The Art of Learning

The Art of Learning by Waitzkin (2007) is a book about mastering skills through a mindful and systematic approach. Waitzkin, a chess prodigy and martial arts champion, shares insights from his journey to explain how deep learning, resilience, and self-awareness lead to excellence.

Key Concepts

1. Depth Over Breadth
   • Mastery comes from refining core fundamentals rather than accumulating surface-level knowledge.
     
   • Small, incremental improvements build long-term expertise.
     
2. The Investment in Loss
   • Learning from failures is crucial for growth.
     
   • Losing and making mistakes provide opportunities for deeper understanding.
     
3. Making Smaller Circles
   • Focus on the smallest details of a skill to develop efficiency and precision.
     
   • Mastering micro-movements allows for greater control and creativity.
     
4. The Soft Zone
   • Mental resilience comes from staying calm under pressure.
     
   • By embracing distractions rather than fighting them, you improve focus and adaptability.
     
5. Slowing Down Time
   • Experts perceive time differently because they have internalized patterns at a deep level.
     
   • Recognizing subtle cues allows for faster, more intuitive decision-making.
     
6. The Internal vs. External Approach
   • True mastery is an internal process of understanding principles rather than rigidly following techniques.
     
   • Adapting to challenges with a flexible mindset leads to long-term success.

Waitzkin’s philosophy applies beyond chess and martial arts—it’s a universal framework for learning, problem-solving, and personal growth. His approach emphasizes deliberate practice, mental resilience, and deep focus, making the book a valuable guide for anyone pursuing excellence in any field.

Takeaways

• Learn to notice tension, resistance, friction or stress. Don’t ignore nor fight with these obstacles, instead use these observations to trigger specific routines or rituals. By internalizing good fundamentals, releasing tension and cultivating energetic awareness you can master the mechanics (repetition) and deepen relaxation (monitor your sensations)
• Interval training for body and mind: Practice cardiovascular interval training (CIT), e.g. 30 sec high intensity activity followed by 5 sec rest and repeat it for several times and practice deep mental focus, e.g. 10 -12 min intense focus followed by a few min of relaxation. CIT have profound effect on recovery from mental exhaustion. Create a rhythm of intervals. With practice, increase the intensity and gradually shorten (condense) rest periods. (e.g. cardio up to 170 bmp). To see benefits, following interval training for 3 - 4 months is suggested.
• Slow practice: Determine the essential movement and practice it slowly to build a sensation for that movement. Once the movement is linked to that sensation, you have mastered the skill, you only have to recall the sensation and not the movement anymore. (apply this to chords on guitar, chord progressions and phrases or themes)
• Be in the soft zone, you’re at peace with distractions or tricks directed at you. Realize these happening and be at peace with them. You’re the master of your domain. (Hard zone is when you are fighting with distractions or tricks).
• Invest in loss. Give yourself to the learning process.
• Emotional states trigger greatest performances. Build condensed triggers and pull from deepest resources for creative inspiration.
• When you notice your mind is wandering, follow your breath; just release the thought like a cloud gliding by and return to your breath. The return to breath is the key to this form of meditation. There’s no doing badly or well, just being with your breath, and releasing your thoughts when you notice them and coming back to breath.
• Visualization of a ritual is equally effective as the act of that ritual.
• What are the things do I like? listening to jazz, feeling refreshed after 7-min exercise, snacks with cold beer, etc. Do these (prelude) before you do the activity that gives you the most serene focus. A physiological connection is formed between the routine and the activity it precedes.
• Example from the book:

1. 10 min eating a light consistent snack.
2. 15 min meditation.
3. 10 min stretching
4. 10 min listening to Bob Dylan
5. Play ball. This final step playing ball with his son is what gives the person in question the serene focus. After fully internalizing the routine (after a month of practice), do the routine before an important meeting. The results were fantastic.

• Making Smaller Circles: Take a single technique or idea and practice it until we feel its essence. Then gradually condense the movements while maintaining their power, until we are left with an extremely potent and and nearly invisible arsenal.
• Slowing Down Time: Focus on a select group of techniques and internalize them until the mind perceives them in tremendous detail.. After training in this manner we can see more frames in an equal amount of time., so things feel slowed down.
• The Illusion of the Mystical: We use our cultivation of the last two principles to control the intention of the opponent, and again, we do this by zooming in on very small details to which others are completely oblivious.

Once you know what good feels like, you can zero in on it, search it out regardless of the pursuit.

