Josh Waitzkin

[GeneChing]

Josh's promoter sent me these:

Podcast interview

Video clip

Like I said, well be offering some autographed copies of Josh's new book in June, soon after the sweepstakes for Matt Polly's autographed American Shaolin is over.

[GeneChing]

Five of you who enter our sweepstakes between now and 6:00 p.m. PST on 06/25/07 will win autographed copies of Josh Waitzkin's new book. Good luck everyone!

[GeneChing]

BTW, the winners of our sweepstakes were announced three weeks ago. I forgot to update that here.

'Art of Learning' isn't just black and white
By Tracey Wong Briggs, USA TODAY

HOW NOT TO BE A PAWN IN LIFE

In The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin combines memoir, performance psychology, Eastern thought and parenting. The book is in the self-help section of many bookstores, which makes him wary because instead of offering answers, he probes questions and ideas.

"I think a lot of self-help books are attempting to give easy answers to complex problems," he says. "One thing I definitely struggled to do is to convey the complexity of these ideas."

They include:

•Entity/incremental learning. Rather than treating intelligence or talent as a fixed "entity" that you have or you don't, he stresses "incremental" progress through hard work.

•"Numbers to leave numbers." By internalizing technical skills, such as the "numbers" of chess positions, you "leave" them to your subconscious mind so you can do them by feel without thinking about them.

•The soft zone. Recalling intense periods of creative flow in which his performance was inspired and effortless, Waitzkin explores methods of creating inspiring conditions. Those include practicing stress and recovery to manage tension, figuring out what inspires serene focus and creating a routine to trigger that state.

•Investing in loss. Learning from your mistakes means accepting your imperfections and figuring out how to make them strengths.

•Making smaller circles. Rather than trying to master the big picture, concentrate on understanding the smallest fundamentals with such depth that they become part of your mental framework.

•Slowing down time. By training yourself to integrate information into your subconscious mind, you free your conscious mind to focus on smaller amounts of information in greater detail, making it feel as if time is slowing down.

•Making sandals. Rather than "paving the road," or trying to control external conditions, you "make sandals," or change the way you deal with those conditions. Instead of trying to block out distractions or emotions, for example, figure out how to channel them in positive ways.

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Josh Waitzkin became a celebrity at 16 when the 1993 film Searching for Bobby Fischer told the chess champ's story, from learning the game at 6 by playing street hustlers in New York City's Washington Square Park to his first national title at 9.

Thrust into the spotlight, Waitzkin tried to play up to others' expectations, had trouble adjusting to a new coach and ultimately quit competitive chess in his early 20s. He explored Eastern philosophy as a religion major at Columbia, took up Tai Chi at 21 and won two world championships six years later. Now 30, he studied Brazilian jiu jitsu.

His new book, The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence (Free Press, $25), describes his journey through chess to tai chi and his approach to peak performance. USA TODAY?s Tracey Wong Briggs reaches him in the Bahamas.

Q: Why did you take up tai chi?

A: Initially I was very drawn to the Tao Te Ching, the Taoist philosophy. It was helping me deal with the balance of these external and internal issues with my chess life. Tai chi is the martial embodiment of Taoist philosophy. Initially, I had no intention of competing in the martial arts; it was just the meditation.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Art | Learning | Bobby Fischer | Tracey Wong Briggs

Q: You were national champion two years after taking up tai chi and world champion four years after that. What did you bring from chess that allowed you to become that good that quickly?

A: One way of looking at that is through the idea of "numbers to leave numbers, form to leave form" (learning fundamentals, such as the numbers of chess positions, so well that they leave your conscious mind and become instinctive). It started to feel as though I was just taking the essence of my chess understanding and making it manifest in the martial arts.

Q: How are your techniques applicable outside direct competition — say, writing a poem or playing the violin?

A: I think my connecting those two arts is just an example that all arts can be connected. Principles of learning from anything can be applied to anything else. My relationship to these things isn't about the arts; it's not about chess or tai chi. It's really about learning.

Q: You had a lot of aptitude for chess, but you also credit your success to how you were raised. What did your parents and teachers do right?

