Page 155 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

giving me a valuable opportunity to expan d my thr esho ld for tur bul enc e. Dirty
players were my best teachers.

On the performance side, I had made some strides , but still had a long way
to go. First of all, I had to keep my head on straight no matter wha t. But thi s
was only the initial step of the process. The fact of the matter is tha t we ha ve
our natural responses to situations for a reason. Feelings of anger and fear and

elation emerge from deep inside of us and I thi nk bl ocking the m out is an
artificial habit. In my experience, compet itors who make thi s mistake tend to
crumble when pushed far enough.
I recall reading a New York Times article about the New York Jets

placekicker Doug Brien days before the Jets took on the Pittsbur gh Steelers in
the 2004 NFL playoffs. Brien talked con tly abo ut going into a medi tative
place before every kick. He said that he isolated himself from his sur roundi ngs ,
and he claimed that even under huge pressur es hi s mind was “compl etely

empty” before each kick. When I saw thi s I felt sus pi cious about hi s pr ocess—
the “completely” bothered me—an d I called my dad and told hi m I was
worried about our kicker. Sure enough, when the Jets took on the Steelers,
everything came down to two critical ki cks. The first one Brien ki cke d sho rt.

The second he shanked way left. In an int erview right after the game he said
that after the first miss all he coul d thi nk abo ut was getting it long eno ugh.
One miss combined with big pressur e to jolt Brien out of his perfect calm: he
fixated on his last mistake and was anythi ng but empt y-minded . The fact of

the matter is that while I love meditation and believe who lehe artedl y in
training oneself to operate calmly under pr essur e, ther e is a difference between
the practice field and a hostile, freezing- cold stadium fi led with screaming fans
who want you to fail in the bigges t moment of your life. The onl y way to

succeed is to acknowledge reality and funnel it, take the nerves and us e the m.
We must be prepared for imperfection. If we rely on having no nerves, on no t
being thrown off by a big miss, or on the exact replication of a certain minds et,
then when the pressure is high eno ugh, or when the pai n is too pi ercing to

ignore, o ur ideal state will shatter.
The Soft Zone approach is much more organic and us eful than den ial. The
next steps of my growth would be to do with anger what I had with di straction
years before. Instead of denying my emotional reality under fi e, I ha d to learn

how to sit with it, use it, channel it int o a height ened state of int ens ity. Li ke