Can eating certain colors help you live to 108?

This year I turn 65, officially elderly. I am looking for ways to project my health far into the future. Desperately.

When it comes to mastering new skills or achieving personal goals, I often follow the two-step plan. Step one: Find a person who can do what you want to do. Step two: Do what he does.

I just spent several eye-opening days with Grandmaster Young Ahn Kwon, my Taekwondo master of eight years in Tewksbury, Massachusetts. I have the distinct honor of helping him write his book in which he will reveal the secrets of living to 108 in robust health. (Not 115. Not 100. Precisely 108.)

The first thing that strikes you about Kwan Jang Nim (Grandmaster) is how fit he is. At 68, he is slim, energetic and amazingly flexible. I’ve always found it hard to guess the age of adult Asians. They seem to freeze at about twenty and stay that way until well past sixty. But Grandmaster Kwon looks maybe in his forties. He has hardly a wrinkle in his skin, unless you count the ever-present smile. He shows no signs of arthritis and uses his legs with almost as much dexterity as his hands.

Clearly, he’s been doing something right.

Over the course of our time together, he shared with me the secrets of his diet, daily exercise plan, and other gems about living a long and healthy life he considers even more important. Much of it is quite new to me (despite our long association and my lifelong fitness hobby).

Take the color diet, for example, where for three weeks, twice a year, foods are chosen for their color. I’ve not only never encountered a diet like this, I can’t even think of a rationale why it would work. But he has observed it all his adult life, so as I write up the details, I’ll be trying it out for myself.

Kwan Jang Nim, in addition to being a 9th Dan Taekwondo Grandmaster (there is no 10th Dan), is a trained acupuncturist and chiropractor, although I think the Korean discipline is a little different from the American practice. Massage and physical manipulation are central to his health maintenance practices. Based on what I’ve learned so far, I could write a book on his massage and trigger point techniques alone.

Much of my task has been struggling to convey precisely what he means when he talks about “energy” and “happy” and other deceptively simple expressions. His English is fluent, but vocabulary outside of the martial arts limited. He talks much about “making good energy” and “making the inside happy.” There is some obvious foundation from ancient Chinese traditional medicine, but I do not want to read my own biases into his meaning and color his message with my presumptions.

My biggest challenge will be to capture Kwan Jang Nim’s voice while conveying the depth and complexity of his message.