A: Compared with many of the rivals I was competing against, I had the feeling they were much more naturally gifted than me. The thing that really separated me was having a great foundation and an environment around me that allowed me to pursue it in a beautiful way.

So many people are paralyzed by this (perfectionist) vision. Very gifted people, they win and they win, and they are told that they win because they are a winner. That seems like a positive thing to tell children, but ultimately, what that means is when they lose, it must make them a loser. I think that kind of fixed view of intelligence makes you brittle. It makes you unable to deal with inevitable setbacks.

For me, I think the best thing that ever happened was losing that first national championship game. It put me in a mini-crisis as a young boy — actually, for me, it didn't feel "mini" — but ultimately, when I won the nationals that followed, my relationship to success became about that process, the idea of having setbacks, overcoming them and ultimately succeeding.

My coach and my parents both had this relationship to what I was doing, which was allowing me to express myself with chess. And so I could love it. I had a passion for it. I was expressing myself through chess, and I was learning about myself through chess.

Q: A lot of your book is informed by Eastern thought. Why is this hard for Westerners? Or is it hard for everyone?

A: I don't think it's a Western-Eastern thing. When I've competed in Taiwan, I've been stunned by how many people are stuck; they're proclaiming themselves to be grand masters, but they haven't learned in 30 years. It's easy to get stuck. Once we start to have success, it becomes easier to become kind of cemented in this perspective of who we are.

In America, people focus on the end result; they focus on the star. Michael Jordan: They don't focus so much on his journey as his knocking in that last-second shot to win the game in the playoffs, as opposed to all the hundreds of shots he missed in the last second to lose the game for his team that ultimately made him the competitor he was.

Q: The highlight reel and not the whole game?

A. Exactly. Or even more than the whole game, how about all the missed shots in the lowlight reel? The lowlight reel is what makes the champion. That's part of the reason that in the writing of the book, I was very true to the most painful moments of my life, because I think the long period of crisis I described toward the end of my chess life was defining to me.

[GeneChing]

The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin
Review by Carol Jarecki, International Arbiter

Complete silence in the small high school classroom in Bloomington, IL, the summer of 1995. Eight of the best and brightest US junior chess players were engrossed in studying their positions. Josh Waitzkin, short of time, was focused intently on his game. Boris, his opponent, came over to me and said, “Josh touched his knight. When he moves make sure he moves his knight.” I was a bit incredulous since Josh was sitting stone still with his hands under the table. As soon as he made his move – not the knight – Boris complained that Josh had to move the knight. Waitzkin looked up shocked. “What? Why should I move the knight?” Another of Boris’s unlimited dirty tricks. Claim denied, I give Waitzkin an extra couple of minutes for the disturbance and he sank back into concentration, eventually winning the game.

Another player a couple of rounds earlier was not so fortunate. In that case, Boris claimed a three-time repetition, also to the amazement and consternation of his unsuspecting opponent. We took the game out of the room to replay it but soon Boris retracted the claim. Dean, who of course had a better position, couldn’t get his concentration back and lost on time. Exactly what Boris was hoping would happen.

This scenario is offered here not only because it pertains to the same Boris described in Waitzkin’s book but also as an example of the value of learning to concentrate fully and deeply and, more important, having the ability to snap back into that mode after an acute, penetrating disruption.

The Art of Learning is an amazing book, an autobiography, an introspection, an analysis of self, of the author’s riveting personal experiences and the development of his own learning process – what it meant to him and what it could mean to others in all walks of life and enterprises. In a most charming way, with no bravado, he takes us through his early infatuation with chess, informal and by chance, and how his inherent eagerness to learn propelled him through the complicated, demanding and convoluted world of scholastic tournament life. Heights of success, the thrill of winning, the misery of losing, the periods when one wonders if it’s all worth it, then the determination to keep going just for the love of it. Then, at a mature 20 taking up an entirely new life, we follow him into the world of competitive martial arts leading to the highest levels. The text flows comfortably between personal stories and insightful discussions, scientific presentations and the ever-present veins of mindset and mental development.

