You know you’re getting old in the Martial Arts when:

You realize that those who taught you and many of your fellow students that you started training with are dead.

You get out of bed and your first fifteen steps are like the “dawn of man” poster.

The other students call you “Grampa” and you realize that you are one.

You’re shaving your Father in the mirror.

“Designer stubble” makes you look homeless.

Your Karate belt gets shorter and training doesn’t make you slimmer or fitter just out of breath and more tired.

Training on a cold day your head is too hot and your feet are still numb.

People mistake your Karate Kata for Tai Chi.

You stand on one leg and the other one keeps giving way.

You have to wear pads to protect your varicose veins.

Your Martial Arts training started “B.B.L” (Before Bruce Lee).

You dribble (from any orifice) when you Kiai.

On a residential course you have to have your own room because of your frequent trips to the toilet and loud snoring.

Most of your traveling luggage comprises of a medical kit.

To identify someone’s instructor you have to go back several generations to find someone you know.

No company will insure you for Martial arts training.

You remember when Martial Arts were about using the opponents force against them and required courtesy and humility.

You find yourself using old fashioned words that nobody understands like “knapsack” instead of “rucksack”, LP instead of CD and misunderstand modern usage of words like “gay”.

You grew up in a society where boxing was the way men sorted out their differences and only girls pulled hair or kicked in a fight.

The “old boy” training that you’re describing is twenty years younger than you.

Your back goes out more than you do.

You’ve finally got your head together and now your body’s falling apart.

Your secret techniques are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either.

To kick someone in the head you have to kick them in the groin first.

The “pause’ in a Kata becomes a “senior moment” and is followed by an uninspiring blend of everything you know until you collapse with exhaustion because you can’t think of the finishing moves.