What is a good age to retire from martial arts training and teaching?
.
NEVER, is the usual answer to this question. Why would you retire?
.
There is no age limit to practicing the martial arts, the only limit is the “self”. Your actual age does not limit you in any way from practicing the martial arts.
.
The martial arts are a way of life, one associated with life long learning, and one from which there should be no retirement. But as the body ages there are limitations, and the acceptance of these limitations allows for compensation.
.
You can always keep up the practice, but the practice will inevitably change over the years.
.
However, this is not true for teaching. At some point, the stamina and physical requirements for teaching can prohibit you from properly leading the way.
.
If you are teaching it’s important that you are able to demonstrate. It does not mean you have to keep up with younger, healthier and more fit practitioners, but you must be able to demonstrate, to supplement the whole teaching model. You must lead by example, and your health, fitness and demeanor, which must include how you project enthusiasm and the spirit of the martial arts too.
.
There can be many factors that crop up suddenly that will affect a persons health, fitness and well-being, that could effect their teaching abilities. How you handle those and incorporate them into your training, practice and teaching, matters – they matter a great deal.
.
A great teacher has a considerable depth of knowledge to be passed along, and simply retiring because you can’t do some things that you did in your youth, wastes that knowledge.
.
It’s an essential part of teaching and practicing, knowing when to adjust to the aging process, and perhaps knowing when to step down as a sensei on the dojo floor. If you have failed to acquire an understanding of a system, practicing only the physical aspects of an art, then when you can no longer perform, perhaps it is time to retire.
.
But as you get older you will understand more and more that it’s not so much about the physical, about how many techniques you know, or how many kata you can perform, it’s all about the person you’ve become. 
.
“In youth we learn; in age we understand.” – Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
.
.