Book SummaryThe Art of Learning, by Josh Waitzkin

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of The Art of Learning

In The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin argues that a passionate commitment to learning leads to both competitive success and a fulfilling life. He explains what he learned in becoming the U.S. Junior Chess Champion as well as World Champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands, arguing that excellence comes from unwavering focus, tenacious training, and creative self-actualization.

Waitzkin is an International Master in chess and World Champion in Tai Chi Push Hands, the combative variant of tai chi. A chess prodigy, he began playing at the age of 6, drawn to the streetside boards set up by New York City park hustlers. Soon after, Bruce Pandolfini (a prominent chess coach) took Waitzkin on as a student, and he went on to win several national championships in his early teens. Waitzkin became a National Master at age 13 and an International Master at 16.

Waitzkin shifted away from chess in his late teens, as fame and coaching methods conflicted with his well-being. Soon after, he began to study tai chi under master William C. C. Chen, who later invited Waitzkin to study Push Hands. Through his twenties, he rose through the US tournament rankings and went on to win the World Championship in Taiwan in 2004.

In this book, Waitzkin explains how he was able to rise to the top of two seemingly unrelated disciplines. In our guide, we’ll explain Waitzkin’s basic method and mindset, cover his intermediate techniques, and finish with his advanced strategies. In addition, we’ve consolidated Waitzkin’s repeated emphasis on “presence” into one section and compared his learning approach to perspectives from The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed, and others.

Presence Underpins Real Skill

Waitzkin says that presence—which he defines as deep, focused calm—is essential for the mastery of any skill. In competition, your awareness becomes sharper, yet must remain calm and focused—like a samurai standing relaxed, yet intensely ready, when facing his opponent.

(Shortform note: Waitzkin’s emphasis on presence evokes Eckhart Tolle’s perspective in The Power of Now, where Tolle argues that living intensely “in the here and now” is the only path to true fulfillment. While the two approach life differently—Waitzkin with an intense, single-minded focus on learning and growth and Tolle with an emphasis on spiritual enlightenment—presence is key to both. In other words, that Waitzkin’s life is so different from Tolle’s, yet both center on presence, suggests that presence is a flexible tool for each individual to find and explore their own path toward fulfillment.)

Waitzkin gives two key reasons presence is important in life and competition:

Reason #1: Presence equips you to navigate the turbulence of life. In our unpredictable world, we need to navigate many obstacles to success, whether they’re external (like a noisy arena) or internal (like emotional turbulence).

Waitzkin says that a calm, present mind helps you handle physical, mental, and emotional turbulence by empowering you to embrace distraction and process your emotions.

(Shortform note: It’s helpful to think of Waitzkin’s notion of presence as mindfulness. Recent research supports his claim that presence is a key tool for emotional regulation. Practicing mindful presence develops your capacity for emotional nonreactivity—the capacity to experience your emotions without allowing them to dictate your behavior.)

Reason #2: Presence is the key to competitive success. Being present helps you focus on growing and allows you to regain perspective when you lose. Waitzkin recounts an early loss in his chess career that knocked him off balance. By separating himself from the game and focusing on presence, he was able to return refreshed and reinspired.

Waitzkin points out that when you compete at a high level, the margins are so slim that being a tiny bit more present than your opponent is a significant advantage. Presence helps you reach flow, or “the zone,” which can give you a leg up on your opponents.

(Shortform note: Mindfulness plays a huge role in modern athletic training. Athletes like Derek Jeter, Kobe Bryant, and tennis champ Bianca Andreescu (who defeated Serena Williams), all cite presence as key to their success. Amy Saltzmann, a mindfulness coach, suggests that mindfulness training could help amateur athletes to climb the ranks faster: Since mindfulness hasn’t fully permeated professional athletics, those who start practicing it while young can gain a mental and emotional advantage over their competition.)

Growth Comes From Trial and Error

Waitzkin explains that learning happens through trial and error. When you make mistakes, you have the opportunity to grow. One step at a time, you can reflect on errors to grow your skills.

For example, you can learn a guitar chord by trying to play it, adjusting your fingers based on what sounds wrong, and repeating until you reach the correct form.

(Shortform note: In Black Box Thinking, Matthew Syed argues that error is inherent in learning. Mistakes reveal the flaws in our skills and show us where to grow. As Syed shows, incremental growth is profoundly powerful: It’s the mechanism that drives evolution. Organisms and ecosystems evolve by undergoing continuous stress tests (storms, drought, predation, and so on) that select for the fittest creatures. So while “learn from your mistakes” might sound like a platitude, it’s profoundly useful.)

Each time you act, err, adjust, and repeat, you make an incremental improvement. Waitzkin says that to learn is to build increment on increment on increment. Each addition builds your knowledge,...

