Page 158 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

*

Returning to my own experience, I hav e steadi ly worked on int egr ating my

natural emotions into creative states of inspi ration. Of cour se ther e were stage s
to this process. As a teenager I was thr own off by emotion and tried to bl ock it
out. Then, in my early twenties, dur ing my ini tial exper iments with Buddhi st
and Taoist meditation, I worked on letting my emotions pas s like a cloud. Thi s

was interesting as it opened up a worki ng relations hi p with my emotiona l
reality very much like how I described worki ng with the unco ns cious in the
chapter Slowing Down Time. Instead of being dominated by or denying my
passions, I slowly learned how to obs erve them and feel ho w they inf us ed my

moment with creativity, f reshness, o r dar knes s.
Once I had a working relationship with my emotions , I began to take on my
psychological reaction to foul play in the martial arts with a bit more subt lety.
I believe that at the highest levels, per formers and artists mus t be true to

themselves. There can be no denial, no repression of true per sonal ity, or else the
creation will be false—the performer will be alienated from hi s or he r int ui tive
voice. I am a passionate guy. The fact of the matter is that I don’t pa rticul arly
like dirty players. Their relationships to compet ition, to ego , to spo rt, to art, to

violence, t o foul play—it all rubs me the w rong w ay.
The next step in my training woul d be to channel my gut reaction int o
intensity. This is not so hard once you get comfortable in that heat ed- up pl ace.
It is more about sweeping away the cobw ebs than abo ut learni ng any thi ng ne w.

We are built to be sharpest when in danger, but protected lives have di stanc ed
us from our natural abilities to chan nel our ener gies. Ins tead of runni ng from
our emotions or being swept away by thei r initial gus ts, we sho ul d learn to sit
with them, become at peace with thei r uni que flavors, and ul timately di scover

deep pools of inspiration. I have found that thi s is a natur al process. Onc e we
build our tolerance for turbulence and are no longer upen ded by the swells of
our emotional life, w e can ride them and ev en pi ck up s peed w ith t he ir slope s.
For a period following that second National Cham pi ons hi p, I worke d on

myself. First I learned to stay cool when training with di rty pl ayers, and the n I
started to use my passion to my advantage, to use my natur al he at. Whe n
working with guys who got out of cont rol, I woul d feel an organ ic cha nge in
my body chemistry. While initially thi s may have been disorienting, no w I

used it to sharpen my game, up the intensity, funnel my pr imal he at int o a