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About
In this episode of Tapped In, David Figueroa-Martinez tackles the common phrase spoken by many martial artists: "I wish I started this when I was younger." Drawing from his personal journey of starting Jiu-Jitsu at age 30, David reframes the narrative around starting late. He discusses how starting as a mature adult provides the emotional intelligence, gratitude, and mental resilience required to stick with the sport long-term—qualities that younger practitioners often lack. Rather than dwelling on "what ifs," David explains why Jiu-Jitsu arrives exactly when you need it most.
Key Takeaways
- Emotional Maturity Enhances Training: Starting Jiu-Jitsu at a later age brings a level of self-awareness and emotional intelligence that allows practitioners to process failure, manage ego, and value physical activity more deeply than they would have in their youth.
- No Room for Regret: The mindset and life experience acquired prior to training are precisely what make an adult student receptive to the physical and mental demands of grappling.
- Jiu-Jitsu Arrives Right on Time: The sport serves as a catalyst for personal growth when a person is truly ready to accept its challenges, test their limits, and embrace the process.
Chapters
- 00:00 – Introduction: "I Wish I Started Earlier"
- 01:10 – The Myth of the Younger Mindset
- 02:30 – Physical Prime vs. Mental Readiness
- 03:50 – Starting Jiu-Jitsu at 30: Personal Context
- 05:15 – Embracing Failure and Physical Soreness
- 06:40 – The Power of Later-Life Gym Cultures
- 08:10 – Reframing Perspective and Final Thoughts
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Transcripts
Full Transcript
00:00 | Welcome to Tapped In. My name is David Figueroa-Martinez of DFM Coaching. And today we're going to be discussing that phrase that we all say: "I wish I started this when I was younger." I have said it multiple times. I do not say it anymore. I've heard it said from different people, different training partners, and some instructors. And I've come to realize that there really is no regret. Part of me, if I'm going to be honest, a small part, will always feel like I wish I had started this earlier.
00:35 | The majority of me, and when I'm completely honest with myself, I think that I don't know if I would have understood it at that age—if I was a kid or even in my early 20s. I don't think I would have valued it. I don't think I would have really understood it. I don't think I would have spent enough time dedicating to it. I don't think it came to me—if it had come to me any earlier, that I would have gotten the benefit from it that I get now.
01:08 | I think that there is this part of us that wishes that we can be more—you know that old saying, "Youth is wasted on the young?" Something along those lines. And I generally believe that. When I look back at it, I really don't think that I would have—I don't think I would have been able to afford it, first and foremost. But I don't think that I would have really enjoyed being there. I don't know if I would have enjoyed being around the people as much, or being in these really bad positions. And I don't know if that's partly ego, or the idea that at the time maybe I didn't think it was cool. I never was interested in high school wrestling, so it wasn't like I was really even into grappling at all.
02:00 | So I don't think there's a regret in that sense. I think most of us just wish we had our younger bodies with our current mindset, which is a huge difference. Similar to when people kind of—like the whole thing of being a parent. When you're younger, you kind of want it, and then you get older and you're like, "Ah, I don't know if I feel like going through the whole thing," which is what happened to us.
02:26 | And you just—if you could be physically younger to keep up with the kids and keep up with the activities, but older or maybe your current self mentally, that combination of things would be incredibly useful. But because my mindset at the time wasn't really ready for it, I don't think I would have gotten what I've got out of the art now. I don't think I would have approached it the right way. I don't think I would have received the benefits. I don't think that I would have been ready just in general. I don't think that I would have been ready emotionally.
03:08 | There's a whole host of things that come with grappling that are very alien to a lot of people: the lack of personal space, the act of pushing yourself to failure sometimes, and pushing yourself to positions that you're uncomfortable with. And you have to play against people that are so much larger than you, and it's going to play against your ego. There's all these things that you have to work in and around that are different than everything else. That I generally don't think that I would have even been ready.
03:42 | I think at 30, I was a better human being. I think I was a better, more equipped person to kind of take it in. But to rewind a bit: at 30, I was working in a warehouse, I was not all that social, I was a homebody, I played a lot of video games, and I stayed home a lot. I did not go out very often, if it wasn't for work or some family event that we had to go to. I didn't have a bunch of friends.
04:15 | And 30 came around, and I wanted to see—I needed to do something. I felt like my prime years were on the way out, and I had this weird faux midlife crisis, and I just felt like I needed to do something. And that yearning for something is what got me over to Jiu-Jitsu. I've been watching BJ Penn fight in the UFC, and that kind of was the doorway into Jiu-Jitsu. He was a Jiu-Jitsu black belt, done it in I think it was like three years or four years, whatever ridiculous amount of time it was. And I could see how he was demonstrating that in MMA, and then I started researching MMA and seeing how it started.
