"The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin

• Virtually all situations can be handled as long as presence of mind is maintained.
• The scholastic chess world is a deadly place.
• The vast majority of motivated people make terrible mistakes in their approach to learning.
• A child with a learning theory of intelligence tends to sense that with hard work, difficult material can be grasped--step by step, incrementally, the novice can become the master.
• It is critical to realize that we can always evolve in our approaches to learning.
• 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 or safety.
• Begin with reduced complexity and clear principles. Learn from the foundation up.
• Once you start with [chess] openings, there is no way out. Lifetimes can be spent memorizing and keeping up with the evolving Encyclopedia of Chess Openings. They are an addiction, with perilous psychological effects.
• If you cultivate a perfectionist self-image, then how you you learn from your mistakes?
• One of the most critical strengths of a superior competitor in any discipline is the ability to dictate the tone of the battle.
• Seek out opponents who are a little stronger than you arel. Make losing a regular part of your experience.
• Too much sheltering from results can be stunting.
• The road to success is not easy or else everyone would be the greatest at what they do--we need to be psychologically prepared to face the unavoidable challenges along our way, and when it comes down to it, the only way to learn how to swim is by getting in the water.
• Every loss is an opportunity for growth.
• We have to take responsibility for ourselves and nurture a healthy, liberated mind-set. We need to put ourselves out there, give it our all, and reap the lesson, win or lose. The fact of the matter is that there will be nothing learned from any challenge in which we don’t try our hardest. Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.
• Mental resilience is arguably the most critical trait of a world-class performers, and it should be nurtured continuously.
• My instinct is always to seek out challenges as opposed to avoiding them.
• One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error. This is a hard lesson for all competitors and performers. The first mistake rarely proves disastrous, but the downward spiral of the second, third, and fourth error creates a devastating chain reaction.
• A key component of high-level learning is cultivating a resilient awareness that is the older, conscious embodiment of a child’s playful obliviousness.
• 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.
• Muscles and minds need to stretch to grow, but if stretched too thin, they will snap.
• A competitor needs to be process-oriented, always looking for stronger opponents to spur growth ,but it is also important to keep on 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.
• Investment in loss is giving yourself to the learning process.
• It is not so difficult to have a beginner’s mind and to be willing to invest in loss when you are truly a beginner, but it is much harder to maintain that humility and openness to learning when people are watching and expecting you to perform.
• We must take responsibility for ourselves, and not expect the rest of the world to understand what it takes to become the best that we can become.
• Great ones are willing to get burned time and again as they sharpened their swords in the fire.
• The theme is depth over breadth. The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick. Our obstacle is that we live in an attention-deficit culture.
• The constant supply of stimulus has the potential to turn us into addicts, always hungering for something new and prefabricated to keep us entertained.
• The key is to take small steps, so the body can barely feel the condensins practice. Each little refinements is monitored by the feeling of the punch, which I gained from months or years of training with the large, traditional motion. Slowly but surely, my body mechanics get more and more potent.
• Players tend to get attached to fancy techniques and fail to recognize that subtle internalization and refinement is much more important than the quality of what is learned.
• 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.
• The importance of undulating between external and internal (or concrete and abstract; technical and intuitive) training applies to all disciplines, and unfortunately the internal tends to be neglected.
• One thing I have learned as a competitor is that 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 your goal is to be mediocre, then you have a considerable margin for error. If you want to be the best, you have to take risks others would avoid, always optimizing the learning potential of the moment and turning adversity to your 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.
• It is all too easy to get caught up in the routines of our lives and to lose creativity in the learning process. Even people who are completely devoted to cultivating a certain discipline often fall into a mental rut, a disengaged lifestyle that implies excellence can be obtained by going through the motions. We lose presence.
• Once we reach a certain level of expertise at a given discipline and our knowledge is expansive, the critical issue becomes: how is all this stuff navigated and put to use? I believe the answers to this question are the gateway to the most esoteric levels of elite performance.
• Chunking relates to the mind's ability to assimilate large amount of information into a cluster that is bound together by certain patterns or principles particular to a given discipline.
• Carved neural pathways are the process of creating chunks and the navigation system between chunks.
• Chunking relates to 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.
• As with all skills, the most sophisticated techniques tend to have their foundation in the simplest of principles.
• It’s amazing how much you can learn about someone when they get caught in the rain!
• In virtually every competitive physical discipline, if your are a master of reading and manipulating footwork, then you are a force to be reckoned with.
• Take advantage of the moment your opponent is switching his weight from one foot to another.
• There is nothing mystical about controlling intention or entering the mind of the opponent. These are skills to be cultivated like any other.
• In every discipline, the ability to be clearheaded, present, col under fire is much of what separates the best from the mediocre.
• While more subtle, this issue [presence] is perhaps even more critical in solitary pursuits such as writing, painting, scholarly thinking, or learning. In the absence of continual external reinforcement, we must be our own monitor, and quality of presence is often the best gauge.
• We cannot expect to touch excellence if “going through the motions” is the norm of our lives. On the other hand, if deep, fluid presence becomes second nature, then life, art, and learning take on a richness that will continually surprise and delight.
• Those who excel are those who maximize each moment’s creative potential--for these master of living, presence to the day-to-day learning process is akin to that purity of focus others dream of achieving in rare climactic moment when everything is on the line.
• The secret is that everything is always on the line.
• Presence must be like breathing.
• In your performance training, the first step to mastering the zone is to practice the ebb and flow of stress and recovery. This should involve interval training as I have described above, at whatever level of difficulty is appropriate for the age and physical conditioning of the individual.
• If you are interested in really improving as a performer, I would suggest incorporating the rhythm of stress and recovery into all aspects of your life.
• It would be an excellent idea to spend a few minutes each day doing some simple meditation practice in which your mind gathers and released with the ebb and flow of your breath.
• Too many of us live without fully engaging our minds, waiting for that moment when our real lives begin.
• I believe an appreciation for simplicity, the everyday--the ability to dive deeply into the banal and discover life’s hidden richness--is where success, let alone happiness, emerges.
• The real power of incremental growth comes to bear when we truly are like water, steadily carving stone. We just keep flowing when everything is on the line.
• The key is to make changes incrementally, slowly, so there is more similarity than difference from the last version of the routine.
• The ideal for any performer is flexibility.
• We must be prepared for imperfection.
• In my experience the greatest of artists and competitors are masters of navigating their own psychologies, playing on their strengths, controlling the tone of battle so that it fits with their personalities.
• We are unique individuals who should put our own flair into everything we do.
• When hit with surprises, if you have a solid foundation, you should be fine. Tactics comes easy once principles are in the blood.
• Handling dirty tricks is a part of the game.