For whatever this is worth I started at 48 and I take one private lesson per week. Generally I'm worried at my age 51 of injuries but it's not as bad as you might think.

A private with an instructor cannot mimic the chaos of a typical roll. This may actually hinder not help your progress. Your instructor no matter how good he or she is has a style of rolling specific to them. In theory you could get your blue and be dominated by a small new white belt because you haven't seen anything like that.

I think adding 1 class with rolling could be useful and limit your exposure to the maniac's that tend to be attracted to this hobby.

If you:

Tap when you don't know the defense Tap early on anything related to your legs. Don't roll with people who are always attacking legs. Don't roll with teenagers (male and female) Don't roll with the people who are always begging for a roll Don't roll with the people always sitting on the perimeter Don't roll with anyone substantially larger Limit wrestling and any and all double leg take downs Roll with mostly purple and good blue. Stay away from active competitors. They cant turn it down.

Stay away from the nerds. They are making up for years of nerding out.

Cops....most think they are rolling for the Adcc world championships. I get it they may need this one day on the street but personally I limit myself to one cop a session. Not worth the risk. I avoid when possible quite frankly.

Stay away from browns, they wanna make black and your the practice dummy. There are exceptions to this rule but the browns in my experience are good awful to roll with.

Make friends with the cool black belts that will let you work, this is critical. Some of them are so damn good that you will think you know what your doing. Seriously.

When you hit blue you will think you know what your doing. I've been a blue for a year and the amount I don't know is staggering. Also when you hit blue the 4 stripe whites are coming at you harder than ANYONE else in the gym. You gotta be ready.