05:00 | So that was my entry point. That was the catalyst or the spark that gave me a little bit of interest. I had thought about doing boxing and some other traditional martial arts, and I didn't like the effect of potentially getting punched in the face. And I didn't think it was a great thing for your brain or face, so I settled on Jiu-Jitsu.
05:22 | And I think because of the position or the place that I was in, that I needed something, that I took it more seriously. I knew the importance of it. Being now 45, and going through Jiu-Jitsu in my 30s up to my 40s, I think I was a better person when it came to emotional intelligence. Not that I was perfect in my early 30s—don't get me wrong, I still had a lot of growing up to do, I was still trying to figure myself out—but I think I was just in a better position.
05:57 | I was able to understand that, hey, some days I'm going to get fucked up. Someone in their early 20s may not be accepting of that. I understood that—I valued the fact that I was being athletic, because it wasn't something that I really did all that often. I valued that I was able to allow my body to do something physical for a change. In my 20s, I was a little bit more lazy; I don't know if I would have valued that at all.
06:33 | And all of that is I think connected to the fact that I understood that my prime was on the way out. So anything physical that I was doing was a plus. It was permission to give myself time to be physical, to push myself, to push my body, and to accept everything that came with it. No matter how exhausted I was, no matter how sore I was, it was one of those things because I knew my prime was leaving, that it was like: this is a good thing to experience. I'm not going to be able to experience this in my 50s.
07:11 | And when you start thinking about it, 30 and 50 is a short distance. I got another five years. And I'm not saying I'm going to stop at 50, but your body just is not the same. The older I get, the more I understand it, the more I accept it, and the more I understand that everything I'm doing today, I may not be able to do the same way in a couple of years. So I value it so much more.
07:37 | I'm in love with the process of training, the process of failure, and trying to figure things out when you can't, and figuring things out with time, and being emotional intelligent enough to understand that I'm going to have good days and bad days. I'm okay with failure; failure is part of the process. I'm okay with not knowing the specific answers today, but building towards making them work later. I'm okay with young people wrecking me sometimes, and at 45 and being emotionally intelligent, I understand it. I understand that someday I'm going to be that nail regardless of my rank.
08:24 | I don't know how receptive I would have been in my 20s with that same responsibility. You go through life and you make all these mistakes, you watch other people make a bunch of mistakes, and then you get to a point where you're like, "Oh, I can use those mistakes to my benefit now." I can understand that because that happens in life, the same shit's going to happen in Jiu-Jitsu. I'm okay with failure, I'm okay with getting beat up, I'm okay with my body being sore.
08:56 | It's almost—when I get a good workout in, whether it's Jiu-Jitsu or with kettlebells, and the next day I'm sore, I'm not complaining. It feels good, I'm happy. I'm more in the moment because of my age. Because, again, I understand that in some time I may not be able to train this way anymore. So in the meantime, I'm thankful and happy that I can do any of it. I'm thankful and happy that I can train as hard as I do or when I do, and some days I'm doing more teaching than training, and I'm happy I can do that.
09:33 | So I really don't think that I would have approached Jiu-Jitsu better. I don't think I would have loved it, I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much, I don't think I would have respected it as much. So when you're in a room full of people who are majority in their 30s and 40s, and some of us in our 50s and even 60s, you're in a room full of people who found more than likely the art later in life and love and respect it a bit more than someone who was in their teens or 20s. And that's a good thing.
10:07 | I think some of the best cultures that I have come across when it comes to academies are because the average age is a little older. And I'm not saying that you can't find that in younger gyms—you can. But I think we just value this thing a little bit more because of everything that it's given us, and we have memories of before Jiu-Jitsu, we have memories of how we may have struggled with certain things before. And then here we are in our later years—and I'm not saying we're old, but athletically we're a little older—and we're just thankful to be able to do what we're doing.
10:48 | And I generally don't want us to ever look back and cry, "I wish I started this earlier." It may not have been the same outcome. It came to us when it came to us at the right time. We were receptive, we were calm-minded enough to accept the challenge, and we have been responsible enough to take in the responsibility that it comes with—even the three- and four-stripe white belt who obviously doesn't know a ton, but they're also guiding people who are coming in right off the street. That's a beautiful thing.
11:22 | So don't get down on yourself, "Oh, I should have started this earlier," and start thinking about all the what-ifs. I may have started at 21 and did it for six months and gave up. I think that's just the person I was at the time. I don't think I would have wanted to traverse this giant mountain range which are the five belts of Jiu-Jitsu. I just don't think I would have been equipped enough as a man and as a human to do that.
11:51 | So it came to me at the right time. It came to me when I needed it most, it came to me when I needed certain answers about myself, when I needed to test myself, when I needed to strive for something different. It came to me at the right time.
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