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The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin

Reading Time: 4 minutes

In becoming a chess and Tai Chi Cuan champion, Josh Waitzkin cultivated a penchant for lifelong growth, excellence, and mastery. Through his personal story, he shares his unique strategy for the art of learning and the pursuit of excellence. You’ll come away with timeless principles that you can integrate into the domains that you care most about.

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Key Takeaways

Excellence and long-term learning.

“The key to pursuing excellence is to embrace an organic, long-term learning process, and not to live in a shell of static, safe mediocrity. Usually, growth comes at the expense of previous comfort or safety.”

If you want to be excellent, you need to maintain a high-degree of curiosity and remain on the steep part of the learning curve. This often means choosing to stretch yourself more than what is comfortable, but the long-run benefits of such an approach can bear lots of tasty fruit.

Incentives influence outcomes

“Growth comes at the point of resistance. We learn by pushing ourselves and finding what really lies at the outer reaches of our abilities.”

If you never fail, you aren’t aiming high enough. Without failure and pushing yourself to the limits, you’re unlikely to learn and grow rapidly.

Using adversity as fuel

“If I want to be the best, I have to take risks others would avoid, always optimizing the learning potential of the moment and turning adversity to my advantage. That said, there are times when the body needs to heal, but those are ripe opportunities to deepen the mental, technical, internal side of my game. When aiming for the top, your path requires an engaged, searching mind. You have to make obstacles spur you to creative new angles in the learning process. Let setbacks deepen your resolve. You should always come off an injury or a loss better than when you went down.”

Big setbacks and adversity are often the greatest teachers. These are the moments where you confront the scary pain of life, but have the opportunity to learn from these moments and take yourself to the next level of growth.

Shoot for the stars

“In my experience, successful people shoot for the stars, put their hearts on the line in every battle, and ultimately discover that the lessons learned from the pursuit of excellence mean much more than the immediate trophies and glory.”

Dream and pursue big achievements. You may miss the mark, or you may hit it, but you will learn far more in the process than if you set your eyes on small goals.

Presence and mistakes

“One idea I taught was the importance of regaining presence and clarity of mind after making a serious error.”

When you make a mistake, it’s important not to lose yourself to the emotional volatility of mistakes. Learning how to remain clear, present, and focused will allow you to learn from those mistakes and grow.

Mastery of the basics

“It is rarely a mysterious technique that drives us to the top, but rather a profound mastery of what may well be a basic skill set.”

Success rarely comes from unique genius. It’s daily grunt work that compounds over time to cultivate mastery of basic skill sets that other people never master. This will be your greatest competitive advantage.

A comparative lens

“The human mind defines things in relation to one another—without light the notion of darkness would be unintelligible”

Humans look at the world through a relative lens. You compare your success to your friends, not to the average. You compare your intelligence to your peers, not to other groups. Looking at everything through a relative lens gives meaning to opposite ends of a spectrum.

Mastery involves integration

“In the end, mastery involves discovering the most resonant information and integrating it so deeply and fully it disappears and allows us to fly free.”

When you master something, you operate at the highest level with ease and grace. While skill development requires hard work, repetition, and patience, mastery is the fluid and harmonious integration of what you’ve learned in your life.

Develop a growth mindset

Instead of living with a disempowering fixed mindset, cultivate a growth mindset. Develop a love for learning. With a growth mindset, crisis and failures become opportunities for you to learn and grow.

Invest in loss

Learning to invest in loss will allow you to put yourself on the line and see what’s on the other side. Sometimes, it’s not good. Other times, it’s what propels your growth.

Dealing with uncomfortable emotions

If you face uncomfortable emotions, lean into them and understand them. Sit and observe them without having them rock the boat. Create a stillness even when the waves get big.

Use your emotions

Use your emotions to sharpen your game. What emotional states fuel your performance? Once you know this, learn to create those emotional states through triggers or routines that put you in the state for creative expression and inspiration. Or learn to be effective in different states you face.

Put someone in the rain

You can learn a lot about a person by observing their reaction to discomfort or disappointment. If they get unusually worked up over little discomforts – rain, waiting in a line, etc. – that tells you a lot about how they might handle larger discomfort or disappointment.

Learn to be present

Being present and clear-minded is essential to learning, writing, and being the best. With presence, you can maximize the creative opportunity of each moment. You have an inner-focus no matter the external environment. You are unstoppable.

Interval training

Instead of always trying to be “on,” learn to take short rests to allow yourself to recharge. Your thinking is often clearer after a period of rest. To learn how to ebb and flow quickly between being “on” and “off,” introduce interval training into your exercise routine. It between sets, you let things go and relax the mind. Then, you get going again. Your new abilities will flow over into your performance outside of the gym as well.

Your inner dialogue

What does your internal dialogue look like? What are the stories and questions you ask yourself? How you speak to yourself and the stories you tell matter. Being aware of these patterns can help you identify the ones that are not serving you.