Josh, of course, did not understand nor delve into the “learning process” at such a young age. He only knew that chess was enthralling, a mental challenge that reaped great rewards not only because of winning but also because of the exciting assimilation of information. Information that built upon itself, that fused itself together in his mind, which allowed him to be an inventor, a creator and a student all at the same time. When he eventually separated from chess he found the same inspiration from the study of Tai Chi Chuan, this time the intellectual, philosophical and psychological combining to produce a highly complex and extraordinarily fine-tuned physical product.

The movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer, made Josh a “film star”, with all the baggage of fans, interviews, appearances and pressure, at the same time as he was trying to focus on his personal goals and concentrate on learning. It’s easy to get sidetracked by popularity and idolization and the media can be relentless in its quest for a story. A handsome, intelligent, well-spoken, charming young man excelling in a mind sport, winning multiple national championships and the subject of a popular movie, is a perfect target. As much as we would like to popularize chess it is difficult for an individual to have a balanced life and gain a normal maturity under the glare of the spotlight.

Josh deservedly gives his parents an enormous amount of credit, but it is rare that a grown child can express his parental connection in such a fervent way. As he repeatedly observes, at times the world of scholastic tournament chess can be particularly cruel and demoralizing, although this is probably so in many children’s individual competitive endeavors such as, for instance, ice skating. Parental support and compassion and the guidance to develop a well-rounded life is essential. Bonnie and Fred helped him keep his head on straight and his soul intact.

A cross section of parents in the scholastic chess world reaches from the disinterested, disengaged and belittling to aggressive, demanding and torturous. I’ve seen fathers slap a child for not winning a game. When young Gata Kamsky first played in the US, in the New York Open, he was paired against Judith Polgar about mid-way through the tournament. Dead lost, in a resignable position, he sat and waited until his time ran out rather than face his father’s wrath.

There are coaches and parents who even encourage their children to cheat, and teach them useful tricks in order to do so. Then there are those who are just the opposite. During one of the final games in the recent US National High School Championship in Kansas City a player was clearly winning, threatening a back rank mate. She left for the bathroom and returned to find her opponent's f2 pawn had been removed, giving his king an escape route. She questioned him unsuccessfully and was too shy or insecure to complain to the authorities. She lost. Shortly before the trophy award ceremony I found out about this from another arbiter who had been approached by the girl’s father. With the intention of changing the game result, which would effect the trophy distribution, I went to look for the f2 boy’s coach. It didn’t take long to find him as he and the boy’s father were waiting outside the office. They had come to the same conclusion – that the boy had blatantly cheated – and were appalled. They wanted his chess experiences to teach him honesty, hard work, humility and fairness. They did not want a higher team trophy based on his false result.

Following the autobiographical tack Josh relates his deep love of the sea, boating, fishing, free diving and the family’s annual adventures in the Bahamas. His enthusiastic narrative proves that he is a born adventurer, a lover of the free spirit. He undoubtedly inherited this from at least his paternal grandmother, Stella, but the love was nurtured by both parents as they hauled him off every summer to a small house on Bimini and a month of fishing from their modest boat. Fred Waitzkin’s book The Last Marlin describes his own growing-up adventures in this venue and Josh absorbed it like a sponge.

continued next post

[GeneChing]

Part II
The completion of high school opened new horizons for Josh. He had read Kerouac, became fascinated with existentialism, oriental philosophy, and the need to see the world through different eyes. Chess continued to absorb most of his life, as he studied, played in tournaments in many foreign lands and, with a base in Slovenia, roamed throughout Europe and beyond. It was a simpler existence then he had had in New York but when he finally returned to stay again in the US the pressure of the limelight returned too. He gradually became less focused on the game and, through his interest in Eastern studies, at the age of 21 began instead the rudimentary study of Tai Chi Chuan.

When learning any subject the quality of the teacher is everything. Bruce Pandolfini was the perfect chess teacher for Josh’s young years and, when starting Tai Chi Chuan, he was fortunate to discover, again, the perfect instructor to suit his needs and personality. True to form, Josh became fascinated with its complexity and completely absorbed in mastering the art and science of this new discipline. But, although he was a beginner, he didn’t start from scratch. He integrated the multitude of lessons in learning that he had developed over the years in the study of chess, and the study of life in general. This is one of the basics of this book – the fact that previous lessons learned, if understood and assimilated, can be used to “navigate” through new arenas.

