The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin

Nov 30

Where do I even begin (with my slight obsession with Josh Waitzkin)?

How about Spring 2017 when I first listened to his book, The Art of Learning. I bought the audio version which is unusual for me, but I wanted to listen to the book on a long solo road trip. Plus there’s the happy bonus of the audio being by Waitzkin himself. While the book is about the principles of mastery and excellence, it’s told in the context of Waitzkin’s life story so hearing it read in his own voice adds a dynamic dimension the printed version can’t deliver.

Waitzkin knows a thing or two about mastery. He’s an eight-time national chess champion, a two-time world champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands, and the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer is based on his life. I think he’s now moved on to surfing in Costa Rica.

My first time through The Art of Learning I was listening as a mom thinking about my children and their exploration of learning and interests.

This time around I’m listening for myself, curious about the pursuit of excellence and achieving peak performance on demand.

From the micro

A prominent theme in The Art of Learning is taking a deep dive into the micro in order to understand the macro. Depth over breadth.

I, in contrast, love doing something for the first time – take an idea, figure out how to bring it into existence, deliver and then pass it along to someone else to nurture and perfect while I’m on to the next new thing.

That doesn’t feel like depth to me and the leap from my generalist tendencies to mastery is no small feat. Or maybe…my depth is in knowing how to turn an idea – whether it’s a landscaping plan or a business plan – into something tangible. I tend to discount that skill because it comes so naturally to me.

(A little aside: This kind of questioning, analysis and ah-ha moments fuel me! As Socrates uttered at his trial, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”)

Anyway, I’m not ready to give you my top takeaways from the whole book because I haven’t finished my second listen yet. Also, because Waitzkin presents a philosophy that is counter to my natural tendencies it will take me some time to fully comprehend and systematically embrace his approach.

Today, I want to focus on just one idea from the book: Waitzkin’s learning principle of “plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick.”

Making smaller circles, chapter 11

My simplified overview of this chapter:

The learning principle — the micro explains the macro
The theme — depth over breadth
The method — making smaller circles

Waitzkin uses the example of learning the straight punch, a very basic skill in martial arts and boxing.

Learning the punch goes something like this.

The wind up starts in the foot, moves through the hip and back, then the punch is delivered through the knuckles. You go through the movement of delivering the punch over and over, in slow motion, perfecting each step in the sequence. Then you link the steps together, eventually adding the heavy bag to land the punch.

You practice until there are no breaks in the structure. The body mechanics are smooth and relaxed and your mind is out of the equation. You’re no longer thinking about technique; your body knows how each step should feel. You can now hit the bag with power and ease and nothing hurts.

But, the straight punch isn’t a secret weapon. Your competition will easily see the set-up and defend the attack.

The secret is in what Waitzkin refers to as making smaller circles. You take the fundamental skill you’ve learned and condense it by incrementally making each movement smaller while still maintaining your ease and power. Smaller and smaller movements until your straight punch, when delivered, looks like it came out of nowhere, almost impossible to detect. A surprise attack and a potent one.

That’s next level. And rare.

Waitzkin summarizes the chapter with, “When there is intense competition, those who succeed have slightly more honed skills than the rest. It’s rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set. Depth beats breadth any day of the week because it opens a channel for the intangible, unconscious, creative components of our hidden potential.” (emphasis mine)

I think it’s worth noting that this learning principle is only one part of Waitzkin’s bigger framework for the pursuit of excellence.

In my own language

Here’s my interpretation:

Learn the fundamental skill.
Embody the fundamental skill to the degree that you can do it without thinking. Feel it.
Condense the mechanics of that skill without losing the ease and flow.

And this is my attempt to apply the concept using the example of a bread maker.

A bread maker needs to learn all the small details of kneading dough, like which part of his hand to push with, the right amount of pressure, when and how to turn the dough, and when to stop kneading. He perfects those mechanics then starts making minor adjustments to become more and more efficient while still easily gliding through the movement.

I’m guessing a master bread maker can knead and shape a perfect bread loaf all while carrying on a full conversation and rarely looking at his work surface.

A couple distinctions

These distinctions might be obvious, but noting them helps give me more clarity and might for you as well.

Embodying a skill, meaning being able to do it without having to think about it, is the opposite of mindlessly doing something. Instead, you do something with such acute awareness that over time your body remembers exactly how the movement feels and it adjusts when something is off.
Efficiency is about reducing friction points and finding flow. Speed can be a result of efficiency, but efficiency does not necessarily equal speed.

But what about…

I’m having trouble applying this method beyond physical movement, especially around something like marketing. Here’s my best attempt so far. You be the judge of how I’m doing.

Using the taxonomy of boxing/punches/straight punch as my guide, I break marketing down to marketing/email marketing/offer email/subject line.

Subject lines are pretty basic. You’ve got to have one. Everyone does it. And most people suck at writing subject lines because they are lazy.

Yet, a great subject line can be the difference between making the sale and not because you have to get your reader to actually open the email in order to tell them about your offer.

You know what the great subject line writers do? They write 20+ subject lines for each email – practicing, practicing, practicing until they get it right.

As for feeling it? I bet there’s a gut feeling of “that’s the one.”

Here’s where I get off track. I don’t know how or if the making smaller circles method fits in.

Can you condense a subject line? In this case, is condensing about simplicity? Packing the biggest punch in the most concise way possible?

I don’t know.

Final thoughts

Intellectually, I’m nodding yes in agreement with this concept. Practically, I’m still working out how to apply it. So…