The Art of learning

There we are going to read the summary of "The Art of learning" Here ,We will learn  How to learn fast anything? By reading this Summary of this book we will enhance our life by Many ways.......

About This Book

Josh Waitzkin was a child prodigy chess player, and an international chess master whose father’s memoir about his early years playing chess (Searching for Bobby Fischer) was made into a popular 1993 drama film. After his childhood and youth in chess, Waitzkin took up competitive Tai Chi and beat the defending champs at the 2004 International Tai Chi Push Hands World Championships. How did he do it?

In The art of learning which is part memoir, part instructional book, Waitzkin explains the thoughts and processes that led him to success in these two vastly disparate fields, and the lessons he learned throughout his life competing at the highest levels.

Intro

I could spend hours at a chessboard and stand up from the experience on fire with insights about chess, basketball, the ocean, psychology, love, art…Chess was my friend. Then suddenly, the game became alien and disquieting.

• There is something profoundly hollow about the nature of fame.
• When Josh started Tai Chi: It was beautifully liberating to be learning in an environment in which I was…a beginner
• Strong chess players rarely speak of fundamentals, but those are the building blocks of mastery. Just like musicians don’t think of individual notes while they play.

PART ONE: THE FOUNDATION

Chapter 1: Innocent Moves

• Chess was Waitzkin’s calling, though he’s not sure what that means.
• When he thought about people watching, he played badly
• Bobby Fischer: chess prodigy who won the Soviet World Champion and brought chess into the American limelight in the 70s
• Chess was, to Josh, an “intimate fantasy world.” His teacher had to be trusted before he could enter Josh’s thought process
• Bruce, Josh’s first teacher: hardly “studied chess” with Josh in the beginning. They had to develop genuine camaraderie first.
• Bruce did not tell Josh he was wrong, but taught him by showing him and earning his respect (beating him in a game, then mentioning the principle he used)
• Bruce allowed Josh to express himself. Fine line to tread: teach Josh to be disciplined without dampening his love for chess, his natural voice.
• Too many teachers use cookie cutter molds.
• Too many teachers over-praise kids. That does not build confidence, it discourages objectivity, encourages self-indulgence, creates a dishonest teacher-student relationship.
• Bruce helped Josh’s mind carve itself
• The most important factor: Bruce nurtured Josh’s love for chess.
• Learning/passion first, competition a distant second.
• Competitive chess: a mental prize fight
• When talented kids expect to win without a struggle, they are emotionally unprepared for struggle. Josh thrived under adversity.
• Fundamental to the learning process: unhindered by internal conflict

Chapter 2: Losing to Win

Confidence is critical for a great competitor, but overconfidence is brittle

• When Josh lost his first big game, his parents took him fishing to regain perspective, revive his enthusiasm for life.

• When you’re pursuing the pinnacle, limits must be pushed. (like relational boundaries between father/son)
• For balance: Bruce gave speed chess sessions with breaks to toss a football outside
• Josh’s dad: It’s okay to quit chess. Josh: Quitting is not an option.
• “Often in chess, you feel something is there before you find it.”

Chapter 3: Two Approaches to Learning

• Glory is a powerful incentive. But there is little room at the top, and inevitably, dreams are dashed, hearts are broken. (Ex: actors, musicians)
• What makes people get to the top? What’s the point?
• Most motivated people make terrible mistakes while learning, but those who succeed keep steady on their paths.
• psychologist Carol Dweck: there’s a difference between entity and incremental theories of intelligence. ENTITY THEORISTS think success/failure is due to unalterable ability. INCREMENTAL THEORISTS think mastering things comes with hard work.
• Experiment: kids were given easy math problems. They succeeded. Then they were given impossible ones. Entity thinkers were dismayed, Incremental learners excited by the challenge. They all failed. They were given a third easy test. Entity thinkers did badly (self-confidence destroyed), Incremental thinkers succeeded.

Some of the brightest kids prove most vulnerable to becoming helpless because they feel the need to live up to and maintain a perfectionist image that is easily and inevitably shattered.

• Subtle instructional/parental styles can help kids develop different mindsets toward learning/theories of intelligence. Give process-oriented feedback.
• We can always evolve our learning approaches, even in minutes.
• Key to pursuing excellence: embrace long-term organic learning process, not safe, static mediocrity.
• Hermit crabs sometimes walk around “naked” as they grow and look for a new shell. That learning phase in between shells = growth.
• Successful people: shoot for the stars, put their hearts on the line for each battle, lessons learned > trophies
• Losses can be more valuable than wins. Use a healthy attitude to draw wisdom from every experience.
• Zugzwang: putting your opponent in a position where any move he makes will destroy his position.
• Josh spent hundreds of hours exploring operating principles behind positions he may never see to get a feeling for the subtleties of each chess piece.
• Effort > results. Understanding end games, principles, struggle > memorizing quick chess opening wins.

