Exhaustive Notes: The Art of Learning
Josh Waitzkin
While in the middle of books it’s easy to be energized and full of ideas. But soon after finishing them life’s distractions start to creep in. Projects at work, grocery lists, and news stories gradually overwrite what we’ve learned. It’s all too common to wake up one day and realize that we can only remember a fraction of what we once knew. I took these notes to combat that problem. I’m sharing them here in the hope that they help you as much as they have helped me.
For those who have already read The Art of Learning:
Treat these notes like an index. Scan them occasionally to refresh your memory of important concepts. If you’re facing a hard decision, use these notes pinpoint relevant advice. Use the anecdotal references to jog your memory.
For those who have not read The Art of Learning:
Treat these notes like a sampler platter. Read the chapter titles. Dive into the sections that seem most interesting. Learn what you can from the summary and, if you find it valuable, consider buying the book here (The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance). If high school quizzes taught us anything, it’s that CliffsNotes are a poor substitute for the full text.
Enjoy!
Introduction
“One has to investigate the principle in one thing or one event extensively. … Things and the self are governed by the same principle. If you understand one, you understand the other, for the truth within and the truth without are identical.”
At a high enough level of clarity / proficiency, disparate fields begin to merge, patterns develop, and at times, skills become transferable between
There is a silent set of principles, a methodology, that fosters this type of higher order pooling of experience and transference of expertise
This book is about that method
Part I: The Foundation
1. Innocent Moves
Josh started off playing chess in Washington Square Park in NYC where chess was fast, chaotic, and exciting
He found a teacher one day to help formalize the street style he had been learning
The biggest challenge for that teacher was to start teaching technical material without overwhelming Josh’s enthusiasm for the game or trying to mold him into a play style that didn’t align with his personality
Josh started playing chess in tournaments and found that he won easily
“Perhaps the most decisive element of my game was the way that my style on the board was completely in sync with my personality as a child. I was unhindered by internal conflict — a state of being that I have come to see as fundamental to the learning process.”
2. Losing to Win
Some years later Josh found himself in the national championships rolling over his first six opponents easily
He started playing against a skilled opponent who lured him into a trap and slowly unraveled his game — a crushing defeat for a kid who had built himself up in his mind as unbeatable (and tied his self confidence and self worth to that idea)
After losing the championship he was crushed
“Confidence is critical for a competitor, but overconfidence is brittle”
When growing up, yearly extended trips to the ocean and away from all of the pressures of competition were a given
“I have come to understand that there little breaks from the competitive intensity of my life have been and still are an integral part of my success.”
An opportunity to let the conscious mind move away from problems and let the unconscious take over
Boats: great training for competition — they require constant presence and the pressure of control, rhythm, and focus
After losing the championship they went to the beach (island) where disconnecting slowly revived Josh’s enthusiasm for chess
After very slowly inching towards the game, Josh and his teacher dove into rigorous technical training
The focus shifted from fun and glory to love and pain and passion and pushing himself to overcome
After many months of intense work and a developing rivalry, nationals approached again
Through an extremely long and hard fought battle, Josh ended up finding a way to draw the game
“Often in chess you feel something is there before you find it. …The unconscious alerts the conscious player that there is something to be found, and then the search begins.”
3. Two Approaches to Learning
Scholastic chess is similar to many other pursuits — high competition, ambition, and a very select few who succeed (like music, acting, sports, etc.)
What distinguishes those who succeed from those who fail?
“The vast majority of motivated people, young and old, make terrible mistakes in their approach to learning. They fall frustrated by the wayside while those on the road to success keep steady on their paths.”
Developmental psychology and learning:
Entity Theorists attribute success or failure to an ingrained and unalterable level of ability
Incremental Theorists sense that with hard work, difficult material can be mastered step by step (incrementally)
Entity theorists tend to have very fragile senses of self worth which can be disrupted by stepping outside of their area of competency (children getting easy math problems right, hard math problems wrong, and then easy problems wrong)
Which model develops is often influenced by seemingly minor things like our ways of speaking: “you’re so smart” vs. “you studied so hard”
Focusing on results vs process
“The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort of safety.”
In his experience, successful people are the ones who focus on learning and the process instead of outcomes (they also tend to be happier too)
The biggest challenge is maintaining this perspective when “under fire and hurting in the middle of a war”
Theory in practice — early chess studies:
Start with the simplest possible scenario to build an intuitive understanding of the principles without all of the complexity getting in the way.
