One thing that inspired my martial arts career was some of the stories of people in their 80's who were still doing martial arts. Who we call the greats in martial arts tended to just train in their chosen arts.

These people include Aikido's Uyeshiba, Judo's Jigoro Kano, Wing Chun's Yip Man, Karate's Funakoshi, Tai Chi's Yang Cheng Fu, Hung style's Wong Fei Hung , Balintawak's Ancio Bacon, Gracie's Helio Gracie etc.

To me what these people did are ideals for martial art. They kept it up until the day they died. When I read about Thai boxers and Western boxers, they seem to hang up the gloves at a relatively early age and after that never do much of anything in the way of fighting again. I wonder if today's UFC/Pride/K1 fighters will have the desire to keep doing that to old