Chapter 4: Loving the Game

Playing exciting chess felt like discovering hidden harmonies.

• Muscles strengthen when pushed, so too do good competitors rise to the level of the opposition
• Learn to run the mental marathon, choose opponents a little stronger than you to practice losing = maintain healthy perspective, mitigate fear of failure
• Process-first philosophy applies to many diverse fields.
• But don’t claim to be ego-less. You probably are just not putting yourself on the line, pretending not to care about results.
• Fixating on the goal is unhealthy, but short term goals help. Also, too much sheltering from results can be stunting. The road to success isn’t easy.
• We are our own parent in real life.
• It is good to compete, but in a healthy manner.

When we have worked hard and succeed at something, we should be allowed to smell the roses.

The key… is to recognize the beauty of those roses lies in their transience. It is drifting away even as we inhale.

• My own note: Remember the line “don’t muzzle an ox that is treading out the wheat” (Deut 25:4, 1 Tim 5:18, 1 Cor 9:9)
• Enjoy the win, but note lessons learned and move on to the next adventure.
• If child loses, don’t say it didn’t matter, because it did. Start with empathy, it’s okay to be sad. Disappointment is part of the road. After some time, ask what went wrong:
• Mistakes have both technical and mental components. Did you lose concentration? Were you overconfident? etc
• Adults must take responsibility for ourselves and nurture a healthy mindset
• Reap the lesson, win or lose.

Nothing is learned in any challenge where we don’t try our hardest.

• Growth comes from resistance.
• Plateaus: periods when reults level off while you internalize info necessary for next growth spurt
• Glory has little to do with happiness or long-term success

Chapter 5: The Soft Zone “Losing Yourself”

• In performance training: first learn to flow with whatever comes. Then learn to use whatever comes to your advantage.
• Hard Zone: when you are tense and resistive, demanding a cooperative world to function
• Soft Zone: be quietly, intensely focused, apparently relaxed while you work inside, flowing with whatever comes. Resilience, like a grass blade.
• Josh: earworm songs caused him to lose concentration. The more he tried to block it, the louder it got. Breakthrough: used the song to think to the beat.
• Be at peace with distraction, whatever it is.
• Soviet chess study of hypnosis and mind control: One of Josh’s competitors lightly tapped a chess piece while Josh was thinking, in order to distract him. Once Josh was aware, he was able to turn the tables on that trick.
• Another opponent kicked Josh. Opponents who feel wronged/helpless, taking on the victim mentality lose half the battle.
• Josh had to learn to deal with dirty opponents without losing cool.
• Don’t deny emotions, use them to your advantage.
• Mental resilience is the most critical trait of a world-class performer and must be constantly nurtured.
• If uncomfortable, don’t avoid it, be at peace with it. Avoid painkillers, change the sensation of pain into something not necessarily negative.
• Practice in the little moments of life.

Chapter 6: The Downward Spiral

• Important to learn: regaining presence and mind clarity after making a serious error
• The space between winning/losing is minute and there are ways to steal wins from the “maw of defeat.” Top performers learn to improvise.
• Brilliance can be born of small errors.
• Beware of the downward spiral (mistake triggering mistake). Be present at critical moments. If you need a deep breath, water, run, do it.
• Josh witnessed a lady who stepped into traffic and was brushed by a bike. Instead of stepping back, she turned to yell at the biker and was hit by a taxi.
• Lesson: this tragedy need not have happened. It was the result of a chain of mistakes. If she had stepped back, she’d be fine. But she was spooked into anger.
• Two lines move in parallel: Time & Our Perception of the Moment
• When we are present, we move with the expansion of time. When we make a mistake and freeze, detachment builds. Time moves on, we stop. and then comes the taxi.

Chapter 7: Changing Voice

• When the movie came out, Josh’s life waws changed by too much fame/celebrity
• He grew consistently unhappy before tournaments an needed to release himself from the baggage
• He studied where the technical meets the psychological aspects of the game: noting thought process and how he felt emotionally at various stages of battle.

An error on the board usually parallels a psychological collapse of sorts…My problems on the chessboard usually were manifesting themselves in my life outside of chess.

• Ex: When Josh was homesick, having trouble with transitions, his chess errors all happened in moments surrounding a big change.

My whole chess psychology was about holding on to what was, because I was fundamentally homesick. When I finally noticed this connection, I tacked transitions in both chess and life.

