Page 152 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

were blatantly cheating throughout the event. The who le situat ion made me
sick. T he problem is that it also made me angr y.

Time and again in critical moments of our games, Boris would pull out
some dirty trick, and I would get irritated and make an error. To hi s credi t,
Boris knew how to get in my head. As a teenag er, anger clouded my vision and
Boris played me like a drum. After losing a coupl e of gam es to hi m, I realized

that righteous indignation would get me no wher e. I decided to block my ange r
out. When Boris tapped pieces, I took a deep breath. When he talked abo ut the
position with his coach, I just pl ayed kno wing I woul d have to be at bo th of
them. When Boris shook the board, I igno red hi m. Thi s might ha ve seemed a

good strategy, but the problem with thi s appr oach is that Boris didn’t ha ve a
limit. He was perfectly content to escalate the situat ion (for exampl e by leg
kick combinations) and eventually I woul d get pissed off and have a meltdo wn.
It took me some time to realize that blocking out my natur al emotions was no t

the solution. I had to learn to use my moment organ ically. Ins tead of be ing
thrown off by or denying my irritation, I had to somehow channe l it int o a
profound state of concentration. It wasn’t unt il my martial arts career tha t I
really learned how to do this.

It took work. The first time this issue came up in my compet itive martial
arts life was in the finals of my first Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands Nationa l
Championship in November 2000. I had crui sed thr ough the tour na ment thus
far and was in the lead in this match unt il my oppo nen t head- but ted me in the

nose, which is blatantly illegal. The referee di dn’t see it and pl ay cont inue d.
The rules of this particular tournament were that point s were scored whe n
someone was unbalanced and either thr own int o the air, on the ground, or out
of a large ring. No blows to the neck, head, or groin were allowed. Abo ut

fifteen seconds later he head-butted me agai n, har der, and a wild surge of ange r
flew up through my body and into my eyes. The blood rus h to the eyes that
comes with a hard blow to the nose is, I believe, wher e the expr ession “seeing
red” comes from. I saw red and went out of cont rol for abo ut ten seconds . On

the video it looks like my methodi cal style somehow mut ated into a bul lish
madness. I was over-aggressive, off-bal ance and compl etely vul ne rabl e—qui te
literally, I was blinded by rage. I almost lost the National s in tho se moment s,
but fortunately I returned to my senses and was able to win the match. A

weakness of mine was exposed and l uck ily I di dn’t hav e to lose to learn.