Meditation as observation

Meditation enables you to realize that most of thinking is noise and reactive. It’s not about calming your mind; it’s about becoming an observer, not a controller of your thoughts. In observing your thoughts, you gain a stronger awareness and understanding of them.

Fearlessness

Fearlessness is just people who learn to sit with their fears; you will always have fears and anxieties, so instead of trying to “overcome” them, learn to better relate to them.

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The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance

Josh Waitzkin knows what it means to be at the top of his game. A public figure since winning his first National Chess Championship at the age of nine, Waitzkin was catapulted into a media whirlwind as a teenager when his father's book Searching for Bobby Fischer was made into a major motion picture. After dominating the scholastic chess world for ten years, Waitzkin expanded his horizons, taking on the martial art Tai Chi Chuan and ultimately earning the title of World Champion. How was he able to reach the pinnacle of two disciplines that on the surface seem so different? "I've come to realize that what I am best at is not Tai Chi, and it is not chess," he says. "What I am best at is the art of learning." In his riveting new book, The Art of Learning, Waitzkin tells his remarkable story of personal achievement and shares the principles of learning and performance that have propelled him to the top -- twice. With a narrative that combines heart-stopping martial arts wars and tense chess face-offs with life lessons that speak to all of us, The Art of Learning takes readers through Waitzkin's unique journey to excellence. He explains in clear detail how a well-thought-out, principled approach to learning is what separates success from failure. Waitzkin believes that achievement, even at the championship level, is a function of a lifestyle that fuels a creative, resilient growth process. Rather than focusing on climactic wins, Waitzkin reveals the inner workings of his everyday method, from systematically triggering intuitive breakthroughs, to honing techniques into states of remarkable potency, to mastering the art of performance psychology. Through his own example, Waitzkin explains how to embrace defeat and make mistakes work for you. Does your opponent make you angry? Waitzkin describes how to channel emotions into creative fuel. As he explains it, obstacles are not obstacles but challenges to overcome, to spur the growth process by turning weaknesses into strengths. He illustrates the exact routines that he has used in all of his competitions, whether mental or physical, so that you too can achieve your peak performance zone in any competitive or professional circumstance. In stories ranging from his early years taking on chess hustlers as a seven year old in New York City's Washington Square Park, to dealing with the pressures of having a film made about his life, to International Chess Championships in India, Hungary, and Brazil, to gripping battles against powerhouse fighters in Taiwan in the Push Hands World Championships, The Art of Learning encapsulates an extraordinary competitor's life lessons in a page-turning narrative.

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The Best Way to Master a New Skill? Try This Creative Approach.

• Sarah Stein Greenberg

Use this tool to discover your strengths and identify challenge areas.

Becoming skilled at tackling anything means going on a journey of highs and lows. Both extremes provide important feedback that lets you know where you are in the learning process. Most of us know how to interpret the high of a big new idea, but fewer of us have the tools to make sense of the harder moments, when we’re struggling to understand a concept. We forget that discomfort is an essential part of discovery. In those moments, how do you get “unstuck” and navigate your way forward?

• The Learning Journey Map is one tool you can use to chart your learning experience over time and identify the moments when you soared effortlessly and when you ran into challenges.
• It helps you take something that’s usually internal and invisible — your own learning — and bring it outside yourself, where you can examine it more objectively, discover your strengths, and identify and work through your challenge areas.
• The next time you’re struggling with a learning opportunity, use the worksheet in this article to give it a try.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

You may have graduated college, but your days of being a student are far from over. Throughout your career (whether you earned a degree last year or last century) you will face many situations that call for learning — it’s just that, now, there’s no syllabus or exams.

• SG Sarah Stein Greenberg is the executive director of the Stanford d.school. She leads a community of designers, faculty, and other innovative thinkers who help people unlock their creative abilities and apply them to the world. Her new book is   Creative Acts for Curious People: How to Think, Create, and Lead in Unconventional Ways.

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Table of Contents

• Rave and Reviews

About The Book

About the author.

Josh Waitzkin , an eight-time National Chess Champion in his youth, was the subject of the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer . At eighteen, he published his first book, Josh Waitzkin's Attacking Chess . Since the age of twenty, he has developed and been spokesperson for Chessmaster, the largest computer chess program in the world. Now a martial arts champion, he holds a combined twenty-one National Championship titles in addition to several World Championship titles. When not traveling the country giving seminars and keynote presentations, he lives and trains in New York City. He can be reached at www.joshwaitzkin.com . For more information about Chessmaster visit www.ubi.com .