• Using awareness and action in life, Josh focused on embracing, not fighting change.
• Deeply buried secrets in a competitor tends to surface under intense pressure. Chess can be a form of psychoanalysis.
• Josh learned to discover himself through chess. The more he knew about the game, the more he realized there was to know.
• Numbers to leave numbers, form to leave form = integrating technical info into what feels like natural intelligence. Ex: numerical value of different chess pieces. What was once seen mathematically becomes felt intuitively.

Chapter 8: Breaking Stallions

A life of ambition is like existing on a balance beam. As a child, there is no fear…the beam feels wide and stable, and natural playfulness allows for creative leaps and fast learning..But then as you get older, you become more aware of the risk of injury.

• Key component of high-level learning: cultivating resilient awareness, a higher level up from child’s playful obliviousness
• Journey: from child back to child again is the core of success
• Critical factor in becoming a conscious high performer: the degree to which your relationship to your pursuit stays in harmony with your unique disposition.
• Integrate new info in a way that doesn’t violate who you are, your natural voice.
• How to study chess: study the way great playes of your natureintegrated a particular element of the art. Easier for a rock musician to learn classical music from a rock-classical musician than a pure-classical musician.
• There is a tangible connection between opposites (love/loss, sickness amplifies feeling healthy, etc)
• Feeding the unconscious: it will discover connections between what appears to be opposites.
• Artistic insight in one direction often involves study of another. Study form to leave form (Jackson Pollock)
• 2 ways to break a stallion 1) tie it up and freak it out. SHOCK AND AWE. 2) Gentle it, make your intention the horse’s intention. Synchronize desires without breaking horse’s spirit. HORSE WHISPERING.
• The second way allows the horse to bring his unique character to the table.
• The field of learing and performance is exploring the gray in-between. Push yourself hard, but not hard enough to melt. Stretch your mind/muscles, but not ’til they snap. Practice losing, but also win. Release current ideas to learn new ones, but not so much that you lose touch with your natural talent.
• Navigation is tricky. There are shoals on two sides of a narrow channel.

PART TWO: MY SECOND ART

Chapter 9: Beginner’s Mind

• Josh’s first Tai Chi class : goal is not winning, but being.
• Learning to relax: he never knew he was so tense! Hunching over chessboard = bad posture
• Breathing should be natural — what was natural before we got stressed out by years of running around hectically, creating bad habits.
• Expansive (out and up) movement go with in-breath as body/mind wakes up. Out-breaths: body releases/de-energizes.
• One interruption to a calm, healthy present life = constant interruption of natural breathing patterns. We are interrupted before we fully inhale or exhale.

Chapter 10: Investment in Loss

• How one generates force: more from mind than body
• When aggression meets empty space, it defeats itself (think Lucy and Charlie Brown and the football)
• Our problem: we’re conditioned to tense up/resist incoming/hostile forces. We need to learn a new physiological response to aggression.
• Push Hands challenge: allow yourself to be tossed around without resisting. Humility training.
• Don’t get locked up by a need to be correct.
• If any student can avoid repeating the same mistake twice (tech or psych mistakes), they will skyrocket to the top of their field.
• Minimize repitition by keeping an eye out for consistent psych/tech themes/patterns of error.
• Train with people more advanced than you.
• As you get used to taking blows, you stop fearing the impact. Your body learns to absorb blows, and y ou know you can take it. As you relax under fire, time seems to slow in your mind.
• In all fields, there are times when you’re ready for action, other times when you’re soft/broken/in flux, and ready for growth
• Beginner’s mind: necessary to learn. But not easy to maintain that humility and openness when people are watching, when you’re more advanced.
• Use an incremental approach in your career: so you can invest in loss, so you allow for times when you’re not in a peak performance state.
• Take responsibility for yourself and don’t expect the rest of the world to understand what it takes for you to be the best you can be.
• Michael Jordan may havemade the most last-minute shots to win games than anyone in the history of the NBA, but people forget he also missed the most shots. (My own note: people will forget failures)
• Jordan’s greatness: willingness to put himself on the line as a way of life. “He was willing to look bad on the road to basketball immortality.”

Chapter 11: Making Smaller Circles

• Josh was inspired by: Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
• Learning principle of depth > breadth: plunge into detailed mystery of the micro to understand what makes the macro tick.
• We live in an attention deficit, addicted culture, wanting novelty to stay entertained. We’re like surface fish, ignorant of the “gorgeous abyss below”

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…Once I experienced these principles, I could apply them to complex positions because they were in my mental framework.

