Blood and Toes

So here I am, a very old man in martial arts terms. 56 years of age, and new to Jiu-Jitsu. I have trained for decades in Karate, but it's not very similar.

Relating to age and health, are there any issues?

There are a few.

They aren't the ones I was expecting. With all the rolling around and grappling, I thought back strain would be the problem. No back injuries at all, of any kind. In fact, I've had less back trouble in the last year than I've had in a very long time. I'd say grappling is actually good for backs.

My first weird problem happened early on in my training. I started injuring my toes, and re-injuring, and re-injuring again. I assume some of them were breaks, but didn't bother getting it checked. Taping injured toes to healthy ones helped a lot, and prevented injury. After a few months this passed.

Nobody else experienced it, or had ever heard of it. I assume it was caused by all the interesting twisting we do that my old feet were not used to. They got used to it and the toe broken toes stopped happening.

I can't move as fast as the young people, but can move fast enough. It isn't a problem.

My scrapes and bruises seem to last longer than other people. This is a classic characteristic of aging.

More annoyingly, the skin on my face and head seems to injure more easily than younger people. This is also a classic aging phenomenon. There is a lot of abrasion during free rolling. Sometimes other people get a little discolouring or bruising. My skin starts to bleed. It then is unable to heal completely by the next session, and so bleeds with even greater ease.

I've started trying a layer of liquid bandage over my facial weak spots as a preventative; with a bandade over top of that.

That seems to be all the issues so far. I can do everything, and don't end up all hobbled.

I've taken no injury since I started that prevented me from training. No impact damage, nor sore backs, nor joint issues.

There was the short-lived period of recurring toe injuries that were handled by taping them up and continuing. I'm a bit of a bleeder, but a few bandades and liquid bandage helps there.

So far that's it.

Grappling is fine for old folks.