Page 70 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

an alien. I needed to learn Karpov thr ough a mus ician who se bl ood bo iled jus t
like mine.

Razuvaev’s educational philosophy falls very much in line with Taoist
teachers who might say “learn this from that ” or “learn the hard from the soft.”
In most everyday life experiences, ther e seems to be a tangi bl e conne ction
between opposites. Consider how you may not realize how muc h someone ’s

companionship means to you unt il they are gone— hear tbr eak can gi ve the
greatest insight into the value of love. Thi nk about ho w go od a he althy leg
feels after an extended time on crutches—s icknes s is the most potent
ambassador for healthy living. Who kno ws water like a man dy ing of thi rst?

The human mind defines things in relation to one another —w itho ut light the
notion of darkness would be unintelligibl e
Along the same lines, I have found that if we feed the unco ns cious , it will
discover connections between what may appear to be di spar ate realities. The

path to artistic insight in one direction often involves deep study of ano the r—
the intuition makes uncanny connect ions that lead to a crystallization of
fragmented notions. The great Abstract Expr essioni st pai nters and scul pt ors,
for example, came to their revolut ionar y ideas thr ough pr ecise realist traini ng.

Jackson Pollock could draw like a camera, but ins tead he cho se to spl atter pa int
in a wild manner that pulsed with emotion. He studi ed form to leave form.
And in his work, the absence of classical struct ur e somehow cont ains the
essence of formal training—but witho ut its ritual ized limitations .

By extension, studying the greatest attacki ng chess gam es ever pl ayed, I
would inevitably gain a deep appr eciation for defens ive nuan ce. Every hi gh-
level attacking chess creation emerges from a subt le bui ldi ng of forces tha t is at
the core of positional chess. Just as the yin- yang symbo l possesses a ke rne l of

light in the dark, and of dark in the light , creative leaps are gr ounde d in a
technical foundation. Years later, my martial arts training woul d int egr ate thi s
understanding into my everyday work, but as a teenag er I didn’t unde rstand. I
don’t think I was even present to the q ues tion.

TWO WAYS OF BREAKING A STALLION

Along with her many other impressive abi lities, my mom, Bonni e Waitzki n,
trains horses. She used to compete as a hunt er jumper and dressage ride r, and as
a young boy I often went with her to the barn in New Jersey and rompe d