Page 177 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

and also get full scholarships to uni versity. A career can be made in a da y.
Foreigners are welcome, but no one wants them to win. The Taiwanese pul l out

the stops to prevent it. I t is a question o f nat ional pride.
At 1 A.M. Thursday night Max Chen and I were up expl oring the nuan ces of
this new structure. Max is my teacher’s son and a very close friend of mine . He
has been the U.S. National San Sho u (Chi nes e kickbo xing) Cha mpi on thr ee

times, and is an accomplished Push Hands player. Max kno ws wha t it’s like to
be on the front lines in international compet ition. We made a pl an. The n I lay
in bed visualizing until 3 A.M.
By Friday morning it was pouring torrentially. Typho on Nanmadol was jus t

offshore. I’ve been through a number of hur ricanes on boats in the Baha mas,
and something about this type of br oodi ng, omino us bui ldup in the sky clicks
me into a highly efficient place. I was on fire with ideas. We had int ende d to
rest Friday, fill up the tanks, but that wasn’t an opt ion any more with the ne w

rules. The whole team, ten of us, gat her ed under a huge gazebo-type struc tur e
in the park by Hsinchuang Stadium , wher e the tour nam ent woul d be he ld.
After living and dying on the mats toget her for the past year, we were a family,
a dedicated unit, with utter conviction abo ut our work, and yet from one angl e

our situation was surely preposterous. We were gathered out side in a typho on
trying to figure out how to survive witho ut pedestals. Max had spe nt the
morning jogging through the downpo ur trying to sweat off four po unds be fore
the weigh-in. The wind was howling and even under the gazebo, rain hi t us

horizontally.
Dan and I worked together refini ng new strategies on the fly. Whi le our
teammates did some light sparring, we spen t two hour s re-creating our Fi xed
Step theory. The key was to roll with the evolving situat ion and cont our ne w

tactics around the principles we had di scovered back ho me. Whe n hi t with
such surprises, if you have a solid foundat ion, you sho ul d be fi Tactics come
easy once principles are in the blood. I felt con t. Hous e rul es are almost
always in effect when playing on the road—I knew thi s from the che ss da ys and

previous Taiwanese debacles. H andl ing di rty tricks is a part of the g ame.

DAY 1

Saturday morning. We arrived at the stadium and weighed in at 7:30 A.M.,
everybody hungry, but no eating unt il we made weight . After all the