Page 49 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

I may not have otherwise found. As thi s bo ok evolves, I will gr adua lly lay out
my current methodology for triggering such states of creative flow. Event ua lly,

by systematically training oneself, a compet itor can learn ho w to do thi s at
will. But the first obstacle I had to overcome as a young ches s player was to
avoid being distracted by rando m, unex pect ed events—by the mini
earthquakes that afflict all of our days. In per formance training, fi st we learn to

flow with whatever comes. Then we learn to use what ever comes to our
advantage. Finally, we learn to be compl etely self-suf fi ent and create our own
earthquakes, so our mental process feeds itself expl osive inspi rations witho ut
the need for outside stimulus.

The initial step along this path is to attain what spo rts psychologi sts call
The Soft Zone. E nvision the Zone as your performance state. I
You are concentrated on the task at han d, whet her it be a pi ece of mus ic, a
legal brief, a financial document, driving a car, any thi ng. Then somethi ng

happens. Maybe your spouse comes ho me, your bab y wakes up and starts
screaming, your boss calls you with an unr easonab le demand, a truc k ha s a
blowout in front of you. The natur e of your state of concent ration will
determine the first phase of your reaction—i f you are tense, with your fi rs

jammed in your ears and your whole bo dy straining to fight off di straction,
then you are in a Hard Zone that demands a cooperative world for you to
function. Like a dry twig, you are brittle, ready to snap under pr essur e. The
alternative is for you to be quietly, intensely focused, appar ently relaxed with a

serene look on your face, but inside all the mental jui ces are chur ni ng. You fl w
with whatever comes, integrating every rippl e of life into your creative
moment. This Soft Zone is resilient, like a flexible blade of gr ass that can move
with and survive hurricane-force winds .

Another way of envisioning the impo rtance of the Soft Zone is thr ough an
ancient Indian parable that has been qui te instruct ive in my life for many years:
A man wants to walk across the land, but the earth is covered with tho rns . He
has two options—one is to pave his road, to tame all of nat ur e into compl ianc e.

The other is to make sandals. Making sandal s is the int ernal solut ion. Li ke the
Soft Zone, it does not base success on a submi ssive world or overpo wering
force, b ut on intelligent preparation an d cu ltivated resilience.
My relationship to this issue of copi ng with distraction began with the

quirkiness of a ten-year-old boy. In the last chapter I mentioned tha t as my
chess understanding grew more sophi sticated and I transitione d to adul t