Page 181 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

them with placid smiles. It happen ed to every foreigner in the tour na ment ,
sometimes decisively. This was the way they kep t score here. The ir count ry.

Nothing to do but score more po int s and keep the static out of my he ad.
Against most guys the judges coul dn’t really hur t me. But in the fi l rounds
where we were evenly matched, ther e woul d be little margin for error. I tried
not to think about it.

Whenever I had a break I watched the Buf falo. He won hi s po int s easily. He
had fine technique but he was also much more powerful than hi s oppo ne nt s.
He could blast most guys right out of the ring in a flur ry of expl osive
aggression. But I started to sense some small vul ner ability. Maybe . He was

technically sharp with dazzling footwork, speed, and a deepl y rooted stanc e,
but something about his structure teased me.
In my next Fixed Step match I faced off with the top guy from the scho ol
from Tainan that is the main rival to Chen Ze-Chen g’s team. The y are fi rce

competitors, like soldiers, strong, fast, well trained, pur e aggr ession. All signs
pointed to a war, but we touched hands and I knew I had hi m. You can read a
lot about a martial artist from the open ing cont act. Great one s feel
mountainous, like the earth is moving ins ide of them . Other s ring more

hollow. He bounced right off me on the fi st coupl e of point s. The n I started
mixing things up and he couldn’t keep up with the tactics I thr ew at hi m. I
won the first two rounds by a big margin, no inj ur ies. Match over. I watche d
the Buffalo compete again in Fixed and he was overwhel ming aga ins t a lesser

opponent, but I had this building feeling that ther e was somethi ng a little
wrong with his foundation. He was so phy sically gifted that it was easy to
stand gaping as he tossed the guy to the floor left and right , but he seemed to
be covering something up with all the flash. I wasn’t sur e why or ho w, but in

Fixed he felt mortal. I n Moving Step, he s eemed uns toppab le.
Day one was over and I wasn’t injur ed. Thi s is a long tour na ment , a
marathon of sprints. Almost all of thes e martial arts compet itions last onl y one
day because players’ bodies usually break down after that . You can pus h

through virtually anything in eight or ten hour s, but then the inj ur ies bur row
in overnight and you can’t walk or lift your arms in the morni ng. Thi s
tournament is two days. You have to win on Satur day witho ut getting ba dl y
hurt to have a chance to become World C ham pi on o n S unday.

I went to bed listening to the rain out side my windo w, and I dr eamed abo ut
the Buffalo.