The Art of Learning Summary Shortform Introduction

In The Art of Learning, Josh Waitzkin argues that a passionate commitment to learning leads to competitive success and a fulfilling life. He explains what he learned in becoming the U.S. Junior Chess Champion as well as World Champion in Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands, arguing that excellence comes from unwavering focus, tenacious training, and creative self-actualization. He builds from simple to complex strategies for both the psychological and technical sides of skill-building, showing that your growth as a competitor parallels your growth as an individual.

About the Author

Joshua Waitzkin is an International Master in chess and World Champion in Tai Chi Push Hands, the combative variant of tai chi. A chess prodigy, he began playing at the age of 6, drawn to the streetside boards set up by New York City park hustlers. Soon after, Bruce Pandolfini, a prominent chess coach, took Waitzkin on as a student. Waitzkin went on to win several national championships in his early teens, becoming a National Master at 13 years old and an International Master at 16.

Waitzkin shifted away from chess in his late teens, as fame and coaching methods conflicted with his well-being. Soon...

The Art of Learning Summary Part 1: Fundamentals of Learning | Chapter 1: Three Keys to Learning

The Art of Learning is about chess prodigy and tai chi champion Josh Waitzkin’s approach to learning and growth. He explores the fundamentals of method and mindset, building incrementally through intermediate to advanced strategies.

A prolific learner and competitor from a young age, Waitzkin has a lifetime of practical knowledge in skill-building. At 6 years old, he took on streetside chess hustlers in New York City’s Washington Square Park, and soon drew the attention of legendary chess coach Pandolfini, who became his first mentor.

At 11, Waitzkin drew a match with World Champion Garry Kasparov in a simultaneous exhibition (where a Master plays against several weaker players all at once). Through his childhood and teenage years, Waitzkin dominated the US Junior chess scene, winning multiple national championships and becoming an International Master by age 16.

(Shortform note: Hungarian chess teacher Laszlo Polgar holds that chess prodigies are raised, not born. While natural talent is key to becoming a young Grandmaster, Polgar argued that the keys to genius are fortunate circumstances and hard work....

The Art of Learning Summary Chapter 2: Build Your Foundation

Now that we’ve grounded ourselves in the key themes of Waitzkin’s approach, we’ll explore the fundamentals of how to build a skill. This chapter covers how to create your foundation and how to develop in the direction of what inspires you, according to Waitzkin.

Specifically, we’ll discuss how to study the individual elements of your skill. Then, we’ll explain how to build elements into memory “chunks”—combinations of multiple elements, like how to shuffle, deal, and count cards—and networks of chunks.

Finally, we’ll discuss how to develop in harmony with your intuition and why Waitzkin believes it’s important to do so.

Start With the Fundamentals

Waitzkin says to start with the fundamentals of your skill. With any skill, there are better and worse ways to begin learning. Waitzkin recommends a patient, step-by-step approach to the fundamentals.

First, avoid beginning with rigid, quick-fix strategies that only work in specific scenarios. For example, Waitzkin explains that many young chess players learn aggressive sequences of moves that aim to overwhelm an unskilled opponent. However, these players don’t understand the inner workings of their strategies. So...

The Art of Learning Summary Part 2: Intermediate Learning Techniques | Chapter 3: Develop Your Personal Style

So far, we’ve explained Waitzkin’s advice for mindset, for studying the fundamentals, and for developing your skill as a network of chunks. In Chapter 3, we’ll begin our discussion of his intermediate techniques.

Specifically, we’ll explain how to develop your personal creative style, which stems from your unique relationship to your skill; and we’ll explain how to use themes of error to guide that development.

Find Your Personal Style

In addition to achieving mastery, incremental skill building enables your unique style to emerge. When you intuitively understand the elements of a skill and their interrelationships you can combine them in creative ways.

Waitzkin argues that we’re each naturally drawn to particular skills. While he doesn’t directly explain this, we can infer that it’s a deep feeling, not conscious thought, that draws you in. For example, Waitzkin felt an intense resonance with chess from the first time he saw it played.

(Shortform note: While Waitzkin doesn’t explain how to find your personal style, you may already have a sense for it. Consider that you know what kind of music, food, clothing, and friends that you like. Your...

Shortform Exercise: Regain Balance After a Mistake

Reflect on how you can regain balance the next time you make a painful mistake.

Think back to a recent mistake you made, whether in a relationship, at work, or in a competitive arena. How did you react at that time? Describe what happened.

The Art of Learning Summary Chapter 4: Refine Your Skill Set

So far in our discussion of Waitzkin’s intermediate techniques, we’ve covered how to find your personal style and how to use patterns of error to develop your skills. Now, we’ll look deeper at how to practice those new skills you uncover.

Chapter 4 describes why depth beats breadth, according to Waitzkin, and how to learn good form by developing an embodied understanding of your skill. This “embodied understanding” underpins more advanced skills, like getting into a flow state.

