Lein kuen but lein gung do lo yut cheung hoeng - Can this be reversed to a degree?

[LaterthanNever]

Realistically, is there a way to reverse this?


"Lein Kuen but lein gung do lo yut cheung hoeng -"Not training hard when young, no skill when older"

I will explain why I am curious. but before I do:

1.) Young is relative of course. I'm 47..so yeah.."older" though not as old as two venerable and well known kung fu grandmasters (in New York and Seattle respectively) who both recently turned 80! While I cannot undo what I did or did not do in my early teens and 20s (started my first kung fu lesson at 13), or even 30s, I can make a resolution to be more disciplined and make training a lifestyle.

2.) a kung fu brother of mine (who is also in his 40s) once said "guys like you and me who are older..we need to train twice as long as the guys in their 20s in order to get half as much/make half as much progress". While I don't know how he came up with this equation, does it stand to reason, if mathematically for instance that a guy in his mid 20s who trains an hour a day progresses to a certain rate, that I'd have to train 4 hours just to get the same type of progress ?

3.) it's also true that we are either practicing and improving or getting worse, but rarely if ever staying in the same spot.


My questions to this chinese wisdom/adage is this..

a.) in this statement..what is considered "older" in the original chinese translation? 65? 47? 30?

b.) Is it possible to sort of over compensate for the lost time by training for many hours a day (I say this with the awareness that most of us are not independently wealthy and work a 9 to 5..so I'm talking about non work/sleeping hours)?

Looking for some encouragement and honest replies..no trolls please. Thanks all.

Best,
LTN

[Jimbo]

I know the motto in its Mandarin pronunciation: Lian Quan Bu Lian Gong; Dao Lao Yi Chang Kong. Which actually translates as: "Practicing martial skills without martial development, when you are older you will have emptiness." If all one practices are techniques, forms and sparring (Quan), but without the proper development/conditioning (Gong) of the body and energy systems to make them effective, all your skills will be empty/useless. A simple, basic analogy would be a boxer who only does shadow boxing and practices strategy, but doesn't do any cardio (roadwork, skipping, circuit training, etc.), bag work, strength training, core conditioning, etc., etc. Each CMA has its own set of Gongs, such as types of strengthening, rooting, body hardening, body loosening, various types of qigong, reactions, sensitivity, etc. It's the foundation that supports your technical skills.

Guys who are in their 40s or older should NOT have to train twice as long or twice as hard as someone in their 20s. They should be training SMARTER. Most guys (and gals) in their 40s have FAR more responsibilities (and in many cases, new interests!) than 20-somethings. Not to mention the body becomes more easily injured and does NOT recover as quickly nor as efficiently as a 20-something's.

For example, in my teens and 20s, I trained for hours a day. Not counting rest periods but condensed together, my daily training time still added up to AT LEAST 3 hrs/day. This also included requisite developmental/conditioning practices. Unless maybe you are a professional MA teacher, how many people in their 40s, 50s and beyond can (or wants to) train 6 hrs/day?

I've had to learn to emphasize the quality, as opposed to quantity of time, and to respect my body. In my 20s and even into my 30s, I had a cavalier attitude about my body. As most young people do, I took my body for granted, and engaged in some training practices that were more harmful to the body than beneficial. In retrospect, I'm glad I've long since discontinued those practices.

There are MANY types of Gongs. The most basic of Gongs in all CMA is something virtually everyone does from the very beginning; stance training.

The only advice I can give is to train smarter. In other words, "easy does it". That doesn't mean to train lazily, but more mindfully. Rather than going balls-to-the-wall and having to lose days or weeks of training due to injury, learn to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and be consistent instead of sporadic. I'm 54, and in spite of some injuries, for one example, I still have good physical speed, but I wouldn't try to out-speed a fast 20-something. By now, you should be relying on experience, instincts, timing, and SNEAKINESS developed over most of a lifetime of training, over raw speed or power.