You don't so much lose it as it just moves out of reach! You get it back the same way you get to Carnegie Hall, practice, practice, practice. For those into weight lifting as an activity (or life work for that matter) the rule is that it takes you half the time you've been out to regain the form you had when you stopped. Programming is similar in that the struggle to regain is shorter than the struggle to acquire in the first place.

--hsm

"Never try to teach a pig to sing...it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."