Josh Waitzkin is the child prodigy Junior Chess Champion whose early life formed the book, and later the film, Searching for Bobby Fischer. In his early twenties Waitzkin’s focus moved from chess to martial arts, specifically Tai Chi. He subsequently went on to win several US national medals and become the 2004 world champion in Taiji Push Hands.
I have to admit that I am not a huge fan of either chess or martial arts so you might be asking why I bothered reading a book written by a world-famous chess and martial arts champion. The initial give away is the title: ‘The Art of Learning’ focuses on the methodology you can use to learn something and become exceptional at it. It is this component that really stood out for me, I was really interested to understand the approaches and techniques Waitzkin used to become world class in two – on the surface very different – worlds.
I found it a very easy to read and enjoyable book, with a number of key lessons and take always which I have been applying to my own life.
Specifically, there are 8 key things I want to pull out from the book, all key takeaways for me:
The importance of finding and maintaining a great teacher who you see as a mentor. Waitzkin gave up Chess when he no longer had the mentors, Razuvaev & Chen, who shaped the earlier years of his career.
The importance of loving the practice and the mundane aspects. To be world class at anything you have to spend so many hours practicing and break everything down into the smallest possible parts and repeatedly assess them, if you don’t enjoy this you’ll soon lose that drive and love for your craft.
Practice something so hard and in so much detail that your unconscious mind takes over in competitive and high pressure situations. Achieving this allows your conscious mind to notice and focus on things your opponent isn’t.
The importance of cultivating a child’s ability, without suffocating it or making it more about results than learning and improving.
Learn to embrace change, rather than fight it. Doing this can often convert a weakness into a strength. This is something that is central in Ryan Holidays excellent book, The Obstacle is the Way, a review of which will be coming along soon!
The power of the human mind. It is so true that so much of life can be a case of mind over body, you just need to have the right understanding and awareness to fully take control.
More to be gained from a painful loss than an easy win. Always ensure you are challenging yourself to be in difficult and hard positions, this is the only way to improve and test yourself. If you don’t do this, you will lose that edge and see your progress come to a grinding halt.
The importance of learning how to get out of the zone as well as into it. The different ways people get ‘into the zone’ is often talked about and analysed but Waitzkin highlights the importance of being able to get out again quickly to prevent getting mentally exhausted.
In addition to the 8 key personal takeaways for me, below I share my full notes from the book, the majority of which are direct quotes.
This is my own perspective and there are most likely key messages which will resonant with you which didn’t resonate with me, therefore if you are interested by the below I’d recommend buying the book, which you can find here.
Book Notes
Introduction
‘My fascination with consciousness, study of chess and Tai Chi, love for literature and the ocean, for meditation and philosophy, all coalesced around the theme of tapping into the mind’s potential is complete immersion into one and all activities.’
‘Pure concentration didn’t allow thoughts or false constructions to impede my awareness, and I observed clear connections between different life experiences through the common mode of consciousness by which they were perceived.’ E.g. ‘becoming at peace holding my breath seventy feet underwater as a free-diver helped me in the time pressure of world championship chess’
Part 1 – The Foundation
Chapter 1: Innocent Moves & Chapter 2: Losing to Win
About how he got into Chess, things he learnt in Street Chess in Washington Park Vs Classical training
Describes how he came back from losing his first national championship aged 8, to win in his second, aged 9
Chapter 3: Two Approaches to Learning
‘If ambition spells probable disappointment, why pursue excellence? In my opinion, the answer to both questions lies in a well-thought-out approach that inspires resilience, the ability to make connections between diverse pursuits, and day-to-day enjoyment of the process.’
‘The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term process, and not live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity.’ –Use a ‘mastery oriented’ or ‘Learning theorist’ methodology, not a ‘helplessness orientated’ or ‘entity theorist’ viewpoint.
‘In my experience, successful people shoot for the stars, put their hearts on the line in every battle, and ultimately discover that the lessons learned from the pursuit of excellence mean much more than the immediate trophies and glory. In the long run, painful losses may prove much more valuable than wins.’
Chapter 4: Loving the Game
‘While a fixation on results is certainly unhealthy, short-term goals can be useful development tools if they are balanced within a nurturing long-term philosophy.’
‘Disappointment is a part of the road to greatness.’
‘Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.’
‘There were a few powerful moments that reinforced my young notion that glory had little to do with happiness or long-term success.’
Chapter 5: The Soft Zone ”Lose Yourself”
‘This Soft Zone is resilient, like a flexible blade of grass that can move with and survive hurricane-force winds.’
