Beijing leftovers (3)

Sometimes I think it is really impossible. I started too late, there is too much to learn, there is not enough time. And someday I have to start teaching....
First tai ji quan experience, age 18, first "real" or deep martial arts experience, maybe two years later, plunging into the university karate club. That filling my life for seven years before moving to Japan. But already a growing awareness that those who are destined to be really good are those who have already been training for ten years by the time they hit 20, 21...
Too much to learn? Don't even get me started on that. The more I learn - breadth or depth - the worse it gets. And the worse the agony over reviewing the old vs. seeking the new.
Not enough time? Don't even get me started on that. 40 this year, a rough year by all reckonings. How long to stay in Japan, how much to deepen and polish my skills before going back? New doors continue to open for me over here, yet the call to go home grows insistent. And I hear more stories about those who stayed too long in Japan, couldn't go back or couldn't get things going once they got back. And more stories about those who went home too early, trying to teach with almost-polished skills...

Yet there is nothing to do but plunge ahead. I started interviewing a teacher in Beijing in August, asked about difficult times for training in his life. Go take a look at the history of 20th Century China and you can guess some of the periods I am talking about. He stopped training when there was no food for 2, 3 years. He and so many others. He trained in secret during other times. He and so many others. And he is still going, 70-something and strong. What do we know of this in my home country??
I continued interviewing him in Tokyo in September. He studied deeply with one teacher, then another. He made the rounds of the parks, seeking any knowledge he could find from those practicing, had chance encounters which revolutionized his life and training. He traveled long distances by train to another city for short periods of training with one teacher. Tuition was high and his salary was not. He mastered the empty hand techniques of one teacher, wanted to study the spear techniques for which the teacher was really famous. But that teacher died and all was lost. Time was too short. Now he has plenty of time, some money, the trains are faster - but all those teachers are gone.
What can one do in the modern world? Books and DVDs everywhere, every teacher to be found on Youtube. Borders are crossed much more easily these days. Learning at the surface level can be had by anyone at their convenience. But what really matters is the one on one time, the personal connection, the sweat of endless repetitions and the reluctant grunt of tentative approval from the teacher - then everything is worthwhile. When you hear that, you start to think it may be possible, that you can go on and that all is not lost.