Page 184 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

athletic opponents left and right, and he clearly had amazing ski ll. Wha t I
didn’t know is that he was one of the most respect ed teachers in the world. The

stadium was loaded with his students. I heard chan ting and knew it wasn’t for
me.
Round one. Our wrists connected and before the fi st point began he was
working on me, taking space in that strange internal way some of the se rare

ones can. The ref said “Go!” I attacked fast, met empt y space, and fl w int o it.
Down 1–0. This guy had the stuff, the magic if ther e were magic in the martial
arts. Next point I bounced off him. Powerful root. I coul dn’t attack hi m. I tried
a lateral technique and won a point . He blasted me once and the n pul led me

into a black hole. I was down 4–1. I tend to feel pr etty inv inci bl e in Fi xed
Step, b ut this man understood things about Tai Chi I had no t yet di scovered.
The rounds in Fixed Step are thirty seconds stop time (the clock is stoppe d
after each point). This is enough time for 15–20 fast exchanges . Not muc h

time to figure things out. I sank deep on an attack and actual ly moved hi m
backward. My point, but a referee came over and said that the po int didn’t
count because my opponent’s initial struct ur e was illegal . Strange logi c. The n I
scored another point that they waved off. I hear d m y team and po p go ing c razy.

I had been to this tournament twice bef ore and bo th times was sho cke d by
the mendacity of the judges. Thi s time the pat tern was familiar to me.
Basically, this is how it works: Ther e is grand ceremony welcoming the
foreigners, but they don’t want us to win. The way they tend to steer resul ts is

by making some horrific calls early in the match to get the moment um go ing
in the direction of the local player. Usual ly when a foreign compet itor starts to
feel that the match is rigged he gets increasingl y desper ate and over-aggr essive.
Instead of competing with presence he becomes overwrought and caught up in

a downward spiral. His game falls apar t. Then , once the Taiwanese pl ayer is in
control of the match, the judging becomes exceedingl y fair. In fact, the y
become overly kind to create the illus ion o f fairnes s.
I knew all of this coming in. The key was to keep on winni ng po int s, and to

immediately come back from a bad call with a huge surge. Don’t ge t rattled! If
I controlled the momentum of the gam e, it woul d be har d for judge s to take
matches away. That was the plan. To be ho nes t, I also felt a lot of love for my
opponent in this match. The whole stadium was against me, except for our

U.S. contingent of ten. I didn’t blame the Taiwanese for wanting the ir man to
win.