Did I Start Too Late?
More specifically, what if I had started in Filipino Martial Arts/Modern Arnis before age 33? From age 18 to 33, I trained in Cooper Ryu and Kenpo Karate and dabbled in BJJ and Aikido.
Years ago, I wondered what my skill level would have been if I had started in Modern Arnis much earlier. I now think that it’s an irrelevant exercise.
The above screenshot is from a post-seminar video review. My instructor at the time (Dan McConnell) and I had attended a seminar by Chuck Gauss. We decided to review the seminar material out in the parking lot. It was cold, but it was good times! At that time, I had been training in Modern Arnis for just a year. Where does the time go?
Anyway, let’s go back to why musing about the past is irrelevant. Let me explain how a martial artist colleague got involved in Aikido in his late 40s/early 50s. Before falling in love with Aikido, he had trained in Wing Chun, Judo, Tai Chi, and other martial arts. He said, “None of those arts spoke to me until I found Aikido.”
I asked him if he wished he had found Aikido earlier. He replied, ” No. Aikido is now my home art. I use my prior martial arts experience to help me teach my students. I can see aspects of my past martial arts through the lens of Aikido.“
His description of Aikido as his “home art” stuck with me. His winding martial journey ended with him finding a home.
So it is with my martial journey. As noted above, I studied various martial arts until I found Modern Arnis at age 33. Modern Arnis is now my “home art.”
By the time I started in Modern Arnis, I already had a solid martial foundation in footwork, takedowns, and joint locks. Besides that, I didn’t know anything about stick work!
The above video depicts Steve going through his black belt test with me as his uke in Columbus, Ohio, in the spring of 2006. I’m unsure what device it was recorded on, but I recall Steve’s wife playing the video on her iPod. That was the first time I had seen video playback on a handheld device. I was blown away.
Anyway, I was 41 years old then and was a month away from getting married!
Circling back to the question, “Did I start too late?”
I’ve entertained this question quite a few times. It recently popped again when I realized that I will celebrate 30 years in Modern Arnis in February 2028. I know that it’s two and a half years from now.
It’s fun to entertain this question and engage in counterfactuals about our martial arts training. There is no question that my Modern Arnis skills would be further along if I had started at age six instead of 33.
That said, I have long decided that the question is irrelevant. The more relevant issue is whether I am in the present and training consistently. Whether it be classes, private lessons, solo training, or analyzing videos, I am training 5 to 6 days per week.
I ask myself, “What am I doing today to improve myself?” and “Am I 1% better than yesterday?” every day.
So the answer is “No, I did not start Modern Arnis too late. And I am quite happy with how it all turned out.”
What do you think? Have you asked yourself this question? Let’s hear your comments!
Other Stuff I’ve Written
You find it when you find it. It’s a different story if it was always there and you just didn’t act on it. For that kick yourself a little so you don’t miss other opportunities. And then you have to remember when you’re doing one thing you can’t always do another.
If you start today, you can say, in ten years, either, “Good thing I started ten years ago”, or, “I wish I started ten years ago”.
Brian, nice post and good hook to get people to read it. I think every long term serious martial artist asks this question at some point. I know I have. However I think the answer is different for everyone and different for different martial arts. Modern Arnis is a pretty unqiue martial art that lends itself to a better understanding of Modern Arnis as a primary or main art, and then gaining a better understanding other arts through the process.
Modern Arnis being taught through analizing the motion(s) behind a given technique lets the student then see that same motion in other arts. For instance take an Outside to Inside Forearm block, in Karate TKD etc. I was taught it was a block. That block appears in your forms and it is used to grade the students understanding of the art through the forms and basics but often times that’s it. There isn’t a connection to a students fighting or understanding of the motion of the technique. However in MA that motion shows up everywhere such as in Single Sinawali (flow drills), forms, or applications in multitudes of drills etc. so you see the motion expressed in many different formats. Not just in basics (kihon) practice and forms. Thus you make a connection to different applications of that movement.
Having experience in different martial arts allows you then to make a connection to those arts you practiced before. Which leads to greater understanding to previous arts and to Modern Arnis as a whole. Leading to more experimination on other techniques and more insight and the cycle continues.
However this view point doesn’t always work both ways. If you are learning one art and it is say a “traditional” Japanese sword art that is a historical art form you don’t want to do that kind of mixing of arts or concepts because then you could be poluting the historical art. So in this context you would be better off not studying the other arts first and spending all of your time honing and practicing the one art. Honing only those skills that help you along that path.