The Art of Learning

Josh Waitzkin is familiar to most us as the subject of the movie "Searching for Bobby Fischer," a dramatized but factual portrait of him as a child prodigy in chess. In real life, he collected several national age-group championships plus the title of International Master. As a young man, when the fame associated with the movie became too burdensome a distraction from his chess career, he found refuge in the practice of Tai Chi. From there he went on to martial forms of the Eastern practice, and - consistent with his incredible talent and personality - began to accumulate national and international titles in that, too.

This book is a an account of the personal, spiritual, mental, and physical challenges that he overcame on his way to excelling in two such (outwardly) different disciplines. For me it succeeds on three levels. First it is an incredible a human interest story. Most people never achieve such heights in a single field, let alone two, and it's fascinating to get his view of how he did it. Second, it is a deeply thoughtful and insightful how-to book for the rest of us. It contains a richly detailed set of tools that the reader can apply to any field of endeavor. Not to give away the secrets, I'll just mention some of the descriptive phrases: entity vs. incremental theories of learning; the Soft Zone; Losing to Win; Numbers to Leave Numbers; Making Smaller Circles; Building Your Trigger. Yes, I really think he's on to something there; everything ties into solid science from the psychology of learning and performance. Lastly, I find this book to be inspirational and motivational. Some of the ideas are not really new, but he infuses them with such life and immediacy that the reader cannot help but be persuaded, if not swept away. For hours after after putting the book down, I wondered about applying his techniques to my own humble little projects.
I read this book in a single (long) sitting. The writing itself is animated, flowing and colorful; only occasionally it leans toward cliches. There is an disarming sense of humility in his voice, and we get glimpses into his soul. And truly, he has the heart and spirit of a noble warrior. I initially had a bit of discomfort about the apparent reliance on Eastern mysticism which weaves in and out of his discourse (only because I am completely ignorant of these subjects), but fortunately he grounds it in familiar Western rationalism. There is no need at all to be familiar with chess or the martial arts in particular; the book's message is universal; indeed, this book could easily have been about golf and brain surgery. Perhaps these will be the subjects of his next book.