Learning how to learn is the most important lesson in life. Understanding how to digest and process information and to use it resourcefully offers an individual the opportunity to accomplish, possibly master, anything. Recently, an educator friend told me that parents should teach a child how to work and teachers should teach how to learn. Unfortunately, too many teachers teach only the material at hand and not the all-important principles of how to absorb and use it.

Children who are not encouraged to think and explore, who are afraid to reach beyond borders for fear of losing or being criticized, cannot grow mentally. They may be locked in a constricted vision of themselves and their abilities – as Josh says, self paralyzed. His insightful discussion of the differences between entity and incremental theories of intelligence and how each affects the learning process is one of the arteries coursing through this book.

The last time I saw Josh play chess was at the 1999 Bermuda GM Invitational at the Mermaid Beach Club. He loved to play the Bermuda events, as did everyone, drawn not only by the scenery, balmy winter climate and surrounding ocean but matchless hospitality and camaraderie. One year he was scheduled to follow the Invitational with the Bermuda Open but made a trip to the hospital instead. He loved to climb the jagged rocky cliffs along the beautiful South Shore, sit on a vantage point above the ocean feeling the wind and fresh salt air, and reflect. The story I heard was that he saw a large fish trapped in a tidal pool and started to clamber down to try to save it. He lost his grip on the wet rocks and careened down the razor-sharp volcanic boulders desperately trying to get a grip on something to stop his slide as much of his skin was slashed and shredded by the ruthless sea cliff. His friend Maurice Ashley found him dazed and bloody and took him to the hospital. He flew home to New York the next day. He last played in June 1999 in the Fan Adams International and tied for first place. His US tournament record stops there.

His Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands record skyrocketed to the top as he progressed through brutal competitions, winning national championships along the way, which culminated in the grueling battle to become World Champion in Taiwan late in 2004. Having reached the pinnacle Josh has now gone on to another challenge, again in the martial arts field, and become a beginner once more, this time in the study of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Undoubtedly, he does not remain at the beginner level very long. It will be interesting to see what new adventure he starts in the coming years. He certainly is not a person to sit back and wait for one to come along by itself.

The Art of Learning, however, is not primarily about chess or Tai Chi. It uses the personal relationship the author has had with these two diverse worlds as vehicles to demonstrate and discuss the value of applying a variety of principles of learning – the correct techniques as they can be used to build the blocks of internal growth. Waitzkin makes it clear that it is not so much raw intelligence that leads to success in any given field but the individual’s method of organizing and internalizing information, building upon it, conceptualizing and refining plans that, with hard work and diligent application, lead to realization of the final goal.

Josh writes almost from a position of wonder, a person who admires thunderstorms and violent seas, he ponders the life lessons through which he has progressed, appraises, incorporates and evolves methods to deal with harsh reality and learn to use it to one’s own benefit. Although much of the material is academic – this is a serious intellectual work – he presents it in such a charming, down-to-earth and practical manner that makes the content instructional without feeling so. This is a book from which anyone can benefit, no matter how young or old or in what walk of life or level of achievement.

Readers will surely see themselves and their own personal experiences in some of these pages. I know that when he writes of compartmentalizing information, when he felt he could fit no more information into his brain, it reminds me of the same question I asked my mother when I was very young. Her answer was similar. She said she imagines closets in her mind and sorts information and stores it in the closet along with other matching or relevant data. I tried it and it worked quite well.

By the way, I met Josh at the Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament. There's coverage in our Jan/Feb 2008 issue.

[Snake77]

By the way, I met Josh at the Hip Hop Chess Federation Tournament. There's coverage in our Jan/Feb 2008 issue.

I'd love to see that coverage! Unfortuneately I have'nt received the Jan/Feb 2008 issue yet!

[stricker]

yeah i read this book. quite nice. got me interested in reading more about learning theory in psychology and made me take up chess again.

had me wondering just how tough his tai chi training was... no idea how it compares to getting slammed in judo or wrestling, let alone mma... e.g. he compared it to boxing a few times, was it really that tough? hmmm...