‘Mental resilience is arguably the most critical trait of a world-class performer, and it should be nurtured continuously…When uncomfortable, my instinct is not to avoid the discomfort but to become at peace with it.’
Chapter 6: The Downward Spiral
‘One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error…The first mistake rarely proves disastrous, but the downward spiral of the second, third, and fourth errors creates a devastating chain reaction.’
Chapter 7: Changing Voice
‘In life, I worked on embracing change instead of fighting it. With awareness and action, in both life and chess my weakness was transformed into a strength.’
Chapter 8: Breaking Stallions
‘A key component of high-level learning is cultivating a resilient awareness that is the older, conscious embodiment of a child’s playful obliviousness.’
‘The human mind defines things in relation to one another – without light the notion of darkness would in unintelligible. Along the same lines, I have found that if we feed the unconscious, it will discover connections between what may appear to be disparate realities. The path to artistic insight in one direction often involves deep study of another – the intuition makes uncanny connections that lead to a crystallisation of fragmented notions.’
‘Muscles and minds need to stretch to grow, but if stretched too thin, they will snap. A competitor needs to be process-oriented, always looking for stronger opponents to spur growth, but it is also important to keep on winning enough to maintain confidence.’
‘We have to release our current ideas to soak in new material, but not so much that we lose touch with our unique natural talents. Vibrant, creative idealism needs to be tempered by a practical, technical awareness.’
Part 2 – My Second Art
Chapter 9: Beginner’s Mind
‘My understanding of learning was about searching for the flow that lay at the heart of, and transcended, the technical.’
‘Tai Chi is the meditative and martial embodiment of Taoist philosophy.’
Chapter 10: Investment in Loss
‘Investment in loss is giving yourself to the learning process. In Push Hands it is letting yourself be pushed without reverting back to old habits – training yourself to be soft and receptive when your body doesn’t have any idea how to do it and wants to tighten up.’
‘I have long believed that if a student of virtually any discipline could avoid ever repeating the same mistake twice – both technical and psychological – he or she would skyrocket to the top of their field…So the aim is to minimise repetition as much as possible, by having an eye for consistent psychological and technical themes or error.’
‘I was also constantly training with people who were far more advanced…put your ego on hold…’
‘In all disciplines, there are times when a performer is ready for action, and times when he or she is soft, in flux, broken-down or in a period of growth…It is important to have perspective on this and allow yourself protected periods for cultivation.’
Chapter 11: Making Smaller Circles
‘The theme is depth over breath. The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick.’
‘My understanding of this process, in the spirit of my numbers to leave numbers method of chess study, is to touch the essence (for example, highly refined and deeply internalised body mechanics or feeling) of a technique, and then to mentally condense the external manifestation of the technique while keeping true to its essence. Over time expansiveness decreases while potency increases. I call this method ”Making Smaller Circles”.’
‘It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set.’
Chapter 12: Using Adversity
‘The importance of undulating between external and internal (or concrete and abstract; technical and intuitive) training applies to all disciplines, and unfortunately the internal trends to be neglected.’
‘Once we learn how to use adversity to our advantage, we can manufacture the helpful growth opportunity without actual danger or injury. I call this tool the internal solution – we can notice external events that trigger helpful growth or performance opportunities, and the internalise the effects of those events without their actually happening. In this way, adversity becomes a tremendous source of creative inspiration.’
Chapter 13: Slowing Down Time
‘For much of this book I have described my vision of the road to mastery – you start with fundamentals, get a solid foundation fuelled by understanding the principles of your discipline, then you expand and refine your repertoire, guided by your individual predispositions, while keeping in touch, however abstractly, with what you feel to be the essential core of the art. What results is a network of deeply internalised, interconnected knowledge that expands from a central, personal locus point. The questions of initiation relates to how that network is navigated and used as fuel for creative insight.’
‘With practice, I am making networks of chunks and paving more and more neutral pathways, which effectively takes huge piles of data and throws it over to my high-speed processor- the unconscious. Now my conscious mind, focusing on less, seems to rev up its shutter speed…The key is to understand that my trained mind is not Becca tilt working much faster than an untrained mind – it is simply working more effectively, which means that my conscious mind has less to deal with.’
‘In most situations, we need to be aware of what is happening around us, and our processor is built to handle this responsibility. On the other hand, armed with an understanding of how intuition operates, we can train ourselves to have remarkably potent perceptual and physical abilities in our discipline of focus. The key, of course, is practice.’
