Kathy Long Attempts to Fight her 2nd MMA Fight at 51

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Love this Fightland article about Kathy Long: Kathy Long: Defying the Boundaries. There's a prominent female Muay Thai trainer who strongly suggests that if you haven't started Muay Thai by the age of 24 (if I recall) it's probably too late to become a fighter. Ugh. I don't know where that mentality comes from.That's a full 26 years before Kathy Long's age here. People really make too much about transition to "being a fighter", in my opinion. Too many coulds and shoulds. The article has an interesting piece about promotions, age and investment too.

In the fight game, the business equation is a logical one: the longer a fighter is around, the more potential promoters have in cashing-out on a championship name. Investing in a fighter is essentially an investment on youth, and with Long on the horizon of her 51^st birthday, it is unclear how many fights her return entails, or if she still retains the athletic capacity to compete at an elite level. It’s been almost six years since her last competitive outing and that contest was her first inside the MMA cage. However, these considerations don’t seem to concern Long.

“It means nothing to me, it’s just a number,” Long says when I ask about her age. “You see me in there and I’m working with these guys and I feel fine. My body is responding to what I want it to do, and I feel fantastic. When my body is not responding the way I want to, when my body says I can’t do this anymore, alright. I’m done. But right now I’m not done. Right now my body says, ‘Yeah I like this, let’s go.

Laurie Cahill has fought into her 50s in the New York City area. It is almost as if women find more meaning in what fighting is, as they get older, then do men. Some are life long martial artists like Long and Cahill, but some simply discover it later in life, in a different arc.

 

[Darina]

That's incredible. There is a woman in ther 50ies at the gym right now, who has just started muay Thai but is now giving it her all. I find so much inspiration in looking at her and the way she has lived her life.

Hat's off to Kathy.

[Micc]

I've read this article today and I love it! I love Kathy!! She's such an inspiration - I think to women of all ages!

I especially loved the quote at the end of the article:

 

 

“(...) I’m 51-years-old and who knows how far I can go with this, but I suspect I’m going to take it as far as I can. And if it means breaking all the rules then I’ll do it.”

 

I really hope I will be able to go on as long as she does.

The other thing I hope for, that I will be doing it with people my age. Like, my age then - in their 40s, 50s.

I really think this might be possible, because the trend is now to stay fit - in any way you like to. I hope in 10 or 20 years there will be no limitations like I see it now. For example, a lady in her middle 50s is seen as old and would be expected to go do some yoga or nordic walking. As it is perfectly okay to do these activities at any age, if you have fun with it.

I am a bit of a rebel, so I want to think I understand the force that drives Kathy to train - against all odds. I think I will be like her too when I'm older. :)
What am I saying, I'm already like this! :)

[Mae-Lin Leow]

Kathy Long was one of the first and only high-level female fighters who I was aware of when I started training as a teenager (pre-Youtube, when we had to rely on VHS!). I'm stoked to hear that she is still competitive. I've met a lot of "older" women training and competing in combat sports (my first fight was against a woman who was 40 years old at the time.) These older women who I have trained or competed with often have a different type of strength, a level of self-awareness, a well-established and multi-faceted sense of identity, and a mental resilience that seem to make them very well-suited to combat sports.

[Taryn Laramie]

Glad to see this.  Might have changed my thoughts on retiring.  Maybe I'll just take a break from competing for a few years.