The Theory of Dues
by Sensei Richard Howell
 This article is dedicated to Jack Lalanne who recently died. He was a shining example of what can be accomplished when one does the work and pays the dues.

If you just get up and go work out and never feel aches the next day and then go do it again, save this article, you will need it later. However, if you have reached that state in life where you are beginning to realize “I can’t do that anymore without some price” then maybe this is for you now.

Many years ago I attended a Seminar on ageing in the martial arts. It was sponsored by the University of California Berkeley, Martial Arts Association. There were many fine presentations but one of them changed my life. The presenter was a sports physiologist from the University of Oregon and he gave us some bad news and some good news. Out of this news there evolved a theory of “dues” that has kept me on the mat, working out, taking falls and being fully active past the age when some others consider a less active life.

First he gave us the bad news: After about age forty every thing goes to pot at about 7% per decade. Strength, stamina, endurance, speed - you name it - it’s going down. This sounds terrible and when I heard it so long ago I was really depressed. There was no question in the presenters mind about the general evolution of our bodies or the inevitable nature of that progression. What a bummer!

Now the good news: The next thing we were told is that this downward evolution is on your maximum peak performance! Well, who lives at that level? A few professional athletes perhaps or some highly competitive amateur looking for one more shot at the Olympics might. Maybe them but not me with my semi desk job 5 days a week. And the good news continued. Since most young people are serious couch potatoes it is entirely possible for a reasonably fit person at sixty to be as conditioned and vital as the average twenty year old. OK, before everyone jumps on me, there are many fine twenty somethings doing judo and jujitsu. If you are one of them, you are not average. You already know you are exceptional, so accept your superior nature and read on.

More good news: The best news was saved for last. There seems to be no age limit on when you can recover from your idle state and get back in shape up to your maximum. So if you are forced to let workouts go for a while due to an injury, illness or other demands on life, don’t worry, you can recover. With that new information I left the seminar in high spirits, ready to do jujitsu until I died, as long as I paid my dues.

Dues. When you are young you get a free pass. To get on the mat you do not owe any dues. Everything in your body recovers on its own and you can just go and work out. If you wanted to improve your conditioning, almost any activity would do and you ate what ever you pleased. I remember those days and they were great. However as the years go by there begin to be some dues to stay on the mat. These are paid for with your time and effort off the mat to help maintain physical condition and vitality. As you grow older, the dues continue to increase. The need to condition on and off the mat becomes more constant. Those long breaks that can happen build up a debt in the dues that must be repaid. There are no dues holidays. Also, some specific requirements and dietary restrictions start creeping in. But if you are lucky and you pay your dues you get to play. Life is not fair and you may find yourself owing more than your luckier workout partner who seems to just breeze by. There is always that skinny person who seems to eat everything and that’s how it goes. Some really unlucky people are the victims of injuries or diseases that raise their dues to unreachable levels. Be glad for your blessings, quit complaining, and give those unfortunate people your support and sympathy.

So what are some of the dues? One of the first dues contributions to become necessary is a change in the way you train off the mat. There is uniform agreement among all modern sources that after age fifty you must include some kind of resistance training. Weights, kettle bells, lifting wine barrels, whatever you like, but do it. Standard sports and aerobics just will not maintain complete body fitness after fifty. Personally I lift weights, but one of the great things about dues is you can often find something that you enjoy that makes your payment. Nonetheless, there has to be consistent resistance training. These were the first dues that I found I had to pay.

Along with resistance training other cross training becomes more necessary. It is best to vary the kinds of workouts that you do to avoid repetitive motion damage. Research your cross training and become aware of the issues that arise from long time practice. Some activities are not intended for constant practice over decades, especially if you do not follow their rules and pay their dues. Other activities can be quite beneficial. Your body is the only one you get, so you will need it to work undamaged for a long time. It is possible to wear it out through thoughtless training. Most of us know someone who has.