• “Savor the nuance of small morsels” (aka break it down and learn the basics well)
• Making smaller circles: Touch the essence of a technique, then incrementally condense the external manifestation of the technique while keeping true to its essence.
• We have to do something slowly so we can do it correctly with speed.
• Key: take small steps: so the body can barely feel the condensing practice. Get the FEELING of the punch first through large traditional motion, then each little refinement of motion is monitored by that feeling.
• Don’t get attached to fancy technique. Subtle internalization/refinement is more important than quantity of learning.

Surely many of my opponents knew more about Tai Chi than I did, but I was very good at what I did now.

• In intense competition: those who win have slightly more honed skills than others, not a mysterioius technique but a profound mastery of a basic skill set.
• Depth > breadth because it opens a channel for unconscious, creative components of hidden potential.

Chapter 12: Using Adversity

• 3 steps in resilience in chaos:

1. Be at peace with imperfection
2. Use imperfection to your advantage
3. Create ripples in consciousness/jolts to spur us along so we’re constantly inspired, regardless of external conditions

• Mastering performance psychology: creating inspiring internal conditions
• Don’t neglect internal stuff even in intenese training/competition routines
• For all disciplines: It’s important to undulate between external/internal, concrete/abstract, technical/intuitive
• In all contact sports: if, even for a blink, you can control 2 of the opponents’ limbs with one of yours, your free hand can take him apart. Aka: If the opponent is tied down more than you are expending energy/resoures to tie him down, you have a large advantage. Master your technical skills to do this.
• Visualization practice can help broken limbs heal better: do the exercise with the opposite limb and visualize passing the workout to the muscles of the injured side.
• Injuries aren’t setbacks to recover from. Figure out how to use even that new situation to heighten your game. Turn adversity into advantage. Be creative.
• Josh’s ex: breaking his right arm made him a better left-handed fighter.
• Excellence requires presence, not going through motions.
• The internal solution: we can create the helpful growth opportunity without actually injuring/endangering ourselves. Notice external events that trigger growth opportunities, internalize the effects of those events without their actually happening. Adversity = source for creative inspiration.

Chapter 13: Slowing Down Time

• Road to mastery: start with fundamentals, understand principles of your discipline, then expand/refine repertoire guided by your unique predisposition while keeping in touch with the core of the art, whatever that is.
• Studying chess is like clearing a jungle: Takes a long time to travel through it unless you take the time to cut a path through first.

The structure and the bishop are one. Neither has any intrinsic value outside of its relation to the other, and they are chunked together in the mind…Each piece’s power is purely relational

• Soon, learning becomes unlearnring. Stronger players are less attached to dogmatic interpretation of principles.
• Then, psychology starts transcending technique.
• What separates the good from the great: deep presence, relaxed conscious, unconscious flows untethered.
• Shift primary role from conscious to unconscious without blissing out/losing the precision of the conscious.
• Grandmaster chess players look at less, not more.
• Once the unconscious can navigate the huge network of technical info, the conscious can focus on essential simple details with precision.
• The conscious mind can only take in a limited amount of info at a time. Using it for smaller amounts of info makes time feel like it’s slowed down.
• Unconscious: high speed processor.
• Practice is to be able to give surrounding info to the unconscious so that the conscious can focus.

Chapter 14: The Illusion of the Mystical

• People’s chess tendencies match their life tendencies. Josh learned to read their psyches, body movements, etc.
• Our goaol: take advantage of the moment when opponent is switching weight from one foot to the other. Or in the middle of a blink, his presence is slightly altered, you can take advantage of that.
• When two highly trained minds square off in any field, opponents fight to enter each other’s mind.

PART THREE: BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

Chapter 15: The Power of Presence

• Learn how to maintain the tension over opponents — the littlest crack can break
• In every field: clearheded presence, coolness under fire separates the best from the mediocre.
• This is more important in solitary pursuits (learning, writing, scholastics) whicih lack external reinforcement. We are our own monitor.
• We can’t be excellent by “going through the motions”
• Make deep, fluid presence second nature: life, art, learning will become rich, delightful, surprising.

The secret: Everything is Always on the line.

• The more present you are in practice, the more you are in real life.

Chapter 16: Searching for the Zone

• How to enter the Zone at will? Find inner focus that can exist no matter the external environment.
• Jim Loehr’s Human Performance Institute: study the science of long-term, self-sustaining, healthy peak performance.
• Every discipline: dominant performers routinely use recovery periods — are able to relax in brief moments of inactivity before jumping back in.

The better we are at recovering, the greater potential we have to endure/perform under stress.

