Page 172 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

explained in the chapter Slowing Down Time). Once you have internalized
enough information to complete one level of the pyramid, you move on to the

next. Say you are ten or twelve levels in. Then you hav e a creative bur st like the
ones Dan and I had in the ring. In that moment, it is as if you are seeing
something that is suspended in the sky jus t above the top of your py ramid.
There is a connection between that di scovery and what you kno w—o r else you

wouldn’t have discovered it—and you can find that connect ion if you try. The
next step is to figure out the technical compo nen ts of your creation. Fi gur e out
what makes the “magic” tick.
The way this process functioned with Dan and me was that my body woul d

somehow put him on the ground. The way I did it was outside both our
conceptual schemes, so neither of us really knew what hap pen ed. The n I went
home and studied the tape. I saw, for exampl e, that my thr ow trigge red from a
precise grappling position at the exact moment that Dan’s left foot received hi s

weight from his right foot. I didn’t do thi s cons cious ly—my bo dy jus t di d it
instinctively. But now we have learned that in that particular po sition, an
opponent is vulnerable when he shi fts hi s weight in that manner. The ne xt step
for me is to create techniques that force the switch of weight . And Dan can

become more conscious to avoid the trap. We bo th get bet ter and be tter at
playing around the split second when the weight settles on the ground thr ough
the left foot. We have created a bo dy of theo ry around a fleeting moment of
inspiration. Now there are techniques and princi ples that make thi s weapo n

accessible all the time. We have taken our py ramid of kno wledge up one level
and solidified a higher foundation for new leaps .
After seven or eight weeks of this work, we had int ernal ized a very tight
network of martial arts techniques that were all the product s of Dan’s and my

most inspired moments. This became our cham pi ons hi p arsenal. Wha t we
constructed was all new, highly per sonal ized, and compl etely true to our
individual strengths. And most of it was ps ychologi cal. It was about ge tting in
the opponent’s head, catching his rhy thm s, cont rolling hi s int ent ion with

subtle technical manipulation. When we went to Taiwan, we were ready for
war.

I. As a reminder, by “root” I am referring to the ability to hold one’s ground while directing incoming
force down, into the floor. You can then channel the force back up from the ground and bounce an