Gradually increase complexity while staying focused on the mechanics / principles / subtleties that distinguish good decisions from bad decisions
In contrast, most other started with chess openings, a deeply complex scenario where it is possible to get quick wins without fully grokking the principles behind the wins
Focusing on quick wins and tactics rather than deep understanding is like quicksand
You may win but you don’t learn anything nor do you gain an appreciation for deep understanding — you may even develop a distaste for it thinking it’s “slow”, “inefficient”, or “unnecessary”
Focusing on openings and tactics makes chess about winning; bravery, focus, effort, and concentration become unimportant
Once locked in to this entity / result driven mindset it becomes a prison where stepping outside of a comfort zone and risking failure becomes unthinkable — too much self image is tied to perfection and losing would shatter it
If winning makes you a winner then losing must make you a loser
Having an entity focus makes losing a death sentence instead of a chance for growth
4. Loving the Game
As successes mounted over the next decade or so the defining characteristic of his game was internal alignment
“A key ingredient to my success in those years was that my style on the chessboard was a direct expression of my personality.”
“ One of the most critical strengths of a superior competitor in any discipline … is the ability to dictate the tone of the battle.”
As time passed he began to compete almost exclusively in adult competitions
“Just as muscles get stronger wen they are pushed, good competitors tend to rise to the level of the opposition.”
During training they made a point of seeking out opponents who were slightly stronger players so that losing was a regular part of the experience
The lurking danger in taking the incremental approach too far is claiming to be ambivalent to the outcome and to only care about learning — this is an excuse to never put yourself on the line or admit failure
The ideal approach is to combine a short term focus on outcomes (in other words, to get skin in the game) with a long term focus on the process
Feeling the pain of short term losses insulates us from fear of bigger obstacles in the future
When winning it is important to celebrate that win in the moment but to keep the focus on the long term habits that made that win possible — the win itself is transient but the process persists
When losing acknowledge the loss, mourn for a bit, and refocus your thoughts on the mental reasons for the loss — picking apart technical reasons can come later
Introspective thinking about what went wrong can be a very healthy coping mechanism and helps train you that every loss is an opportunity for growth
“The fact of the matter is that there will be nothing learned from any challenge in which we don’t try our hardest.”
5. The Soft Zone
“Lose yourself”
At the world juniors championship, Josh attained a flow state so deep and profound that not even the chaos of an earthquake mid match could disrupt it, in fact it strengthened his focus
The power of this state kicked off his investigation into performance psychology
“In performance training, first we learn to flow with whatever comes. Then we learn to use whatever comes to our advantage. Finally, we learn to be completely self sufficient and create our own earthquakes so our mental process feeds itself explosive inspirations without the need for outside stimulus.”
The first step in this process is attaining what Josh calls ‘the soft zone’
Trying to focus by blocking out distraction (earplugs, music, etc.) requires a cooperative world for you to concentrate — this is a ‘hard zone’
The alternative is to be quietly focused, integrating whatever distractions come along seamlessly into your creativity
The ‘hard zone’ is brittle and will break under pressure, the ‘soft zone’ is flexible and will adapt
The soft zone is based on intelligent preparation and cultivated presence (parable: Indian man walking across a field of thorns can either cover the field in leather or make himself sandals)
When continually distracted by song lyrics or random noises during games, Josh started to train under situations of heavy distraction to inoculate himself against those conditions
Around this time there was an influx of new competitors from the ex-USSR, many of whom used a series of psychological tricks designed to distract opponents
“Opponents felt helpless and wronged — they took on the mentality of a victim and so half the battle was already lost.”
In some cases, recognizing a tactic was enough to defuse it but for the particularly egregious infractions if often became a totally emotional issue
The solution to this isn’t trying to suppress those emotions that arise but to turn them and use them to your advantage
“Mental resilience is arguably the most critical trait of a world-class performer and it should be nurtured continuously.”
