Page 148 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

because he loved Dylan so much, but the nex t step woul d have be en to
gradually listen to less and less mus ic, unt il he onl y had to thi nk abo ut the

tune to click into the zone. This pr ocess is systematic, straightforward, and
rooted in the most stable of all princi ples: i ncr emental growth.
As for me, the Tai Chi meditative movements becam e my rout ine . Every
day before training at my dojo, we took about six minut es and “did the form.”

Then Push Hands class began, and a num ber of the top studen ts went at it
with the same intensity with which we woul d appr oach compet ition. I learne d
virtually everything I know about Tai Chi from my years of traini ng in tha t
studio on 23rd Street. There is no place more peacef ul and ener gizing for me.

So in addition to the stand-alone ben efits of Tai Chi meditation, my bo dy and
mind learned to connect the form with my peak per formance state be caus e I
always did the form before training i n m y most ins pi ring s etting.
But I did not leave it at that. I had learned that martial arts tour na ment s

are, if anything, unpredictable. We do n’t always have fi e minut es of pe ace and
quiet before going to battle. After my di sconcer ting exper ience in the 2000
World Championships, I spent a number of mont hs sho rtening the amount of
preparation I needed to be primed for the moment. The essence of the Tai Chi

meditative movements is the continued gat her ing and release of bo dy and
mind as the practitioner flows thr ough the various martial postur es. As I
inhale, my mind comes alive, and I visual ize ener gizing from my feet int o my
fingers. When I exhale, the mind relaxes, the bo dy de-energizes, lets go , winds

up, and prepares for the next inflation. In essence, if you igno re the conc rete
strengths of the various postures, Tai Chi meditation is the practice of ebb and
flow, soft and hard, yin and yang, chan ge. So in theo ry I sho ul d be abl e to
condense the practice to its essence.

Incrementally, I started shortening the amount of form I did before starting
my training. I did a little less than the who le form, then 3 /4 of it, 1 /2, 1 /4. Over
the course of many months, utilizing the incremental appr oach of small
changes, I trained myself to be compl etely prepared after a deep inha lation and

release. I also learned to do the form in my mind witho ut moving at all. The
visualization proved almost as po werful as the real thi ng. Thi s ide a is no t
without precedent—recall the numbers to leave numbers, form to leave form, and
Making Smaller Circles discussions in Part II. At a high level, pr inci ples can be

internalized to the point that they are bar ely recogni zabl e even to the most
skilled observers.