Page 176 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

the right counter, but moves and combi nat ions of moves come so fast it feels
like a guessing game—martial rock/ pap er/scissors.

This is only the beginning. There is a sea of po tential that fl ws from thi s
opening stance, an almost infinite num ber of feints, swift attacks from all
angles, psychological ploys. In time, with years of creative traini ng and a
willingness to invest in loss, to take blow after bl ow and get bl asted off the

pedestals as a way of life, the game starts to slow down. You see attacks coming
in slow motion and play refutational maneuvers in the blink of an eye. Great
players are doing many invisible thi ngs in thi s game. It feels like che ss. At the
highest level of the sport, you are living ins ide your oppo nen t’s he ad and

directing what he comes at you with.
Because each Fixed Step point begins exactly the same way, with two pl ayers
assuming an identical opening postur e, compet itors can pl an attacks in adv anc e
and over time build repertoires of combi nat ions and defens es that the y fi e int o

when the ref sets play in motion—in the same manner that strong che ss pl ayers
have sophisticated opening repertoires. Since the fi st time I went to Taiwan
four years earlier, I had been breaki ng down the gam e and creating Fi xed Step
theory that emerges from the agreed open ing po stur e: standi ng on pe de stals

with the set hand positions. Taiwanese offi als had sent us the exact
dimensions of the pedestals mont hs bef ore thi s tour nam ent. I ha d the n
internalized my arsenal of attacks and neu tralizations , and was so comfortabl e
with the game that I often trained with my eyes closed, allowing oppo ne nt s to

trigger first. My body would shrug off the attacks and expl ode int o ins tinc tua l
counters. A ll of this training was done w hi le rooting o n t wo small pede stals.
Now, one day before the competition begins , the new s was that the re were
no pedestals and the rear hand woul d begin on the oppo nen t’s elbo w ins tead of

by the hip. This is a huge structural chan ge. The equi valent in chess woul d be
for a Grandmaster to spend five mont hs pr eparing an open ing repertoire for a
World Championship match and then , bef ore game one, to di scover tha t the
whole repertoire had been disallowed by a mysterious rul e chan ge.

In a minute everything had shifted, and we had a handf ul of hour s to re-
create an entire repertoire. On one level thi s was infur iating; on ano the r it was
predictable. Tai Chi is an emblem of Chi nes e and Taiwanese greatne ss. In a
way, this discipline represents their spo rting and phi losophi cal essenc e. The top

Taiwanese competitors train since childho od, many hour s a day. If the y win thi s
tournament, they are national heroes. They take home a subs tantial cash pr ize