Page 165 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

a hundred pounds to my opponents and cons istently winni ng heav yweight and
super-heavyweight titles. I was a much impr oved martial artist and I also kne w

what I was getting myself into. My first match of that 2002 Chung Hwa Cup
was against the Austrian representative, who had just won the Eur ope an
Championship a few months before the Worlds . I described in the pr evious
chapter how early in the match he nailed me with an upper cut to the gr oin.

He was a dirty player who counted on get ting int o hi s oppo nen ts’ he ads , but a
large part of my training the previous coupl e of years had been focus ed on
handling his ilk. I buckled down and kno cked hi m out of the t our na ment .
My next match was against the top studen t of one of the Taiwanese scho ols.

He was slippery, very fast, but he had a bad hab it of rooting off hi s rear leg
when pressured. As I mentioned in The Illusion of the Mystical, the problem with
putting your weight too far back is that when it shi fts forward, as it mus t
inevitably, there is an opening—a fl h when you are vulnerable. I had been

working very hard on my throws for the pr evious two years, and I was abl e to
work him toward the edge of the ring, make him lean on me, and the n us e hi s
momentum to put him on the ground. His hab itual weight di stribut ion served
as a tell and I was all over him. I won t he m atch easily.

Now came the semifinals and my oppo nen t was a Taiwanese star. His na me
was Chen Ze-Cheng and he was the guy I had been most impr essed with two
years before. In fact, the video footage I had focused on most closely whi le
preparing for this year’s tournament was of Chen Ze-Chen g di smant ling hi s

opponents. Chen has the physicality of a gazelle. Tall, sinew y, incredi bl y strong
for his weight, and dazzlingly athletic, he put s oppo nen ts on the fl or with a
speed and technical virtuosity that just baffles the mind. He is the son of the
top Push Hands teacher in Taiwan, who is also arguab ly the best traine r in the

world, and so in addition to his phy sical gifts Chen had been receiving the very
best instruction since childhood.
When the opening bell rang, I was all char ged up. Our wrists met in the
middle of the ring and he immediately sho t in for a thr ow, whi ch I crimpe d.

But he kept the pressure on, pum meling in with hi s han ds to ge t an
advantageous grappling position. I felt dan ger everywher e. I kep t on br us hi ng
him away from me, staving off thr ow after thr ow, but he woul dn’t stop
coming. His power felt internal, relaxed, molten, and always primed for an

explosion. He was all over me, relent less—but he still had n’t scored any po int s.
A little over halfway through the fi st round I caught him off-ba lanc e in the