Attacking with body and mind
“Searching for Bobby Fischer” star Waitzkin describes struggle for excellence in chess, martial arts
May 22, 2007
By Sam Bhagwat
During his youth, Josh Waitzkin was widely regarded as a chess prodigy. From nine to 18, he was the highest-ranked chess player in America for his age. But four years later, the subject of the book and 1993 movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer” gave up professional chess, due to what he has described as a growing distance from the game. He then embarked on an unlikely journey to the arena of martial arts, winning multiple world championships in the field of Tai Chi Push Hands.
Now 31, Waitzkin says that his success in such seemingly disparate fields was driven by a common element - a love, and method of, learning. His new book, “The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence” elaborates a set of techniques that Waitzkin says is essential to improvement in any subject. After a Thursday signing event at the Stanford Bookstore, Waitzkin said down with The Daily to talk about his views on the learning process and his struggle to succeed at the top levels of chess and tai chi.
The Stanford Daily: You mentioned in your talk that if elements of your personality haven’t been confronted, they’ll come out under pressure. Could you talk a bit about that in the context of both of your pursuits, tai chi and chess?
Josh Waitzkin: First of all, in the abstract, the way it works is that when you’re under incredible pressure, one thing that happens is that the last thing you learn is the first thing to go. It’s very interesting. If, for example, you’re a chess player and you’ve been working on a certain weakness or a certain series of ideas. If you’re pushed to your absolute limit, the thing that’s going to go is the last thing you’ve been working on—the last thing you’ve learned—because it’s not so deeply embedded in your being.
And then on a more profound level; in terms of, for example, your state of mind, your state of concentration, your performance state, your zone. If I’m in a world championship in the martial arts, and I’m dealing with an opponent who’s a very dirty player. I was coming against the European Champion in the 2002 World Championships - everything he did was illegal, he was targeting my groin, he was targeting my neck. Everything he did was trying to make me angry, trying to hurt me. And so if I hadn’t confronted why it is that I get angry, if I hadn’t confronted what anger is really about, what the indignant response to a dirty player is really all about — because what it’s about is fear. When someone does something which is infuriating, it’s because on some level it’s challenging, and it makes us uncomfortable - it’s unsettling.
For many years the training I did was in the martial arts was ... [meant to deal with this]. It all began when I was competing in my first national Push Hands championship, and in the finals, I was competing against this guy. I was dominating the tournament, I was dominating the match, and then what he started to do was throw head butts to the nose. The second head butt, I was getting this incredible blood rush, this incredible, wild blood rush to my head - you get out of control like a bull seeing red, and I started to lose control of myself. Instead of using his aggression, taking advantage of it, I started to become a pure aggressor, away from the methodical, introspective, aware competitor. I became like a crazy, out-of-control bull. I almost lost; I ended up recovering myself just before. So I wanted to take on this question of why was I becoming angry. I became angry because I didn’t know how to deal with head-butting to the nose, I didn’t know how to deal with someone targeting my groin, or my knees, or my neck, because I was used to people who played by the rules. It was fear.
So I started training against people who were dirty, seeking out dirty players to play with in my place: the guys who were out of control, the most fierce. The guys who were the biggest creeps, you know. There was this guy, I call him Frank in the book, he always tried to attack my jugular. Whenever he was being dominated, he would go after you. Complete creep. I got to the point, I realized, [where] I got angry; I didn’t know how to deal with it, the anger was a defense mechanism. I acted as though I was above it but in fact I was having a fear response.
And I started to work with him and I started to learn how to handle that, how to technically handle those responses, that dirty play, and he inspired me to perform to the very height of my ability.
And then in competition, you go back to this scene I was describing, with the Austrian. When he came at me with his dirty play, I smiled. I took it, I channeled it to more and more of an intense state. And the interesting thing there is that you have this dirty player, who’s used to affecting his opponent, and so the reaction of his opponents is a leg that he uses to stand on. If I don’t react, he’s without a leg he’s used to, and he falls apart. He ended up getting more and more out of control, and ended up completely self-destructing, because I wasn’t reacting to it. And the reason that I wasn’t reacting to it is that I was reacting to what was really going on.
TSD:You mention dirty play a lot in the book as well. What is your insight into the differing motivation that separates why you want to practice tai chi or play chess, and the Russian player that kicked you under the table [during chess games]. Is there a difference in motivation?
JW:Yeah, there is. My love is for the self-cultivation that comes with these things. Of course, you get very ambitious in this also. There’s always dirty players. But I’ve never gone there. If I did, I would have to stop [playing]...
A lot of people were win-at-all-costs. Coming from the Soviet bloc, where they were incredibly poor ... pre-breakup, the Russian school of chess was basically about winning, and doing what it takes to win. And so there were no qualms about breaking rules, or skirting the barriers of what might be ethical or what might not. And that was something about my relationship to being a good sport or being ethical. And it isn’t important to beat a lot of people, because when they’re confronted with the option of winning a world title or not - they’ll win at all costs.
TSD:You discuss the incremental versus entity theory of learning in your book — do you think that the win-at-all-costs versus loving the competition plays out ...
JW:Let me answer, I know where you’re going. The kids who cheat, for example, in school - the kids who copy the teachers’ test questions, [and] memorize the answers have a very different experience than taking their time and learning all the material, the ideas behind the material. If you have the win-at-all-costs, results-oriented approach, you’re not learning anything, you’re memorizing. And you’re also programming yourself to associate success not only with cheating, but with memorizing, and this static, inorganic relationship with learning.
While if you value the long-term lessons you learn, the long-term successes over the short-term successes, you’ll have a very different approach. In the book, I talk about the under-18 World Chess Championship [title game]. The Russian guy offered me a draw, and I could have just shaken hands and tied for first place. I turned him down and lost — and it was a heartbreaking loss, the most heartbreaking loss of my life. But the interesting thing is, if I had taken the draw, I wouldn’t have had the game - I would have had some glory. But the loss was heartbreaking. But it was incredibly important for me to have that experience. I was playing to win - the goal is putting yourself on the line, that’s what will open up the long-term effects. But cheating, or playing dirty, that’s not putting yourself on the line — ethical issues aside, and for me, the ethical issues would have been enough.
TSD: That makes sense. Returning more to the abstract, the book talks a lot about, beyond chess and tai chi, techniques like “Making Smaller Circles” and “Investing in Loss.” What makes those things an art rather than a science?
JW:For one thing, it’s because my fundamental method is not putting people into some sort of mold, but finding individuals’ unique paths. Now, there are some techniques [everyone] can apply. In training for the [Tai Chi Push Hands] world championship in 2004, we were using these intuitive breaks we’d have, these breakthroughs we’d have, letting each one’s personal intuition, personal style, lead the creative process. Everyone’s essential reality is very different.
I don’t believe that everyone should fit into this one mold, I believe that these ideas can help give a direction - [but] you take them and make them your own. That’s the difference.
Reply With Quote