Page 63 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

given tournament, and what I began to no tice is that my problems on the
chessboard usually were manifesting t hem selves in m y life out side o f che ss.

For example, while living in Slovenia it appeal ed to my sense of adv ent ur e
to be on the road, traveling, writing, expl oring new pl aces, but I also missed
my family. I hardly ever spoke Engl ish, communi cating with everyone but my
girlfriend (who did speak English) in broken Span ish, bad Italian, and even

worse Serbo-Croatian. I was a stranger in a strange land. On the othe r ha nd, I
felt quite at home in Vrholvje. I loved the charming village life, and enj oyed
my periods of introspection. But then every mont h or so I woul d leave Sloveni a
and take off, alone, for Hungary, Germany, or Holland to compet e in a gr ue ling

two-week tournament. Each trip was an adv entur e, but in the beg inni ng I was
invariably homesick. I missed my girlfriend. I missed my family, I missed my
friends, I missed everything. I felt like a leaf in the wind, adr ift, all alone . The
first few days were always rough but then I’d get my bearings in the ne w city

and have a wonderful time. I was jus t hav ing t roubl e with t ransitions .
It was amazing how clearly this manifested on the chessbo ard. For a pe riod
of time, almost all my chess errors came in a moment immediately following or
preceding a big change. For exampl e, if I was pl aying a positional che ss ga me,

with complex maneuvering, long-term strategical pl anni ng, and bui ldi ng
tension, and suddenly the struggle expl oded int o concr ete tactics, I woul d
sometimes be slow to accommodat e the new scenar io. Or, if I was pl aying a
very tactical position that suddenl y transformed into an abs tract endga me, I

would keep on calculating instead of taking a deep br eath and maki ng long-
term plans. I was having trouble with the fi st major decision following the
departure from prepared opening analysis and I was no t keepi ng pace with
sudden shifts in momentum. My who le chess psychology was abo ut ho ldi ng on

to what was, because I was fundamentally ho mesick. When I fi lly no ticed
this connection, I tackled transitions in both ches s and life. In che ss ga mes, I
would take some deep breaths and clear my mind when the character of the
struggle shifted. In life, I worked on embr acing chan ge ins tead of fi ing it.

With awareness and action, in bo th life and ches s my weakne ss was
transformed into a strength.
Once I recognized that deeply buried secrets in a compet itor tend to sur face
under intense pressure, my study of chess becam e a form of ps ycho ana lysis. I

unearthed my subtlest foibles through chess, and the link bet ween my pe rsona l
and artistic sides was undeniable. The psychologi cal them e coul d range from