Page 102 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

me to compete. On Wednesday I did my first weight worko ut on my right side
in seven weeks, on Friday I flew to San Diego, and on Satur da y, slight ly

favoring my newly empowered left arm, I won t he N ational s.

*

One thing I have learned as a compet itor is that ther e are clear di stinc tions
between what it takes to be decent , what it takes to be good, wha t it take s to
be great, and what it takes to be among the best. If your go al is to be medi ocre,
then you have a considerable margin for error. You can get dep ressed whe n fi ed

and mope around waiting for someone to call with a new job offer. If you hur t
your toe, you can take six weeks watching television and eating potato chi ps . In
line with that mind-set, most peopl e thi nk of injur ies as setbacks , somethi ng
they have to recover from or deal with. Fr om the out side, for fans or spe ctators,

an injured athlete is in purgatory, ho vering in an impo tent state be tween
competing and sitting on the bench. In my martial arts life, every time I tweak
my body, well-intended people like my mother sugges t I take a few weeks off
training. What they don’t realize is that if I were to stop training whe ne ver

something hurt, I would spend my who le year on the couch . Almost witho ut
exception, I am back on the mats the next day, fi ing out ho w to us e my ne w
situation to heighten elements of my gam e. If I want to be the best, I ha ve to
take risks others would avoid, always opt imizing the learni ng potent ial of the

moment and turning adversity to my adv antage. That said, the re are times
when the body needs to heal, but tho se are ripe oppo rtuni ties to de epe n the
mental, t echnical, i nternal side of my gam e.
When aiming for the top, your path requi res an engag ed, searching mind.

You have to make obstacles spur you to creative new angl es in the learni ng
process. Let setbacks deepen your resolve. You sho ul d always come off an inj ur y
or a loss better than when you went down. Ano ther angl e on thi s issue is the
unfortunate correlation for some bet ween cons istency and mono tony. It is all

too easy to get caught up in the rout ines of our lives and to lose creativity in
the learning process. Even people who are compl etely devoted to cul tivating a
certain discipline often fall into a mental rut , a disengag ed lifestyle tha t
implies excellence can be obtained by go ing thr ough the motions . We lose

presence. Then an injury or some other kind of setback thr ows a wrenc h int o
the gears. We are forced to get imaginat ive.