The next regular dues are to receive regular massage. You don’t know where to get a massage? Take the AJJF course and get to know the other students. They need a massage too. In the beginning this can be occasional. I started out at once a month. A friend and I started trading massages after we completed the massage course in Cotati. Then he moved and another friend and I started trading and so on. Now I am up to at least once every two weeks and often weekly. Here is a warning. Just any massage will not do. You need a massage that is as good at healing as is our massage. During a few periods when I had trouble finding someone to do our massage I tried many other practitioners and styles. A few may have been beneficial but my overall condition deteriorated badly and eventually this lead to injuries. I did not improve until I found a new person who did our style. Your body needs help and our restorative massage supplies it.

There are also dues in your dietary choices. This is probably the single hardest one to do, but your high youthful metabolism and ability to manage certain foods degrades just like your physical strength. At some point most of you cannot eat as much as you used to and depending on how you learned to eat you may also have to make some changes in style. Nobody wants to do this. There are libraries full of advice on how to eat so you all know which foods are healthy and which are bad. You get to make your own choice. Too much weight adds dramatically to the level of dues that you owe and some kinds of foods lead to health problems. You may look around in many activities and see dues paying people who are athletic. They do not tend to be excessively heavy.

One of the most pleasant dues is to do jujitsu. Do lots of it all the time, even when you are feeling a little tired of it. After all, jujitsu is one of the reasons for paying the dues in the first place. The physical and mental activities of jujitsu are healthy and beneficial when done correctly. This can even be a contribution to dues for other sports. Jujitsu uses all of your body without requiring overwork of any one part. This is even true for falling. Bad falls are not beneficial, but good falls actually seem to help. This is a serious motivation to continue to improve your sutemi ability in all arts. A good workout can often be a “mat massage,” and helps relieve soreness and stress. But, the workouts must be consistent. Binge workouts, just like other binges, are for the crowd that does not pay dues yet. For someone with a job, a family and any other interests, this consistency can be a difficult set of dues to pay. I have tried to cheat on them but it did not work.

And work softly. Give up your old hard ways and stop working out when you have used up your energy. You can still go play but do it for its beauty. Full on competition can charge a high price for a small pleasure. That minor injury that healed in a day when you were younger may take a week or a month now. All that time you are falling behind in your regular dues. You dig a hole that can take a long time to refill.

Sometimes life requires that you take a break. You may get seriously behind in your training due to a job change, illness or life change. If it is an injury or illness that sets you back and there are medical recommendations for the return path, do them. Many failures are due to not taking the medicines and doing the lifestyle changes that are part of the treatment. But do not despair. You can catch back up. This means that the more you owe the longer it will take. Relax and start working and you will come back.. Remember, the limitation from your age is on your maximum performance so unless you were actually working at your absolute theoretical maximum you can come back better than you started. Keep paying your dues when you have the ability. If you were there last year you can get there now.

There is magic in jujitsu and that is the core of its beauty, but there is no magic that I can find in the dues. To get to the jujitsu magic you requires that you do the practice and to do the practice you must pay the dues. And that just means putting in the time and exercising the discipline. Good luck and I will see you on the mat.

This article was published in the Spring 2011 issue of the Kiai Echo.

The Kiai Echo
The Kiai Echo is the newsletter of the American Judo and Jujitsu Federation (AJJF), a non-profit educational organization that promotes Danzan Ryu Jujitsu, a classical Japanese martial art. Selected articles have been reproduced on this web site. The Kiai Echo Editor will post contest results and Black Belt promotions immediately as they are received. These will be published online and promoted via social media (Facebook and Twitter). They will not be password protected, but will be immediately publicly available. By the time this material is submitted to the Kiai Echo, it has already been approved by the appropriate BOP members, and thus requires no further approval process. Traditional articles, as well as anything that is not native to print (i.e. podcasts, video, 3D animations, etc.), will go through an approval process.

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