Forever Young

 

拳怕少壯

The fist fears the young and vigorous¹

少時練得一身勁，老來健壯少生病

A whole body strength trained when young, robust, healthy and rarely sick at an old age.

練出一身汗，小病不用看

Training to sweat all over the body, no need to worry about minor illnesses.

身體鍛鍊好、八十不服老

A body well trained, eighty but not acquiescing to old age.

二五更的功夫

Skills coming from an early sleep and an early wake².

A part of old practices, which is almost lost nowadays, is the training of the organs and its deep transformation of one’s body. To stay fit, for old internal practices, was to upgrade one’s organs, the internal alchemy, which, amongst other things, led to slowing down the ageing process and keep one’s vitality at its best for a long time. 少壯, young and vigorous, stresses on such need.

Sturdy Structure

拳怕少壯

The fist fears the young and robust¹

膂力過人

An outstanding backbone strength²

打拳壯筋骨

Training strengthens fascias and bones.

刀越磨越亮，體越練越壯

The more is polished a knife the brighter it is, the more is trained a body the stronger it is.

冬養骨，夏伸筋

Winter to grow bones, summer to extend the fascias

The need to first transform the body, stressing on fascias and bones, which has already been described in length in this blog, is the basis of the external training of internal practices. 

Strong and Experienced Youth

拳怕少壯, 棍怕老郎

The fist fears the young and vigorous, the stick the old gentleman.

身體力行

A body acts according to physical strengths¹.

讀萬卷書不如行萬里路

It's better to walk thousands of miles than to read thousands of books².

An old martial saying states that experience itself represents half, if not more, of the value of a warrior.

Worlds Apart

拳怕少壯, 棍怕老郎

The fist fears the young and vigorous, the stick the old gentleman.

若能棍，則各利器之法，從此得矣¹

As skilled with the stick, then the method for each sharp weapon is henceforth obtained.

赤手空拳

Unarmed and defenceless (empty hands and empty fists)

The first meaning brought by such a saying is, of course, that boxing and fighting with weapons are actually very different.