6. The Downward Spiral
Regaining composure after a mistake is a critical skill — the first mistake is rarely disastrous but the second, third, fourth, …, are
The spiral is often caused by making a mistake and then failing to adapt to the new balance of power (playing like you still have an advantage when you’ve fallen behind and you’re equal or behind)
Top performers can even catch these small mistakes and use them as fuel to enhance their performance (actors improvising)
“Brilliant creations are often born of small errors”
By recognizing the downward spiral and finding a way to stop it, you can often turn what would have been defeat into victory (kid’s chess team, story about woman on a bike being hit by a car)
7. Changing Voice
Around 17, Josh started to train with a new teacher who had him studying a way of playing that was foreign to his own
While this was intellectually interesting it made chess feel alien and clumsy and suppressed the strengths that made him successful to begin with
In the coming years Josh graduated from high school and moved to a small town in Slovenia where he started a much more private study of chess, only really leaving (resentfully) for tournaments
His performance was inconsistent, sometimes playing well but other times not really connecting
This led him to adopt a study method / regimen that has become central to his success in many fields
In a game there would be a handful of positions that he did not understand. After the game he would write down those positions and the moves leading up to them and then spend long periods of study focused on the intricacies until they were fully understood
Through this study he began to notice patterns an parallels between the physical feelings he had during the position and the feeling during the other parts of life (homesickness when traveling somewhere new reflected in a difficulty with transitional periods in the game)
“My whole chess psychology was about holding on to what was, because I was fundamentally homesick.”
Eventually, chess became a form of psychoanalysis and deficiencies / weaknesses in the game revealed mental misalignment
This psychoanalysis also expanded out to observing the non-match behavior of opponents
“Numbers to leave numbers” — A process in which technical information is integrated into what feels like natural intelligence
8. Breaking Stallions
“I believe that one of the most critical factors in the transition to becoming a conscious high performer is the degree to which your relationship to your pursuit stays in harmony with your unique disposition.”
In taking away his natural voice by making him play in a way that did not align with his personality, Josh’s new chess teachers took away his center, the point that his success was balanced around
In his late teens there was an ongoing argument about which direction his study should take
One teacher (Dvoretsky) wanted to break him down and rebuild him in the defensive, counter punching style that he thought all great players should adopt
The other teacher (Razuvaev) wanted to take his natural inclination as an attacker and build on it
Both teachers understood and agreed on how important it was for Josh to learn the defensive style of play but whereas Dvoretsky wanted to teach it by turning Josh into a defensive player, Razuvaev believed he could learn the defensive style by deeply understanding the great attackers that played against them
Our minds relate together concepts in paired opposites, by learning one side deeply our subconscious learns the other
“Jackson pollack could draw like a camera but instead he chose to splatter paint in a wild manner that pulsed with emotion. He studied form to leave form.”
“A competitor needs to be process-oriented, always looking for stronger opponents to spur growth, but it is also important to keep winning enough to maintain confidence. We have to release our current ideas to soak in new material, but not so much that we lose touch with our unique natural talents. Vibrant, creative idealism needs to be tempered by a practical, technical awareness.”
Part II: My Second Act
9. Beginner’s Mind
When he was 17–18 and living in eastern Europe Josh discovered the Tao Te Ching which influenced him greatly and seemed to echo many of the more esoteric and philosophical lessons he had learned from playing chess
The Tao Te Ching eventually led him to Taoist philosophy and it’s physical embodiment, Tai Chi
“The Tao Te Ching’s wisdom centers on releasing obstructions to our natural insight, seeing false constructs for what they are and leaving them behind.”
Over months of practice Josh developed a deep internal awareness, a sense of connectedness, and an appreciation for the type of subtle instruction that his teacher preferred
As he progressed he was “learning how to systematically put [the fractured elements of his being] back together.”
After some time, his master invited him to try push hands (the martial side of Tai Chi)
10. Investment in Loss
“The martial philosophy behind push hands, in the language of Tai Chi classics, is ‘to defeat a thousand pounds with four ounces.’”
“The bruiser will need to get pushed around by little guys for a while, until he learns how to use more than brawn. William Chen calls this investment in loss. Investment in loss is giving yourself to the learning process.”
Josh totally opened himself to learning by a lot of beginners struggled to hang on to the preconceptions and, as a result, made little to no progress
“When Chen made suggestions, they would explain their thinking in an attempt to justify themselves. They were locked up by the need to be correct.”
The unwillingness to let go of ego and use hardship for learning happened at all levels of the school
Even the school bully (physically, not mentally) who had been training for 8 years started to avoid Josh as (after months of sparring together) Josh started to surpass him
He retreated instead of using that shift in the power dynamic to improve
“In all disciplines, there are times when a performer is ready for action, and times when he or she is soft, in flux, broken-down, or in a period of growth. Learners in this phase are inevitably vulnerable. It is important to have perspective on this and allow yourself protected periods of cultivation.”