Miscellaneous Notes

• p.xii: Tao Te Ching, teacher: William C. C. Chen. Also see Tai Chi Chuan
• Learn body mechanics of non-resistance.
• With practice, you will calculate less, feel more. You will internalize the techniques.
• p.xiv: After a thousand slow motion, refined repetitions of movements, my body could become that shape by instinct.
• p.xvi: essence, quality, principle, intuition and wisdom. Understand your own experience.
• The study of “numbers to leave numbers” or “form to leave form”.
• Intuition learns to integrate more principles into a sense of flow.
• Foundation is so deeply internalized, it’s no longer consciously considered, but is lived. This process continuously cycles as deeper layers of the art are soaked in. (e.g. when you play guitar you don’t think about notes, if you did, the flow would be lost).
• The same is true when you analyze the art of learning. Themes can be internalized, lived by and forgotten.
• p.30: Entity theorists: Born talent. Incremental theorists: Learned talent.
• p.35: Notice the play between knowledge intuition and creativity. The answer is quick sand.
• p.28: If a business person cultivates a perfectionist self-image, then how can she learn from her mistakes.
• p.39: Have a love for learning, learn from mistakes and don’t afraid to lose.
• p.45: Process first approach. Effort over results.
• p.44: Incipient danger. in what may appear to be an incremental approach.
• p.47: Growth comes at the point of resistance.
• p.53: Performance psychology, creative flow.
• p.54: avoid being distracted by random, unexpected events. In performance training we first learn to flow with whatever comes. Use whatever comes to your advantage. Create your own earthquakes i.e. explosive inspirations, without the need for external stimulus.
• Chp. 5: be in the soft-zone (not the hard-zone where you react). being in the soft-zone means, you’re at peace with distractions or tricks directed at you. Realize these happening and be at peace with them. You’re the master of your domain
• p.76: With awareness and action, in both life and chess, my weakness was transformed into a strength.
• p.76: Whenever I noticed a weakness, I took it on (that’s building antifragility)
• p.77: As a lover and learner of chess, I was flying, but as an artist and performer, I was all locked up.
• p.93: Learn to draw joy from most mundane experiences (also see Jack Kerouac).
• p.95: he found an ancient Chinese text Tao Te Ching. From that book, he was unearthing everything he sensed but could not know what it was. He yearned to “blunt his sharpness” to temper his ambitions and make a movement away from the material (see Tao Te Ching Chapter 4).
• p.99: Tai chi teaches to release obstructions so the body and mind can flow smoothly together.
• p.101: His teacher believes that a large obstacle to a calm, healthy present existence is the constant interruption of our natural breathing patterns. Take in air and avoid shallow breathing. Tai chi meditation is unimpaired oxygenation.
• p.103-107: Invest in loss. Give yourself to the learning process. In Push Hands it is letting yourself be pushed without reverting back to old habits, training yourself to be soft and receptive when your body doesn’t have any idea how to do it and wants to tighten up.
• p.105: The art (tai chi) was infinitely subtle and packed with profound implications. Defeat a 1000 lbs with 4 ounces.
• p.106: Before learning body mechanics of non-resistance, unlearn your current physical paradigm.
• p.112: He realizes in his competitive life, Beginner’s mind (Suzuki, 2020) and investment in loss have been invaluable.
• p.116: Depth over breadth. Refine fundamental principles, practice very slowly, with no tension building. Simple motion will manifest a sensation in your body and mind thereby allowing you refine incrementally your chord formations and changes from one chord to the next. release the tension ad infinitum (step by step, hour by hour, day by day).
• Learn to direct your awareness inside the body, soon enough your fingers come alive. The Tai Chi system teaches internalizing good fundamentals, releasing tension and cultivating energetic awareness.
• Master the mechanics (repetition) and deepen relaxation (monitor your sensations)
• p.120: Overtime expansiveness decreases while potency increases (making smaller circles)
• By practising slowly, mechanical movements are converted to “sensations”. Eventually mechanics are overridden by these sensations (the book uses the term “feelings”). Mind is now removed from the act of making mechanical movements.
• P.121: Mechanics are condensed into sensations with that you can know if the chord sounds correct without hearing it, because mechanics of forming the chord transformed to the “sensation” that produce correct sound and it will. But you don’t need to hear it anymore, it just works.
• p.126: Be at peace with imperfection, use imperfection to your advantage, create sensations to inspire (encourage) to go on. (revisit Chapter: Soft Zone, p.51)
• p.129: External vs internal; concrete vs abstract; technical vs intuitive.
• p.132: Visualization exercise: His right arm was broken, he continued training with the left arm only but he was also visualizing his broken arm doing the practices. Although no actual practice was done by the broken arm, not only did it heal but also he improved his undominant arm. (This phenomena is also known for basketball players practising shoots in their mind. Another example is Tal Wilkenfeld. The Queen’s Gambit movie which was based on fiction also shows the power of visualization.)
• p.132: Optimize the learning potential of every situation even when you’re injured or somehow disadvantaged. Turn adversity to your advantage.
• p.133: Let setbacks deepen your resolve. (You can simulate adversity, e.g. playing basketball with your undominant hand for a week as if your dominant has was injured).
• p.138: Chunking snapshots in the mind and processing chunks rather than their much smaller constituents.
  
