elite performance

[pdmunro]

I have just read Josh Waitzkin's book, "The Art of Learning", detailing his ideas on chess and martial arts learning. It's focus is on how to create elite perfomance.

 

You can get the flavour of the book from the introduction:

http://www.simonsays.com/content/book.cfm?...d=526819&agid=2

 

There are youtube video clips showing Tai Chi Push Hands

 

One of best things for me was his ideas on utilising anger (p 200 onwards): rather than let yourself get upset, channel the anger to stimulate your creativity. This requires practise.

[kenberg]

Scanning the excerpt, I thought "I wonder if this is the guy from In Search of Bobby Fisher ". Reading the details, I found that it was. I liked the movie a lot (a bit hokey here and there, but not so much as to ruin a good story) and have sometimes wondered what happened next.

 

To me the most interesting feature of the movie was the question: Suppose your kid shows signs of genius, and suppose he plans to use that gift playing chess. Do you nurture this or do you try to get him interested in, say, DNA research.

 

I don't actually want anyone's advice about how to learn (I may need it, I just don't want it) but if he talks about how his life has gone since where the movie left off, I may buy the book.