This can be easy to do when you’re actually a beginner but much harder when you’re in an environment like work where people expect you to perform consistently
“My response is that it is essential to have a liberating incremental approach that allows fro times when you are not in a peak performance state.”
11. Making Smaller Circles
“The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick.”
The challenge in building this approach into the learning process is that we are culturally conditioned to bounce around on the surface of knowledge, always looking for something new, rather than going deep enough on a subject to fully internalize it
This manifests in martial arts when practitioners invest in learning as many flowery forms as possible without perfecting or mastering the fundamental principles that make the forms effective
In contrast, Josh spent days / weeks / months refining the simplest techniques, using them as a laboratory to remove obstructions and to internalize the principles behind the movements
By internalizing the feeling of the technique, he was able to transfer that mastery to other parts of the form
“The key was to recognize that the principles making one simple technique tick were the same fundamentals that fueled the whole expansive system of Tai Chi Chuan.”
This was the same approach that made him successful in chess — taking positions of highly reduced complexity (pawn king vs. pawn) and studying those deeply in order to internalize concepts like empty space, tempo, and structural planning
After learning these principles in a simple scenario, he was able to apply them to effectively navigate increasingly complex positions
The next hurdle to get over after understanding the principles is to learn how to make them more potent, or in other words, to make smaller circles
“We have to be able to do something slowly before we can have any hope of doing it correctly with speed.”
Developing the appropriate form is an extremely slow process filled with tempting divergences from the right path (e.g.: when learning the straight punch, the moment you first do the technique well with a little power there is a strong temptation to throw your shoulder in for a little more power — thus ruining your potential to keep progressing)
Even after navigating all of the distractions and perfecting the straight punch you still aren’t done, not really
In an actual fight you will almost never have the opportunity to throw a fully formed straight punch
The next step is to take the feeling of the perfected straight (strength coming up from the ground, through the body, into the hand) and compress it (without losing power) into incrementally smaller ranges of motion
If you watch the world’s best boxers they have all done this, compressing the range of motion down until titanic knockout punches can be delivered from inches
“The fact is that when there is intense competition, those who succeed have slightly more honed skills than the rest. It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set. Depth beats breadth any day of the week, because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential.”
12. Using Adversity
There are three critical steps in a resilient performer’s evolving relationship to chaotic situations:
- Learn to be at peace with imperfection (noisy environments, etc.) (grass in the wind instead of a tree)
- Learn to use that imperfection to our advantage (earthquake)
- Learn to create little ripples on demand to spur focus or insight
“There are clear distinctions between what it takes to be decent, what it takes to be good, what it takes to be great, and what it takes to be among the best.”
“If I want to be the best, I have to take risks that others would avoid, always optimizing the learning potential of the moment and turning adversity to my advantage.”
“When aiming for the top, your path requires an engaged, searching mind. You have to make obstacles spur you to creative new angles in the learning process. Let setbacks deepen your resolve. You should always come off an injury or loss better than when you went down.”
An unfortunate side effect of the need for consistency is the tendency towards monotony. Monotony stifles creativity, learning, and progress and must be disrupted to progress (ideally by choice, not through an injury or setback)
“Once we learn how to use adversity to our advantage, we can manufacture the helpful growth opportunity without actual danger or injury.”
13. Slowing Down Time
At a certain level of expertise the challenge shifts from learning more information to organizing and making accessible the information and skills that we already have
After breaking his hand during he match for nationals and having his perceptions increase so much that time seemed to slow down the question became how to trigger that level of focus and control at will
The closest parallel to that state was an intuitive leap where somehow the mind was able to piece together fragmented information subconsciously and then reveal the ‘answer’ fully formed — how can this be triggered?
“For much of this book I have described my vision of the road to mastery — you start with the fundamentals, get a solid foundation fueled by understanding the principles of your discipline, then you expand and refine your repertoire, guided by your individual predispositions, where keeping in touch, however abstractly, with what you feel to be the essential core of the art. What results is a network of deeply internalized, interconnected knowledge that expands from a central, personal locus point. The question of intuition relates to how that network is navigated and used as fuel for creative insight.”