• p.151: wear my heart on my sleeve.
• p.152: reverse psychology vs. reverse reverse psychology
• p.159: Weight distribution in contact sports!
• Condensed technique and enhanced perception.
• p.161: I read his intention to blink and then controlled his intention by determining when he would unconsciously place his weight into his forward leg. All this works by manipulating weight distribution.
• p.162: Psychological warfare is at the centre of all competition.
• Nothing mystical about controlling intention or entering the mind of the opponent.
• p.171: I used to create chaos… in confusion when they seek answers, there were none. That made my opponent mad.
• p.171: The vise, after all, was only in my head. I spent years working on this issue, learning how to maintain the tension - becoming at peace with mounting pressure. Then as a martial artist, I turned this training to my advantage, making my opponents explode from mental combustion because of my higher threshold for discomfort.
• p.173: Enter the zone at will. • Complete immersion in the topic at hand (e.g. deeply immersed in a chess position). • Intense competitor. • Train to deal with bad conditions, use them to your advantage. • Use your will to block everything out. • Stress/recover: Develop shorter recovery periods (When Josh took longer to think he performed worse, 2-10 min was best for him. M. Jordan’s recovery time was very short, he took breaks between moves. The better we’re at recovering, the greater potential we have to endure)
• p.182-183: How to relax: Cardiovascular interval training (CIT) have profound effect on recovery from mental exhaustion.
• CIT: With time, it will take more work to raise heart rate and less time to lower heart rate during rest.
• Create a rhythm of intervals. With practice, increase the intensity and gradually shorten (condense) rest periods. (e. cardio up to 170 bmp).
• p.183: In everything you do, apply intervals of deep focus (effort) and condense rest (relax).
• Meditate daily, your mind gathers and releases with the ebb and flow of your breath.
• p.184: The unconscious mind is a powerful tool.
• Work on releasing tension and returning to deep focus.
• Interval work: Practice stress and recovery for a few months.
• p.188: Work backwards and find the triggers.
• Good athletes have routines that consistently put them into a good frame of mind before competition. Inconsistent performers are frustrated and confused trying to find an inspiring catalyst for peak performance. When do you feel closest to serene focus, create a 4-5 step routine to reach it.
• What are the things do I like? listening to jazz, feeling refreshed after 7-min exercise, snacks with cold beer, etc. Do these (prelude) before you do the activity that gives you the most serene focus. A physiological connection is formed between the routine and the activity it precedes.
• Example: 1. 10 min eating a light consistent snack. 2. 15 min meditation. 3. 10 min stretching 4. 10 min listening to Bob Dylan 5. Play ball. This final step is what gives the person in question the serene focus. After fully internalizing the routine (after a month of practice), do the routine before an important meeting. The results were fantastic.
• p.189: Meditation for beginners: When you notice your mind is wandering, follow your breath; just release the thought like a cloud gliding by and return to your breath. The return to breath is the key to this form of meditation. There’s no doing badly or well, just being with your breath, and releasing your thoughts when you notice them and coming back to breath.
• p. 195: Incremental growth: Shortening the breaks in interval training is one example. Or reaching milestones in steps is another obvious example.
• p.196: Visualization: When time is tight or conditions do not allow, physical exercises can be visualized. Visualization is equally effective (remember how 2024-01-12: Tal Wilkenfeld practised guitar).
• p.200: Three steps to break a competitor: Learn to flow with distraction, like that blade of grass bending to the wind. Then learn to us distraction. Finally learn to re-create the inspiring settings internally.
• p.206: Dirty players are your best teachers. Approach them as they will show things you cannot imagine.
• p.214: Learn to face emotions and use them to trigger the performance routine. (also see (Denk, 2022) 2023-08-15: Every Good Boy Does Fine). Dont block your emotions, they can be your key that unlock your performance. Emotions → Happiness. Emotions → Fear and anger.
• The process of interval training, utilizing stress and release. Cardiovascular interval training following a pattern such as increasing heart rate up to 170 bpm and then decreasing down to lower value (130 bpm which is still quite high) and repeating this have positives effects on mental stamina.
• Interval training can be also applied to other facets of life. For instance, focused reading or study methods. With that pomodoro method comes to mind, 25-5 min intervals are probably somewhat long and 10-2 min pattern to start with is more practical. Waitzkin (2007) To see benefits, following interval training for 3 - 4 months is suggested.
• p.215: Cultivate the “soft zone”. Sit with your emotions, observe and work with them. We turn our weaknesses into strengths (antifragility), until there is no denial of our natural eruptions and nerves sharpen our game, fear alerts us, anger funnels into focus. Emotional states trigger greatest performances. Build condensed triggers and pull from deepest resources for creative inspiration.
• p.225: • Solid foundation: study the simplest of states, aim for reduced complexity when mastering the solid foundation (in chess, study the end game before learning the opening). • Making smaller circles: Take a single technique and practice it until you feel its essence. Then condense that moment of internalization while maintaining the power of mastered technique. You have reached extreme potency. • Slowing down time: Focus on select group of techniques and internalize them until the mind perceives them in tremendous detail After training in this manner, we can see more frames in an equal time, so things feel slowed down. • Learn what good feels like. Then you know your direction. All that works regardless of the pursuit.
• Stay calm, principled and embrace the chaos. That’s how he dealt with aggressive chess players.
• Read Tao Te Ching by (Tzu & Needleman, 1989). 2024-02-20: Tao Te Ching

2024-03-03: Making Smaller Circles

References