Page 55 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

mistake. With older, more accompl ished players the mistakes are subt ler, but
the pattern of error begetting error remains true and deadl y. Imagine your self

in the following situation:
You are a highly skilled chess Master in the middl e of a critical tour na ment
game and you have a much better position. For the last thr ee hour s you ha ve
been pressuring your opponent, incr easing the tension, pus hi ng hi m closer to

the edge, and searching for the decisive moment when your advantage will be
converted into a win. Then you make a subt le error that allows your oppo ne nt
to equalize the position. There is no thi ng wrong with equal ity, but you ha ve
developed a powerful emotional attachm ent to being in cont rol of the ga me.

Your heart starts to pound because of the disconcer ting chasm be tween wha t
was and what is.
Chess players are constantly calculating variations and either accept ing or
dismissing them based on a compar ison of how they evaluate the visua lized

position vs. the original position. So if you have an adv antage, make an error,
and then still cling to the notion that you have an adv antage, the n whe n you
calculate a variation that looks equal , you will reject that line of tho ught
because you incorrectly believe it is moving you in the wrong direction. What

results is a downward spiral where the founder ing player rejects variations he
should accept, pushing, with hollow overcon ce, for more than the re is. At
a high level, p ressing for wins in equal positions often resul ts in l osing.
As a competitor I’ve come to understand that the di stance between winni ng

and losing is minute, and, moreover, that ther e are ways to steal wins from the
maw of defeat. All great performers have learned thi s lesson. Top- rate actors
often miss a line but improvise thei r way back on track. The audi enc e rarely
notices because of the perfect ease with whi ch the per former gl ide s from

troubled waters into the tranquility of the script . Even more impr essively, the
truly great ones can make the moment work for them , he ight eni ng
performance with improvisations that shi ne with immediacy and life.
Musicians, actors, athletes, philosopher s, scient ists, writers unde rstand tha t

brilliant creations are often born of small errors. Probl ems set in if the
performer has a brittle dependence on the safety of abs olut e pe rfection or
duplication. Then an error triggers fear, detachm ent, uncer tainty, or conf us ion
that muddies the decision-making pr ocess.

I often told my wonderful young studen ts to bew are of the downw ard spi ral.
I taught them that being present at critical moments of compet itions can tur n