Chunking: “The mind’s ability to take lots of information, find a harmonizing / logically consistent strain, and put it together into one mental file that can be accessed as if it were a single piece of information”
Carved neural pathways: “The process of creating chunks and the navigation system between chunks”
Josh’s approach of starting with simplified positions (kings, pawn) leverages the mechanics of chunking to limit initial complexity and slowly build to the point that the details of the game (knights move like this, pawns like this, …) are abstracted away and only accessed subconsciously
Over time this chunking goes do deep that the pieces themselves lose individual identity and only have value or power as a component of the system as a whole
In high level competition everyone has these highly complex levels of intuition and what starts to distinguish very good from great is psychological — presence and relaxation of the conscious mind
Grandmasters have actually been shown to look at less of the board than their less skilled opponents. This is because they have shifted most of the processing from the conscious to the unconscious mind — they look at less but see more
It isn’t that the grandmasters’ minds are faster or smarter, it’s that the unconscious processing allows their minds to focus on the essential without getting bogged down in unimportant detail
This mechanic, focusing exclusively on the most important information, is also what makes time seem to slow down during times of crisis
The difference between crisis and mastery is that with mastery we can intentionally train ourselves to outsource all of the unimportant detail to the subconscious (rather than blocking it out) — giving us more brain cycles to focus on the important and in effect, slowing down time
14. The Illusion of the Mystical
Much of high level chess, Tai Chi, or any other competition relies on maintaining and manipulating a psychological / emotional connection with your opponent
Josh’s experimentation with this form of psychological warfare started with oversold slaps to the forehead, then subtle shifts in breathing and body language, and eventually evolved into using behavioral ticks out of the competition to predict what would happen during it
By the time he moved into martial arts, he was very accomplished at reading tells and started to seriously experiment with ways to control others’ intention
For example: programming an opponent to react in a certain way by setting up a pattern (push → resist, push → resist) and then once the pattern is established using it to lead the opponent into a predictable state with the counter move already set up and waiting
“If the opponent does not move then I do not move.
At the opponent’s slightest move, I move first.”
These techniques are only effective if they go consciously unnoticed — this is where Making Smaller Circles and Slowing Down Time come in to play
For an example in martial arts, consider the principle of weight distribution
By using the techniques from M.S.C. and S.D.T. you can develop the ability to very subtly manipulate your opponent’s weight distribution and in doing so find fractions of a second where they are off balance during the transitions to exploit
These psychological dynamics are present in any high level competitive environment from sales, negotiation, politics, or buying a used car
Part III: Bringing it All Together
15. The Power of Presence
“In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, cool under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre.” (Amazonian hunter and the jaguar)
This is also very relevant in pursuits like learning, writing, etc.
“…we must be our own monitor, and quality of presence is often the best gauge.”
16. Searching for the Zone
Alongside the technical chess training a large part of what Josh had to learn to become world class was how to maintain focus and operate from a calm mental state for long periods of time
This ability grew in phases — in the beginning he struggled with getting focus, then distractions interrupting focus, then regulating himself to not spend all of his mental energy at once
Eventually the time had come to learn about how to have long term, sustainable, healthy peak performance
To learn these skills Josh turned to a performance psychology training center in Orlando, FL which any given day was full of top athletes, CEOs, swat teams, etc.
In this environment he first began to see how universal performance and learning were at the highest levels
In their first conversation of of Josh’s long time trainers posed a question that became pivotal to his approach to performance
He asked if the quality of Josh’s thinking was higher if preceded by a period of relaxation
By going back through the records of his old games he discovered that it did
This aligned with his trainer’s observations / theories about stress and recovery
“The psychologists at LGE had discovered that in virtually every discipline, one of the most telling features of a dominant performer is the routine use of recovery periods.”
By taking small moments of rest in the game to relax and disconnect completely players were able to focus much more effectively when they turned back on
“…The better we are at recovering, the greater potential interval training: BPM > 170, less intensity until BPM < 144, BPM > 170, < 144, …”
There is a very strong relationship between cardiovascular recover and mental recovery (from mental exhaustion)
Working around stress and recovery is a large component of Josh’s training to this day
For example, when lifting weights:
- 3 x 15 → 45s rest
- 3 x 12 → 50s rest (heavier)
- 3 x 10 → 55s rest (heavier)
- 3 x 8 → 60s rest (heaviest)
^Designed to monitor and improve psychological recovery time
By focusing on M.S.C. we can shrink the time needed to recover a great deal so that it can happen even in the midst of what an untrained person would consider chaos and action
“In performance training the first step to master the zone is to practice the ebb and flow of stress and recovery.”
