Page 192 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

left. I had to continue or I would lose by forfeit. Well, in tho se 19 seconds I
gave it my all. I attacked him with everythi ng I had , made the situa tion totally

chaotic and cranked into a throw that woul d have put him down in traini ng,
but he gave up his body, literally. His elbo w bent all the way ba ck; it was
exploding inside, but he wouldn’t gi ve up and stayed on hi s feet unt il the be ll
rang. S uch heart!

Then I just sat down and watched chao s take over. Witnes ses came from all
over who had seen the clock run out in round two when the judge ha d refus ed
to allow the woman to ring the bell. Ther e was a meeting hel d in the cent er of
the stadium with videos shown to the presiden t of the Taiwanese Tai Chi

Federation, to the judges, to everybody. My oppo nen t’s coach, Chen Ze-Che ng’s
father, an honorable man, agreed with the pr esiden t that thi s was wrong. The y
suggested a shared championshi p. I went over to the head referee and
demanded a clear winner. Overtime. I knew I coul d take hi m. The oppo sing

coach agreed to a two-minute sudden deat h pl ayoff to deci de the World
Championship. We would have internat ional judges . They went to fi the
Buffalo. For twenty minutes I paced the arena, red hot—i f ther e is a pl ace
beyond the zone, I was there. But it tur ned out that Buf falo’s elbow was too

severely injured. The ruling was a shar ed title in Moving Step. In a fl sh, it was
over. No more battles to fight. The martial fur y subs ided , and in its pl ace came
pain, mellowness and camaraderie. Buf falo and I swayed on the fi st pl ace
podium together, h ugging, an d holdi ng each other up.