I Thought I Was Too Old to Start
I Thought I Was Too Old to Start
For most of the last eleven and a half years, I was a stay-at-home mom.
In the beginning, I thought it was wonderful that I didn’t have to go to work.
I’ve had a job for as long as I can remember. My first one was when I was 10 years old, delivering newspapers. From then on, I was always working. There was always somewhere to be, something to do, and something that needed to be done.
Then I became a stay-at-home mom.
And I loved it. I loved being home with Brooklyn. I loved being there for the little things — the everyday moments that I knew I would never get back. For a while, being home felt like exactly where I was supposed to be.
But as the years passed, I began to realize that something had changed in me.
I had spent my entire life moving forward, always working toward something, always having somewhere to be. And now, without that familiar structure, I slowly began to lose touch with the part of myself that had always been moving, growing, and looking toward what was next.
I didn’t recognize it at first.
But something else had quietly crept into my life.
Complacency.
I became comfortable sitting still.
So comfortable, in fact, that I didn’t even realize how sedentary my life had become.
Then Brooklyn got older. She started school. She became more independent. She didn’t need me in quite the same way she had before.
And somewhere in that transition, I started losing a little bit of myself, too.
I had spent so many years being needed by someone else that I wasn’t really sure who I was when I wasn’t needed.
I didn’t fully understand what was happening to me at the time. I had spent so long focused on getting through the next day, the next challenge, the next thing that needed to be done that when things finally became a little quieter, I didn’t know what came next.
I just got stuck.
Somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t myself anymore.
And finding my way back to myself was a fight.
And just as I was beginning to emerge from that place, Brooklyn started training at KMMA.
I was that mom sitting on the sidelines.
Watching.
Watching the students train. Watching them push themselves. Watching them learn.
And, more than once, I caught myself wondering what it would be like to be out there too.
Not because I thought I could do it.
Because some part of me wanted to try.
But then the voice in my head would answer:
You can’t do that.
I was in my late 40s. Forty-nine to be exact.
I had no martial arts experience.
I was out of shape.
I had no stamina.
What made me think I could walk into the dojo and actually do this?
So I tried to bury the thought.
But it kept coming back.
I would watch the classes and think, “Maybe I could do this.”
Then I’d talk myself right back out of it.
You’re too old.
You’re too out of shape.
What are you thinking?
For eight months, I went back and forth in my own head.
Until one day, I finally stepped off the sidelines.
And onto the mat.
I’m not going to lie.
My first two classes were rough.
Really rough.
I was confronted with just how out of shape I had become. I had almost no endurance. No stamina. My body was struggling to keep up.
And after my second class, I got in my car, closed the door, and cried my eyes out.
My body hurt. I was exhausted. Frustrated. And, honestly, I was angry at myself. But the tears were about more than the physical pain.
I wanted to scream at myself for thinking I could actually do this.
What was I thinking?
For a moment, I let all those doubts I had been carrying for eight months come rushing back.
Maybe I really couldn’t do this.
Maybe I had waited too long.
Maybe I was never meant to be out there, training.
But somewhere in the middle of those tears, something else occurred to me.
I hadn’t quit.
I had made it through the entire class.
Even when it was hard.
Even when my body was telling me it couldn’t.
Even when my mind was telling me I shouldn’t.
I stayed.
And that second class may have broken me physically, but mentally, it did something completely different.
It made me stronger.
So I showed up for my third class.
Then my fourth.
Then my fifth.
And slowly, something began to change.
The things that felt almost impossible during those first classes started getting easier.
And then I noticed something I never expected.
I wasn’t just getting stronger physically.
I was actually looking forward to going to class. I wanted to be there.
And just like that, I realized I had found something I loved.
At the end of my 40s, I had discovered something that had never even been on my radar.
Something completely new.
Something I was doing for me.
I thought I was starting martial arts.
I didn’t realize I was starting to get my life back.
And I feel good. Really good. In ways I didn’t expect.
A year ago, I started sitting on the sidelines wondering if I was too old to start.
Today, I’m six months into my journey and two belts beyond that white belt I was so afraid to put on.
And sometimes I still think about the woman who sat in her car crying after that second class.
I wish I could go back and tell her something.
You are not too old.
You are not too far behind.
You are not too out of shape.
And you are not too late.
You just have to start.
Because I’ve learned something I didn’t know six months ago:
Your age doesn’t decide what you’re capable of.
You do.
If you work hard, if you keep showing up, and if you refuse to quit, you can do more than you think you can — at any age.
I love having KMMA in my life.
I love this community.
I love my job.
I love the person I am becoming.
And most of all, I love that after spending so many years taking care of everyone else, I finally decided to do something for myself.
It turns out I wasn’t too old to start.
I was exactly where I needed to be.
And it was time for me to step onto the mat.
Christine Holtzman
Marketing Director
KMMAUSA.COM
813-948-4844