The Art of Learning

About the book

Part memoir, part method. Waitzkin reached the top of two fields that look nothing alike, tournament chess and Tai Chi Push Hands, and the book is his attempt to name what carried over. It is about the mechanics of getting good at anything: how to practise, how to stay calm when it counts, and how to treat losing as information rather than failure.

About the author

Josh Waitzkin was a national chess champion as a teenager and the subject of the book and film Searching for Bobby Fischer. He later became a world champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands, and now coaches high performers on the process of learning itself.

Key ideas

• Investment in loss. Seek out opponents and problems a notch above you, and treat losing as the fastest teacher available instead of something to avoid.
• Making smaller circles. Take one technique and refine it relentlessly until the movement is tiny and the power is enormous. Depth beats collecting more moves.
• Numbers to leave numbers. Learn the fundamentals so deeply they turn into intuition, then you no longer have to count them consciously.
• Build a soft zone. Rather than demanding perfect conditions to focus, train so that noise and adversity fold into your concentration instead of breaking it.
• Setbacks, even injuries, can become the opening. Constraints often force the breakthrough you would not have found while comfortable.