The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

by Josh Waitzkin

Once you are no longer swept away by your emotions and can sit with them even when under pressure, you will probably notice that certain states of mind inspire you more than others. For some it may be happiness, for others it may be fear. To each his own.

If you think about the high-end learning principles that I have discussed in this book, they all spring out of the deep, creative plunge into an initially small pool of information. In the early chapters, I described the importance of a chess player laying a solid foundation by studying positions of reduced complexity (endgame before opening). Then we apply the internalized principles to increasingly complex scenarios. In Making Smaller Circles we take a single technique or idea and practice it until we feel its essence. Then we gradually condense the movements while maintaining their power, until we are left with an extremely potent and nearly invisible arsenal. In Slowing Down Time, we again focus on a select group of techniques and internalize them until the mind perceives them in tremendous detail. After training in this manner, we can see more frames in an equal amount of time, so things feel slowed down. In The Illusion of the Mystical, we use our cultivation of the last two principles to control the intention of the opponent—and again, we do this by zooming in on very small details to which others are completely oblivious.

this section is a good summary of the book to date

While this principle of penetrating the macro through the micro is a critical idea in the developmental process, it is also an absolutely pivotal foundation for a great competitor.

When I went home and watched the video, I studied each of these moments frame by frame to see what happened. Sometimes I would see myself triggering into a throw just as Dan’s blink began. Other times, my body would direct a throw off to a creative new angle that caught Dan unawares. Maybe my footwork would fall into rhythm with his in a manner that opened up a tiny gap of momentum to ride, or I might catch him at the beginning of an exhalation. There were many moments like this, each of which I studied until I understood. The next day I would come into training and tell Dan what I discovered. We would then convert what had been creative inspiration into something we understood technically. If my body synched up with his breathing, we broke down how to do this at will. If I caught a blink, we studied the nuances of blinking. Next time we sparred, Dan would be aware of the new weapon I was working with, and so he would create a counter in order to stay in the game.

I noticed that if I faked in my mind, without even moving, he felt it and responded. He was incredibly sensitive to intention, so I started unbalancing him with invisible attacks that I pulsed into but didn’t actually manifest physically.