When I was younger, I was a Martial Art junkie. I use to practice Kenpo Karate from 11 to 16, and I had 3rd kyu brown belt. I was training 2-3 days per week at the dojo.
While I was still doing Karate, I also started practicing Jiujitsu for about 3 years at the private high school I was sent (12 years old ''ish''. I achieved a green belt during that time
. I also had lesson of Kobudo given by the sensei as a complimentary training (the art of peasant weapons like bo, sai, nunchaku, kama and tonfa, which was the funnest part IMO) and he even teach us some Kenjutsu (Itto-ryu style). I had one class of Jiujitsu and one class of weapons handling per week. At 15 years old, my mother wasn't able to pay for private school anymore, so I had to stop.
In public school, one of my teacher offered to the students to attend his classes of aikido 2 times per week after school! I jumped on the opportunity, telling myself that it's pretty similar to Jiujitsu... and I ended losing my mojo after some months. It's kinda similar, yet very different than Jiujitsu. It was kinda interesting to put some moves in my arsenal, but in the end...meh! Not my cup of tea.
I began to do LARP's the same year, and during those events, I made some friends that were doing full contact medieval weapon fighting and offered to join their club. I learned to use swords, axes and polearms. I also dabbled in maces and hammers, but they were banned in sparring and competition, so I didn't bother that much.
My past Karate, Jiujitsu and aikido training was very useful during that time - there is a lot of pushing and grappling in medieval era weapon fighting - and it gave me some other edges, like the concentration, the good use of movement, judging distance and the adversary, and also to ignore the pain (yes, even in armor and with blunted blades, it's very painful to be hit by real weapons). I stopped Karate to invest in this ''sport/martial art'' - I really, really liked to practice with medieval armaments and because armors and functional weapons cost a lot of $$$. (100$ per season for subscription to the club not including competition and special events + between 80 to 150$ per weapons, + about for 1200$ for chainmail, helmet and other armor elements...yeah...) Very costly for a 16 years old with part time jobs :P
Then, I moved so much in adulthood that I found difficult to maintain that sport, and slowly, I began to stop doing it and selling/giving my stuff. My new passion was now to go around Canada, to make experiences and visit as much place as I could.
The last 7 years, I began to experience unexplainable episodes of pain all over my body. The episodes began slowly to be more frequent, intense and with longer duration. I began more sedentary and I've lost a lot of my fitness little by little. My doctor gave me a diagnostic of fibromyalgia three years ago and since, I tried countless of meds and treatments (physical and psychological), without any effect. Meds have very modest effects on the pain, and a lot of unpleasant side ones. So, I decided to stop taking them.
Since (and it is not easy at all), I learned to accept that I can't go back to the young Jeff I was before - that I had to put those days behind me and learn to deal with it. Quite ironic - the biggest fight of my life isn't implying any strikes, grappling or weapons. I had to learn to slow down my lifestyle even more, but it's okay. It is what it is.
Now, I'm considering Tai Chi as a therapy, to maintain myself physically and mentally. Who know, I might like that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