Chapter 14: The Illusion of Mystical
‘In virtually every competitive physical discipline, if you are a master of reading and manipulating footwork, then you are a force to be reckoned with.’
‘In time, I have come to understand those words, At the opponent’s slightest move, I move first, as pertaining to intention – reading and ultimately controlling intention. The deepest form of adherence or shadowing involves a switching of roles, where the follower becomes the followed in a relationship in which time seems to twist in a tangle of minds.’
Part 3 – Bringing it all together
Chapter 15: The Power of Presence
‘In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, cool under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre.’
‘The more present we are at practice, the more present we will be in competition, in the boardroom, at the exam, the operating table, the big stage.’
Chapter 16: Searching for the Zone
Stress & Recovery – ‘Players who are able to relax in brief moments of inactivity are almost always the ones who end up coming through when the game is on the line.’
‘In your performance training, the first step to mastering the zone is to practice the ebb and flow of stress and recovery. This should involve internal training…Truth be told, this is what my entire approach to learning is based on – breaking down the artificial barriers between our diverse life experiences so all moments become enriched by a sense of interconnectedness.’
‘If you are at work and find yourself running out of mental stamina, take a break, wash your face, and come back renewed. It would be an excellent idea to spend a few minutes a day doing some simple meditation practice in which your mind gathers and releases with the ebb and flow of your breath. This will help you connect your physical interval training to the mental arenas.’
‘The unconscious mind is a powerful tool, and learning how to relax under pressure is a key first step to tapping into this potential.’
Chapter 17: Building Your Trigger
‘Not only do we have to be good at waiting, we have to love it. Because waiting is not waiting, it is life. Too many of us love without fully engaging our minds, waiting for that moment when our real lives begin…I believe an appreciation for simplicity, the everyday – the abilities to dive deeply into the banal and discover life’s hidden richness – is where success, let alone happiness, emerges.’
‘If there is nothing in your life that feels serene, meditation is the perfect hobby to help you discover a launching point in your search for a personalised routine.’
Find something that helps you feel serene, relaxed and present, e.g. Dennis playing catch with his son. Then build a routine around it; same light snack, 15mins meditation, 10mins stretching, 10mins music. Then swap out the serene end point for an important meeting or a competition, because you associate the routine with a serene, high performance end point you’ll have the same level in the meeting as playing ball with your son.
Once it works incrementally reduce it, the ideal is…’Over the course of many months, utilising the incremental approach of small changes, I trained myself to be completely prepared after a deep inhalation and release.’
‘This book is about learning and performance, but it is also about my life. Presence has taught me how to live.’
Chapter 18: Making Sandals
‘Keep in mind the three steps I described as critical to resilient, self-sufficient performance. First, we learn to glow with distraction, like that blade of grass bending to the wind. Then we learn to use distraction, inspiring ourselves with what initially would have thrown us off our games. Finally, we learn to re-create the inspiring settings internally. We learn to make sandals.’
‘I had to develop the habit of taking on my technical weaknesses whenever someone pushed my limits instead of falling back into a self-protective indignant pose.’
‘The only way to succeed is to knowledge reality and funnel it, take the nerves and use them. We must be prepared for imperfection. If we rely on having no nerves, on not being thrown off by a big miss, or in the exact replication of a certain mindset, then when the pressure is high enough, or when the pain is too piercing to ignore, our ideal state will shatter.’
‘We are built to be sharpest when in danger, but protected lives have distanced us from our natural abilities to channel our energies…Once we build our tolerance for turbulence and are no longer upended by the swells of our emotional life, we can ride them and even pick up speed with their slopes.’
Chapter 19: Bringing it all together
‘I have found that in the intricate endeavors of competition, learning, and performance, there is more than one solution to virtually every meaningful problem. We are unique individuals who should put our own flair into everything we do.’
Chapter 20: Taiwan
‘Tactics come easy once principles are in the blood.’
Afterword
‘If I have learned anything over my first twenty-nine years, it is that we cannot calculate our important contests, adventures, and great loves to the end. The only thing we can really count on is getting surprised. No matter how much preparation we do, in the real tests of our lives, we’ll be in unfamiliar terrain. Conditions might not be calm or reasonable. It may feel as though the whole world is stacked against us. This is when we have to perform better than we ever conceived of performing. I believe the key is to have prepared in a manner that allows for inspiration, to have laid the foundation for us to create Inder the wildest pressures we ever imagined.’
