Page 85 - The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin_Neat plip book

give up his current mind-set. He needs to lose to win. The brui ser will ne ed to
get pushed around by little guys for a whi le, unt il he learns how to us e more

than brawn. William Chen calls thi s investment in loss. Investment in loss is
giving yourself to the learning process. In Push Hands it is letting your self be
pushed without reverting back to old hab its—t raining your self to be soft and
receptive when your body doesn’t hav e any idea ho w to do it and want s to

tighten up.
The timing of my life was perfect for thi s type of process. I was wide ope n
to the idea of getting tossed around—P us h Hands class was hum ility traini ng.
Working with Chen’s advanced studen ts, I was thr own all over the pl ace. The y

were too fast for me, and their attacks felt like heat-seeki ng missiles. Whe n I
neutralized one foray, the next came from out of nowher e and I went fl ing.
Chen watched these sessions, and made subt le corrections . Every da y, he taught
me new Tai Chi principles and refined my bo dy mechan ics and techni cal

understanding. I felt like a soft piece of clay bei ng m olded int o sha pe .
As the weeks and months passed by, I dev oted myself to training and made
rapid progress. Working with other beginner s, I coul d qui ckly find and expl oit
the tension in their bodies and at times I was able to stay compl etely relaxed

while their attacks slipped by me. Whi le I learned with open pores—no ego in
the way—it seemed that many other studen ts were frozen in place, repe ating
their errors over and over, unable to improve because of a fear of releasing old
habits. When Chen made suggestions , they woul d expl ain thei r thi nki ng in an

attempt to justify themselves. T hey were locked up by the n eed t o be correct.
I have long believed that if a student of virtual ly any di scipline coul d avoid
ever repeating the same mistake twice—bo th techni cal and ps ychologi cal—he
or she would skyrocket to the top of thei r field. Of cour se suc h a feat is

impossible—we are bound to repeat them atic errors, if onl y be caus e many
themes are elusive and difficult to pinpo int . For exampl e, in my che ss career I
didn’t realize I was faltering in transitional moments unt il many mont hs of
study brought the pattern to light. So the aim is to mini mize repe tition as

much as possible, by having an eye for cons istent ps ychologi cal and techni cal
themes of error.
In the last years of my chess career, I was numbed by a bui ldi ng sens e of
alienation. Pressure messed up my head and I got stuck , like the guy s do ing

Push Hands who don’t learn from thei r mistakes and practice with a de spe rate
need to win, to be right, to have everythi ng under cont rol. Thi s ul timately