too Busy, Too Old, Too Out of Shape"
If you're looking to get back in shape, or looking for a new thing to take on to push yourself to be better, you've got to step away from that kind of self-talk. Because that excuse — I'm too busy, I'm too old, I haven't worked out in years — is the same thinking that got you into the position you're in.
Think about it. It's the end of a long workday, you're tired, you tell yourself you're too busy and you need to relax. That same complacency and lack of drive is exactly what puts you in the spot where you start feeling bad and out of shape and unhappy with yourself. You've got to break out of that. That's the mental side I've talked about in other articles — forcing yourself to do the thing you maybe don't want to do in the moment, because that's what actually changes how you feel day to day. And no, you're not too old to start.
Why Adults Stick With It
What keeps adults coming back? A few things, and they all carry real value:
- The community — that's the biggest part.
- The workout. It's a different way of working out that isn't so repetitive and boring like a regular gym.
- The skill set. You're learning how to do some pretty cool things you're not going to learn anywhere else.
- The growth. People start to notice how much they grow just by being on the mats, training, and being forced to step outside their comfort zone.
Come Look Around the Room
The best way to know if we're your kind of place is to walk in and feel it for yourself. If you've never trained before, start with our beginner's guide — then come take a class on us. Your first week in Thibodaux is completely free.