The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

by Josh Waitzkin

I remember the strange sensation of discovering a lost memory. As we moved the pieces, I felt like I had done this before.

Children who associate success with hard work tend to have a “mastery-oriented response” to challenging situations, while children who see themselves as just plain “smart” or “dumb,” or “good” or “bad” at something, have a “learned helplessness orientation.”

The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.

In school, they focus on what comes easy to them and ignore the subjects that are harder. On the playground, they use the famous “I wasn’t trying” after missing a shot or striking out.

Many kids like this are quite talented, so they excel at first because of good genes—but then they hit a roadblock.

When you win, you survive another day. When you lose, it is as if someone has torn out your heart and stepped on it. No exaggeration. Losing is brutal.

Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities. * * *

Mental resilience is arguably the most critical trait of a world-class performer, and it should be nurtured continuously. Left to my own devices, I am always looking for ways to become more and more psychologically impregnable. When uncomfortable, my instinct is not to avoid the discomfort but to become at peace with it. When injured, which happens frequently in the life of a martial artist, I try to avoid painkillers and to change the sensation of pain into a feeling that is not necessarily negative. My instinct is always to seek out challenges as opposed to avoiding them.

I believe that one of the most critical factors in the transition to becoming a conscious high performer is the degree to which your relationship to your pursuit stays in harmony with your unique disposition.

If aggression meets empty space it tends to defeat itself.

William Chen calls this 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.

This concept of Making Smaller Circles has been a critical component of my learning process in chess and the martial arts. In both fields, players tend to get attached to fancy techniques and fail to recognize that subtle internalization and refinement is much more important than the quantity of what is learned.

Less is more Start with litlle details to get to the big picture

The only thing to do was become immune to the pain, embrace it, until I could work through hours of mind-numbing complexities as if I were taking a lovely walk in the park.

If one player is serenely present while the other is being ripped apart by internal issues, the outcome is already clear. The prey is no longer objective, makes compounding mistakes, and the predator moves in for the kill.

Presence must be like breathing.

one of the most telling features of a dominant performer is the routine use of recovery periods. 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.

It was a simple meditative technique where he followed his breath. When he noticed his mind wandering, he just released the thought like a cloud gliding by and returned to his breath.