Deepen Your Fundamentals

As Waitzkin says, real skill comes from a deep, singular focus. In terms of skill-building, he argues that you reach excellence by refining a set of fundamental skills, rather than practicing a wide range of techniques. For example, focus on learning a single style of piano, like baroque classical, rather than trying to learn classical, jazz, and ragtime piano all at once.

When you jump from technique to technique, you neglect to understand any of them beyond the surface level. According to Waitzkin, this leads to a wide-ranging but technically deficient skill set. Imagine learning five new piano chords daily—likely as not, you won’t grasp any of...

The Art of Learning Summary Chapter 5: Seek Growth Opportunities

So far, we’ve looked at how Waitzkin recommends you develop a skill. From Chapter 5 onward, we’ll discuss his techniques for succeeding in competition. First, we’ll discuss how to handle adversity. You’ll meet plenty of adversity on your path to skillfulness, so it’s crucial to learn how to use the negatives as opportunities for growth.

Chapter 5 discusses two intermediate techniques that follow this theme. We’ll learn how to practice even when you’re injured, and why to seek out challenges that push you past your limits.

When Injured, Do Internal Work

In most competitive sports, you run the risk of injuring yourself. Waitzkin argues that we should treat major setbacks, such as injuries, as opportunities to train the subtle, psychological aspects of your skill.

(Shortform note: While some would see it as a setback, many athletes took the 2020-21 COVID-19 quarantines as an opportunity to train with greater focus. In these “quarantine camps,” athletes reported receiving more sport-specific training, emotional health support, better recovery facilities, and greater massage and therapy...

Shortform Exercise: Seek Out a Challenge

Practice looking for opportunities to stretch your abilities.

Describe an area of your life in which you’re currently trying to grow. For example, you may be learning how to learn more effectively.

The Art of Learning Summary Part 3: Advanced Competitive Strategies | Chapter 6: Create Powerful Techniques

With our discussion of Waitzkin’s intermediate techniques complete, we’ll look now at his strategies for high-level competitive success. Chapter 6 builds on our discussion of incremental learning in Chapter 2, detailing how to compress your techniques into compact, powerful forms.

We’ll lay out Waitzkin’s steps for compressing a technique, which is a way of packing all the power of a technique into a smaller, more subtle form. We’ll then detail three applications—how to create “flow state” triggers, how to trigger creative inspiration, and how to develop near-instantaneous recovery time.

Compress Routines to Create “Triggers”

An incremental approach enables you to compress the power of a technique into a compact, refined form. With Waitzkin’s method, you can create an arsenal of powerful, subtle techniques that align with your creative disposition. In addition, you can learn to cycle between rest and readiness with agility.

To do this, Waitzkin explains, you’ll take the feeling of “right form” and gradually compress it while maintaining your connection to that feeling.

Done right, this makes a physical move (like a roundhouse kick) more efficient...

Shortform Exercise: Build a Routine and Trigger

Consider how you could create a routine to get into “the zone.”

Identify some activities that activate your peak state. Where, when, or what gets you into “the zone”? For example, you might find that weekend hiking trips put you in a great state of mind.

The Art of Learning Summary Chapter 7: Win High-Level Competitions

So far in Waitzkin’s advanced strategies, we’ve looked at how to systematize your states to prepare for competition. In Chapter 7, we’ll explain how to win when the margins are incredibly slim. To do so, you have to operate on a deeper, more subtle level than your opponents.

First, we’ll look at how to achieve enhanced perception through deep refinement of your skill. From there, we’ll discuss how to win the mental game (and why it’s so important), and how to use your personal style to create techniques that elevate you above the competition.

Develop Enhanced Perception

At a high level of mastery, Waitzkin says, you can achieve enhanced perception in high performance states. This comes from refining your skills until they flow seamlessly, intuitively, and effortlessly. Once you’ve reached technical mastery, the brain processes more information with less effort.

He explains that, subjectively, this feels like enhanced perception: You've grown so sensitive to the minutiae of the techniques that time seems to slow down. Punches seem to come in slow motion, because you’re intimately aware of every subtle movement—the shift of weight that telegraphs it, the opponent’s...

The Art of Learning Summary Chapter 8: The Role of Coaches and Parents

Now that we’ve covered all of Waitzkin’s principles and practices for skill-building, we’ll finish by looking at his perspective on the role of coaches and parents.

Adult role models, he says, shape children’s mindsets. Ideally, a good mentor should teach their students to love learning and guide them as they develop their unique abilities.

In this chapter, we’ll explore how feedback influences a child’s mindset, and how different coaching styles either support or hinder the learning process.

(Shortform note: In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle argues that masterful coaching is crucial to success. Master coaches provide skillful, personalized guidance to each of their students, motivating and inspiring them to engage with the skill as best they can. Bill Bowerman, co-founder of Nike, exemplifies this: He gave personalized guidance to each of his runners, even inventing and tailoring new running shoes, and he thereby coached several of the first runners to break the four-minute mile mark.)

Parents and Coaches Determine a Child’s...