This should be based on interval training (the specific discipline doesn’t matter as long as you build in cycles of rest and recovery)
Focus on increasing the intensity and duration of the sprint and gradually reduce the rest time
As you become more accomplished gathering and releasing tension in one area of your life you will become better at doing it in other areas (physical → work, etc.)
“If you spend a few months practicing stress and recovery in your everyday life, you’ll lay the psychological foundation for becoming a resilient, dependable pressure player. The next step is to create your trigger for the zone.”
17. Building Your Trigger
One of the biggest barriers to relaxation for any competitor is the fear that if they relax they won’t be able to recover their concentration — this leads to marathons of intensity and mental burnout
The biggest difference between novice and expert in any competition (other than skill, of course) is how they wait — novices are almost always on edge between matches while experts seem carefree and relaxed
“To have success in crunch time, you need to integrate certain healthy patterns into your day-to-day life so that they are completely natural to you when the pressure is on”
Often people try to discover some kind of trigger that they can use to slip themselves into a focused state
Instead of trying to discover a trigger that will magically push you into ‘the zone’ it’s much easier to consciously create one
The best way to build a trigger is to find some activity that puts you in a relaxed, fully present state and then to start building a routine around that activity
For example, playing catch:
- 10 minutes of a light and consistent snack
- 15 minutes of mediation
- 10 minutes of stretching
- 10 minutes of listening to Bob Dylan
- Play catch
Over time your mind will start to link the lead up activities with the calm and presence inducing activity that they precede
Once the pattern is set and the routine internalized, going through the steps of the routine is enough to trigger that state for any activity
In an environment where you know when you need to be ‘on’ in advance this routine is great but that is rarely the case in practice
Often we’re given only a few moments warning before being expected to perform
The next step is shrinking the routine down so that it can be done anywhere and for any duration without losing potency
The key is to make changes to the routine incrementally:
- Meditating for 12 minutes instead of 15
- Stretching for 8 minutes instead of 10
- Listening to Bob Dylan on the way to work instead of while still at home
The goal is to keep making incremental changes until the same effect can be achieved with only a few moments of focus
This ability to snap into presence is obviously valuable in competitions but it can also have a dramatic effect on our quality of life in general
18. Making Sandals
“To walk a thorny road, we may cover its every inch with leather or we can make sandals.”
Emotion is a key part of the human experience and this importance is very much reflected in competition as well
Some players claim they are able to block out emotion but in Josh’s experience at a certain point the dam bursts and those competitors lose self control and start to make mistakes
Rather than trying to block out negative emotions the alternative is to channel them into deeper focus and creativity
One of the most decisive emotions in any competition is anger
After realizing how vulnerable he was to poor decision making when his senses were overridden by anger, Josh started seeking out dirty competitors who were likely to make him mad (head butting, neck attacks)
After inoculation and recognizing his anger was just a defense mechanism for fear, Josh was able to stay calm and prosper in once anger inducing scenarios
Many top competitors (Jordan, for example) even try to incite foul play to fuel their anger and give them a focused edge in the competition
After becoming comfortable with your emotions you will probably discover some emotional states inspire you more than others — use this knowledge to construct a routine / environment to your advantage
19. Bringing it All Together
“In my experience the greatest of artists and competitors are masters of navigating their own psychologies, playing to their strengths, controlling the tone of the battle so that it fits with their own personalities.”
In the same way, our unique dispositions should inform the approach that we take to excellence
“I have talked about style, personal taste, being true to your natural disposition. This theme is critical at all stages of the learning process.”
- Early chapters: lay a solid foundation by studying positions of reduced complexity, apply to increasingly complex scenarios
- Making smaller circles: take a single technique and practice it until you feel it’s essence
- Slowing down time: internalize techniques until the mind perceives them in tremendous detail
- The illusion of the mystical: Use these techniques to control the intention of opponents
Once you recognize this ‘good’ feeling you can use it as a beacon to help train other skills
“At the highest levels of any kind of competitive discipline, everyone is great. At this point the decisive factor is rarely who knows more, but who dictates the tone of the battle.”
When practicing you occasionally reach periods of inspiration where your skills seem to take a leap forward. Most people see this jump and hope it will come again. The great recognize the leap forward, figure out the steps they skipped, and reverse engineer how to internalize what was intuition into conscious awareness
(Fighting the buffalo in the world championships)
Afterward
“In the end, mastery involves discovering the most resonant information and integrating it so deeply and fully it disappears and allows us to fly free.”
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