Page 130 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

darkness, leaving a father weeping on the jungl e fl or. Thr ee years later, José
still hadn’t recovered from this encount er. The villagers say he went mad. His

spirit was broken.
When I heard this story, suspended in the Amazoni an ni ght , I was struc k by
how much I related to both the predator and the prey. I us ed to create cha os on
the chessboard until my opponent s crum bl ed from the pr essur e. I loved the

unknown, the questions, and they wanted answers. When the re were no
answers, I was home and they were terrifi . The game was mine . The n my
psychology got complicated and the tables were tur ned . In my early enc ount ers
with world-class Grandmasters, I was us ual ly beat en like José. The che ss

position might be objectively even, but as the tension on the board mount ed it
felt as though a vise was slowly cinching do wn on my head, tight er, tight er,
until I reached a bursting point and made some small conces sion like José
backing up, a tiny imprecision that chan ged the character of the ga me,

anything to release the pressure on my br ain. T hen they were all over me.
Grandmasters know how to make the subt lest cracks decisive. The onl y
thing to do was become immune to the pain, embr ace it, unt il I coul d work
through hours of mind-numbing compl exities as if I were taking a lovely walk

in the park. The vise, after all, was onl y in my head. I spen t years worki ng on
this issue, learning how to maintain the tension—becoming at peace with
mounting pressure. Then, as a martial artist, I tur ned thi s traini ng to my
advantage, making my opponents expl ode from mental combus tion be caus e of

my higher threshold for discomfort.
In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded , present, cool unde r fi e is
much of what separates the best from the mediocre. In compe tition, the
dynamic is often painfully transpar ent. If one pl ayer is serenely present whi le

the other is being ripped apart by int ernal issues , the out come is already clear.
The prey is no longer objective, makes compo undi ng mistakes, and the
predator moves in for the kill. Whi le more subt le, thi s issue is pe rha ps even
more critical in solitary pursuits such as writing, pai nting, scholarly thi nki ng,

or learning. In the absence of cont inual external reinforcement, we mus t be our
own monitor, and quality of presence is often the best gau ge. We canno t expe ct
to touch excellence if “going through the motions ” is the norm of our lives. On
the other hand, if deep, fluid presence becomes second natur e, the n life, art,

and learning take on a richness that will cont inual ly sur pr ise and de light .
Those who excel are those who maximize each moment’s creative po tent ial—