An older gentleman in his 70s that I am quite close to is recovering from cancer. I suggested to him to try Japanese martial arts as a way to recover his body and start a new chapter. His only prior experience is Tai Chi, and he is has always been frail, especially after this ordeal. I don't want to shock him or jeopardize his health by exposing him to a martial art that is too brutal. Besides suggesting that he try Koryu, which I see many older gentlemen doing, I am thinking that a Gendai Budo like Aikido might be a good place for him? What do you think? (Obviously he won't be starting anything too soon due to his own circumstances, and COVID, but I am looking at the future).
Older Gentleman recovering from cancer
- Thread starter Nobufusa
- Start date
While Aikido would make sense, I think it would depend a lot on what his goals are, and how he expects martial arts to help him. If he's concerned about physical contact, the martial arts that would be available to him would be limited..I would suggest either an internal cma similar to tai chi or bagua, or to do something entirely different like tennis where he doesn't have to worry about physical contact, and can be as agile as he feels appropriate.
JKDJade
Yellow Belt
I think taichi is the way to go... or any credible martial arts studio that is classical. When I did Kenpo we had some seniors attend the class. They only did stretching and katas... we also had them do the katas in real slow motion (similiar to taichi)
Chris Parker
Grandmaster
Hmm... one thing to remember with the "old folks" you see doing Koryu, is that they're doing it still... not that they started when they were older... in addition, in many of particularly the bigger embu, the most senior members of schools (often including the heads of those systems), who have been doing it for decades and decades, tend to make up the demonstrators more than the more junior members. It could be argued that the younger members could demonstrate the ryu-ha more dynamically, but that's not the emphasis... but that doesn't mean that the way the older practitioners perform is the way the training is done.
At the end of the day, though, for a physical activity, anything that lets him move, that his body can handle, and that keeps his interest, is going to be a good choice. It might be koryu (say, a ken or possibly an iai system... maybe jo... jujutsu might not be a great thing for him to handle, but he might like it who knows?), or aikido (although I'd put the same caveat as for koryu jujutsu), or golf... it would be a mistake to consider koryu a less physically-taxing approach, though... it can be tailored that way (one of my dojo in Japan has members who started in their 70's, but that's relatively atypical), but it's not really geared that way.
