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Hi Kirk,
I was editing my comment when the whole thing disappeared and there is no back arrow to restore it.
I’m 57, and just started 2 days ago. The fingering is not completely foreign to me as I used to play violin, but the wider neck and fretboard with added strings makes it challenging with my small hands. I was having problems with hand and wrist cramping, and I also have to be careful not to aggravate an old left shoulder injury.
I would recommend going to youtube and looking up “hand (or wrist) proper position on guitar”. There are several good videos on there, and you can watch the thumb and wrist movement as they play different chords. I found that to be very helpful. I would recommend watching more than one, because there are some slight variations that might come in handy for you.
Also, I stumbled on a video about neuroplasticity (the brain’s ability to learn something new). Basically one way to trigger the plasticity is to try a balance exercise before you begin playing new things or skills on the guitar. It could be as simple as standing on one foot for a few minutes, but you want the balance exercise to be difficult enough that the brain is triggered to understand it needs to learn something. You can spend 5 minutes on that, and then start playing the guitar. You will find that the learning is easier after doing this. I’ve just started listening to the Huberman podcasts on spotify (he is the one that did the studies on neuroplasticity). I’m hoping to learn some more information.
Hope this helps! 🙂