Page 121 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

precise moment that his right foot is settling ont o the gr ound, the n my
opponent will not be able to correct hi mself. His footwork will ge t all twisted

up. This idea is far from unique to the martial arts. If a tenni s pl ayer ha s
someone leaning left and hits the ball jus t out of reach to the right , the
opponent will appear flat footed and paralyzed. If an NFL runni ng ba ck, NBA
ball handler, or World Cup soccer player can get the def ender to put weight in

the wrong place at the wrong time, then he can bl ow on by and leave the guy
tripping over himself. In virtually every compet itive phy sical di scipl ine , if you
are a master of reading and manipul ating footwork, then you are a force to be
reckoned with.

So let’s build a game around the simpl e pr inci ple of weight redistribut ion.
There are two intertwined compo nen ts to thi s process. The fi st is conde ns ed
technique. The second is enhanced percept ion. Our goal is to take adv ant age of
the moment our opponent is switching his weight from one foot to ano the r.

There are many weaknesses or tells that may be us ed to appr oach thi s go al—
breath patterns, physical tens ion, inferior techni cal unde rstandi ng,
complacency, emotion, distraction, and an array of other unc ons cious ,
predictable habits can all be homed in on or combi ned for the desired effect.

For simplicity’s sake, l et’s focus on the ey es. S peci fi ly the b link.
First of all, most people blink witho ut kno wing it, so they proba bl y won’t
consider it a weakness that may be expl oited in compet ition. Even for top
competitors, there is not much of a sense of danger associated with the bl ink—

it happens so quickly, everything feels safe. But it isn’t. Ther e is a small cha nge
in awareness that accompanies the flash of eyes, and a highl y ski lled pl ayer can
train himself to exploit it. This is wher e the metho do logy of Slowing Down Time
comes into play. If, through incremental training as des cribed earlier in the

book, your unconscious understandi ng of your discipline of cho ice ha s be come
sufficiently advanced, and you have learned ho w to trus t your phy sical and
intuitive intelligence to handle the technical components of your moment,
then your conscious mind can zoom in on very small amount s of da ta—i n thi s

case, the eyes. Because our minds are so compl ex, if you give us a small amount
of material to work with, and we do it with great intensity, then we can br eak
it down into microscopic detail. If our cons cious mind is pur ely focus ed on the
eyes, they will seem to take a while to blink. We see them beginni ng to close,

closed, s tarting to open, an d then o pen again. T hat ’s all we need.