The Art of Learning by Waitzkin (2007) is a
book on discovering how one learns and provides practical advice.
Key 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 thier 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 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). 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, focussed 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).
References
Suzuki, S. (2020). Zen Mind, Beginner’s
Mind: 50th AnniversaryEdition (Anniversary edition). Shambhala.
Tzu, L., & Needleman, J. (1989). Tao TeChing: TextOnlyEdition (G.-F. Feng, J. English, & T. Lippe,
Trans.; Reprint edition). Vintage.
Waitzkin, J. (2007). The art of learning: A journey in the pursuit
of excellence. Free Press.