The Bojin Journal · Myths & real talk

Starting in Your 40s vs. Your 60s: Does the Method Differ?

By Yu-Ting Lan, from Taiwan · 7 min read

I once taught a class with a 46-year-old and her mother, 71, sitting side by side, both brand new to bojin, both asking me some version of the same nervous question: is this going to work differently for me because of my age? I gave them the same answer, because it happens to be true for both of them. The technique doesn't know how old you are. Your skin does, a little, and that's worth talking about honestly.

So here's the idea before the detail: the method itself, order, angle, position, pressure, is exactly the same whether you're 45 or 65. What changes with age isn't the technique. It's how your skin responds to it, and how many years you have ahead of you to build the habit. Neither of those is a reason to start later, or to wonder if you started too late.

What stays exactly the same

Every principle I teach applies identically at any age. The broad edge still covers and calms; the rounded tip still reaches a single point. The working angle still meets tension rather than skimming past it. The order, warm, work, drain, still matters the same way. None of this shifts for a 45-year-old versus a 65-year-old student. If you've read anything else on this site about technique, it applies to you exactly as written, regardless of your age.

What actually changes: your skin's baseline

Skin thins and loses some of its elasticity over the decades, a normal, gradual process that has nothing to do with tension or technique. Thinner, less elastic skin bruises and marks a little more easily than it did twenty years earlier, which means the same pressure that felt perfectly comfortable at 45 might sit slightly heavier on skin at 65. This isn't a different rule; it's the same "enough to reach the tension, never enough to hurt" standard, just landing at a slightly lighter number as skin changes with time.

The real difference: how much runway you have

Starting at 45 means you'll likely have twenty more years of practiced habit by the time you're 65, and that practice does make the technique feel more automatic, the angle and pressure becoming instinct rather than something you think through. That's a genuine advantage of starting earlier. But it's an advantage in ease and habit, not in whether the method itself works. A first session at 65 still eases whatever tension is there that day, exactly as a first session at 45 does.

Is it too late to start later?

No, and I want to be direct about this because I hear the worry often. Bojin doesn't reach back through decades of change; it eases the tension your face is holding right now, today, whenever today happens to be. That's true whether you begin at 40 or 70. The years you didn't spend practicing aren't a loss you need to make up for. They're simply years the method wasn't available to you yet. It's available now.

An honest note

Your age won't determine whether the method works; it will determine what comfortable pressure feels like on your particular skin, and how quickly the technique becomes second nature. Both of those are worth knowing honestly rather than guessing at. The gentle, temporary effect and the need for consistency stay the same at every age you might pick up a bojin stick for the first time.

Whether you're 45 or 75 reading this for the first time, the same page applies to you. Pick up the tool whenever you're ready. There's no age this stops being worth learning.

Comfortable pressure is personal at any age; read how hard should you actually press, and what changes and doesn't as skin ages in perimenopause skin changes.

Yu-Ting Lan is a Taiwan-based international bojin instructor and the founder of Héhé Studio. She has taught her bojin method to more than a thousand students, from complete beginners to grandmothers, across Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Malaysia.