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