How Long Will It Take To Become Proficient?

It depends on what you commit to the process. As a rule of thumb, three good practice sessions per week will enable reasonable progress. If you can only get two sessions in, you will maintain your level, but slip over time. Four sessions is best.

So much depends on how you define 'Proficiency'. The UCB Program seeks to help you change your condition. Think of the UCB Program as a tool for refining the body, deepening your awareness and increasing concentration.

When refining, loosening or softening the body, progress can be easily measured in terms of range of movement, pain relief and raised energy levels. Structural accomplishment is similarly easy to quantify... you are much stronger.

Since measuring progress in awareness and concentration is so difficult, we endeavor to note the external manifestations or symptoms of such progress. This is why partner training is so essential. In solo training you may feel or believe that you've improved, but as soon as you touch another person, you know.

Without the honest feedback provided by vigorous partner training, progress in mindfulness and concentration is just talk and conjecture.

That having been said, a reasonable level of structural integration can be reached in three years of dilligent practice. You will notice immediately more relaxation and increased energy. Going beyond this, it's hard to say how long it will take since students are so different and have such wildly different expectations. Besides, it's the journey, not the destination. Try to manage your expectations keeping in mind the present moment. This is one important aspect of "Empty Cup, Beginners' Mind".

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Kalama Sutta (Kalama Sutra)

Do not simply believe what you hear just because you have heard it for a long time.
Do no follow tradition blindly merely because it has been practiced that way for many generations.
Do not be quick to listen to rumors.
Do not confirm anything just because it agrees with your scriptures.
Do not foolishly make assumptions.
Do not abruptly draw conclusions by what you see and hear.
Do not be fooled by outward appearances.
Do not hold on tightly to any view or idea just because you are comfortable with it.
Do not accept as fact anything that you yourself find to be illogical.
Do not be convinced of anything out of respect and deference to your spiritual teachers.

You should go beyond opinion and belief. You can rightly reject anything which when accepted, practiced and perfected leads to more aversion, more craving and more delusion. They are not beneficial and are to be avoided. Conversely, you can rightly accept anything which when accepted and practiced leads to unconditional love, contentment and wisdom. These things allow you time and space to develop a happy and peaceful mind. This should be your criteria on what is and what is not the truth; on what should be and what should not be the spiritual practice.