I learned from personal experience that older adults, so-call senior citizens, are generally perceived as overweight, fatigued, and confused. In the 1950s doctors advised 50 year-olds they should no longer exercise, and many did, and many died from sarcopenia, a phenomenon defined appropriately by its etymological meaning of "wasting flesh." So, given that in the 1970s the advice was to live longer by exercising, I was in my 30s and serious about doing just that. Nevertheless, the first impression I give when my age isn't known is totally different than when it is.

My mother was healthier and more active in her 80s and 90s than she was in her 50s when she changed her diet and began exercising. I have a video of her at 96 touching her palms on the floor without bending her knees as part of her daily regimen. She passed away at 106. My father was active, mostly walking, and he passed away at 91, mostly of cancer, but otherwise trim and healthy. My oldest sister was moderately active and careful about her diet. My next oldest sister made the national news in 2023 when a reporter learned that at 88 was swimming for 45 minutes 5 days a week to warm up for golfing in the afternoons. Soon after she got Lyme's disease, suffered through it, and is back to her regimen. She and I used to compete for the best resting heart rates, and it was a tie at 49 bpm. My younger brother just turning 80 does various exercises, mostly yoga and remains healthy and trim. He also reinvented himself upon retirement as a background movie character. You can't miss his close-up look of horror in the Netflix movie, White Noise. His wife does the same and has had speaking parts as well.

The one thing we have in common is that we don't think of ourselves as old.

I started training when I turned 77. I had been very active for many years, having played amatuer league soccer on weekends and pick-up games at least twice a week for 24 years, and after that I jogged and hiked to keep in shape. Early in 2013 I had a personal trainer teach me "kill or be killed" martial arts techniques, the I started training in tai quan do, but on August 12 my arthritic T2 vertebrae fractured. The bone healed over the exposed nerves in 12 weeks, but the residual pain made it too painful to exercise, and even sleep on my back for the next two and a half years. In those years I gained 40 pounds, my muscles turned to fat and regenerated as a bluberous belly and a fine set of man tits.

Scrub Bull and The 84 year old MuayThai Guy represent the egos of one man with a singular drive two very different but complementory ways of expressing it.