• How to relax? Use mind-body connection.
• Practice cardio interval training: Make heart rate go to 170 bpm after 10 min of exertion. Then lower resistance of bike until rate is 144 bpm, then sprint again to 170 bpm, go easy for a minute, then sprint, etc.
• Mind and body alternate between hard work and release = over time, recovery time gets shorter as you train, you get in better condition, and rest intervals only 45 sec.
• There’s a physio connection to recovery: Cardio interval training can help you quickly release tension and recover from mental exhaustion.
• Physical flushing and mental clarity are linked.
• Push yourself to your healthy limit, recover for a minute or two, then push again. Create a rhythm of intervals. With practice, increase intensity and duration and condense rest periods.
• Incorporate stress/recovery into all aspects of life.
• Break down artificial barriers between life experiences so all moments are enriched by interconnectedness.

Chapter 17: Building Your Trigger

• How to get back your tension when you release it?
• Kids learn to concentrate until they meltdown.
• Get good at waiting. Love waiting. Waiting is life. But be ready for your moment.
• If your anticipation for “your moment” is too frenzied, you’ll be overwrought.
• Incremental growth: be like water, keep flowing, even when all is on the line.
• Create a trigger to send yourself into the zone at the right time:

1. pick an activity that gives you serene focus.
2. Create a 4–5 step routine and end with this activity.
3. Practice until you’ve physiologically linked the routine with the feeling of focus.
4. Shorten the routine. GRADUALLY. INCREMENTALLY.
5. Even use visualization.

• Principles can be internalized to the point they’re barely visible even to skilled observers
• Ideal for performers: flexibility.
• Train yourself to operate optimally on a moment’s notice.
• Condensing practice can increase quality of life, make boredom into enjoyment of subtle everyday experiences.

Chapter 18: Making Sandals

• If we don’t think an issue through, we’ll be controlled by our passions
• You can’t really deny emotions — under enough pressure, it will melt down.
• Channel emotions and everything into deeper focus for a uniquely flavorful creativity.
• The real internal challenge: maintain this fundamental perspective when faced with hostility and pain.
• When someone hurts you, 1) the problem is yours, not his. There will always be creeps in the world, and you must learn to deal.
• Fear leads to anger sometimes. Learn to deal with the root of the anger — the fear. Anger, ego, fear are interrelated.
• People who get into your head do you a favor by exposing your weakness, giving you an opportunity to expand your threshold for turbulence. Dirty players = great teachers.
• Do not be dominated by or deny passions. Observe them and see what they do to the moment.
• You cannot deny yourself. Be true to your core or the creation will be false.
• We’re designed to be sharpest in danger, but protected lives keep us from channeling our energy. Learn to sit with emotions, their unique flavors, and let them inspire you.
• Notice which states of mind inspire you most and use that. It can be happiness, fear, anger…now create your own inspiring conditions.
• Inspiration is not cookie-cutter. Figure it out yourself: 1) sit with your emotions, observe and work with them 2) turn weakness into strength and don’t deny natural emotions 3) figure out which emotional state triggers greatest performance

Chapter 19: Bringing 

it All Together

The greatest artists/competitors are masters of their own psychologies.

• There’s more than one solution to every meaningful problem.
• As we move beyond proficiency, our work becomes anexpression of our essence.
• Mediocrity is self-nurturing.
• Tai Chi: need to test things in the ring to separate mystical from real.
• True masters have control.
• The difference between 1st place and 3rd place is mountainous.
• Josh used to watch videos of competitors, frame by frame for hours.
• Once we feel the profound refinement of a skill, no matter how small, we use that feeling as a beacon of quality. When you know what GOOD feels like, zero in on it and search it out regardless of pursuit.
• Penetrate the macro through the micro.
• At the highest levels, who wins is not who knows more, but who dictates the tone of the battle.
• Use the enemy’s strengths against him.
• Watch yourself on video to spot tells or bad habits, break down what works and what doesn’t.
• Amateurs have a “feeling” behind an inspired move. Masters know why those moves work.
• We have internalized knowledge. Then we leap a few steps ahead and make a discovery. Don’t stop there. Go back and find out how you leaped, don’t wish the leap will accidentally happen again. Find the connection.

Chapter 20: Taiwan

• Great players do many invisible things
• When people play dirty, decide not to fight it — not to play their game.

Afterword

• No matter how much preparation you do, in real life, we’re in unfamiliar terrain.
• The only thing we can count on is getting surprised.
• There’s no fixed recipe for victory or happiness. Give Josh’s approach your own flavor.

Mastery involves discovering the most resonant information and integrating it so deeply and fully it disappears and allows us to fly free.