Page 145 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

raving that he found himself in a totally serene state in what was no rmally a
stressful environment. He had no troubl e being ful ly pr esent thr ougho ut the

meeting.
The point to this system of creating your own trigger is that a phy siologi cal
connection is formed between the rout ine and the activity it precede s. Denni s
was always present when playing bal l with hi s son, so all we had to do was set

up a routine that became linked to that state of mind (clearly it woul d ha ve
been impractical for Dennis to tow Jack around everywher e he went). Onc e the
routine is internalized, it can be used bef ore any activity and a similar state of
mind will emerge. Let me emphas ize that your per sonal routine should be

determined by your individual tastes. If Denni s had so cho sen, he coul d ha ve
done cartwheels, somersaults, screamed into the wind, and then take n a swim
before playing catch with his son, and over time tho se activities woul d be come
physiologically connected to the same state of mind. I tend to prefer a rout ine

like Dennis’s, because it is relatively portable and seems more conduc ive to a
mellow presence, b ut to each his own.
I have used routines before competitions for the last ten years of my life. At
chess tournaments, I would meditate for an hour whi le listening to a tape tha t

soothed me, and then I would go to war. When I started compe ting in the
martial arts I already knew how to get into a peak performance state unde r
pressure and had little trouble deal ing with less compet itively expe rienc ed
opponents. T hen I ran into a new pr obl em.

In November 2000 I traveled to Taiwan to compet e in my first Push Hands
World Championship. I had never been to an int ernat ional martial arts
tournament and was awed by the chanting fans in the bl eachers and the
elaborate traditional opening ceremony in whi ch tho us ands of compe titors

marched with their countries’ flags waving above. More than fi ty na tions were
represented, each with a unique training style. Whi le I watched the othe r
competitors warm up, I was impr essed by thei r athl eticism and obv ious
mastery. The alien feeling of the env ironm ent seemed to height en the thr eat of

my opponents. I was feeling off-bal ance so I went into my rout ine , whi ch at
that point was a thirty-minute visual ization exercise. I came out of it raring to
go. It was 9:00 A.M., I was supposed to have one of the first matches, and I was
ready to roll. T hen the waiting began .

The clock passed 10:00, then 11:00. I didn’t speak the language and no one
would tell me when I was scheduled to compet e. I had hear d that my oppo ne nt