Product Details

• Publisher: Free Press (May 27, 2008)
• Length: 288 pages
• ISBN13: 9780743277464

Browse Related Books

• Self-Help > Personal Growth > General
• Self-Help > Motivational
• Biography & Autobiography > Personal Memoirs

Raves and Reviews

"This is a really superb book, one I wish someone had given to me long ago. The title is accurate -- at a profound level, it's about real learning from hard conflict rather than from disinterested textbooks. It will take a ferocious interruption to make you put this book down." -- Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance

"We all remember the portrayal of Josh Waitzkin in Searching for Bobby Fischer . He was a very impressive child who continues to impress with The Art of Learning . Through a unique set of experiences, Waitzkin has formed an original and outstanding perspective. From chess to Tai Chi, he provides tools that allow all of us to improve ourselves every day." -- Cal Ripken, Jr., 2007 Baseball Hall of Fame Inductee

"Waitzkin's in-depth look into the mental side of his success in both chess and martial arts is an inspiring and absorbing read. I strongly recommend it for anyone who lives in a world of competition, whether it's sports or business or anywhere else. It's also a great training tool for kids aspiring to reach the pinnacle of their chosen fields." -- Mark Messier, 6-time Stanley Cup Champion

"Josh Waitzkin's The Art of Learning is a testimonial to the timeless principle of 'do less and accomplish more.' Highly recommended for those who want to understand the power of consciousness." -- Deepak Chopra

"Absolutely brilliant immersion into the phenomenon of human mastery. Waitzkin brings laser clarity and penetrating insights into the delicate mind, body, spirit interactions fundamental to extraordinary achievement in most any area of life. This is a journey worth taking." -- Jim Loehr, Chairman and CEO, The Human Performance Institute, and coauthor, The Power of Full Engagement

" The Art of Learning succeeds on every level, combining a truly compelling auto-biography with profound philosophical and psychological insights all wrapped in a practical how-to framework. This is a must-read for anyone wishing to achieve that rare combination of success and fulfillment." -- Paul Blease, SVP, Director, Team Development & Consulting, Citigroup Smith Barney

Resources and Downloads

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The Art Of Learning Summary

1-Sentence-Summary:   The Art Of Learning explains the science of becoming a top performer, based on Josh Waitzkin’s personal rise to the top of the chess and Tai Chi world, by showing you the right mindset, proper ways to practice and how to build the habits of a professional.

Favorite quote from the author:

Audio Summary

Listen to the audio of this summary with a free reading.fm account:

I first learned about Josh Waitzkin from Tim Ferriss, who not only had him on his podcast a couple times, but also tried to learn Brazilian Jiu Jitsu under his guidance in an episode of his TV show The Tim Ferriss Experiment.

Josh is incredibly passionate about learning itself, more so than about any particular skill field or industry. That also explains how he could just quit chess at the age of 23, in spite of being one of the most promising players of all time and jump straight into martial arts.

In 2008, he wrote The Art Of Learning to share what he’s learned about what it takes to become a top performer – regardless of whether you’re particularly talented, or not .

Here are 3 lessons about the secrets of top performance:

• If you want to win, you have to lose first.
• Don’t turn distractions into excuses – use them to get better.
• Improve your recovery rate with HIIT.

Committed to kicking the world’s ass in something? Let’s look at the lessons from lead performers!

If you want to save this summary for later, download the free PDF and read it whenever you want.

Lesson 1: Losing comes before winning (not just in the dictionary).

When Josh was 10 years old, he started to play in adult chess tournaments. For the first time, he started actually losing a bunch of matches. Of course, Josh was frustrated. But it was only through this frustration that he found a major flaw in his chess skills: he couldn’t concentrate long enough to compete in serious tournaments.

Adult chess matches are twice as long as the one in children’s leagues, so Josh started working on his endurance.

The only way to get better is to compete with people, who are better than you . But competing against better people  always means losing.

This makes losing a necessary precursor of winning . However, especially when it comes to children, we’re very focused on a mindset of non-competition today. The answer is somewhere in the middle. Losing too much is bad, but so is not losing at all.

When you or your kid lose in something that’s important to you, do this:

• Remember that it’s okay to be disappointed.
• Be proud of yourself for showing up in the first place.
• Identify where to improve in the short term.

Always use failure to set new short-term goals, which fuel a long-term goal, and you’ll never get discouraged from any particular loss.

Lesson 2: Stay in the soft zone to accept distractions and perform in spite of them.

Sometimes it gets really loud in the café I usually work in these days. Business meetings, students venting about their latest exam, loud coffeemakers. On some days it feels very distracting and I get annoyed, because it feels like the world won’t let me focus.

Josh would call this being in the hard zone . Our anger takes over and we can’t perform at the level we’re used to. But in reality, great performers can also deliver when conditions aren’t ideal. For example, soccer players have to be able to execute a free kick or penalty, even when thousands of people are raging in the stands around them.

If you embrace distractions instead, and learn to perform while they’re present, you get better at being in the soft zone . In this state, you can ignore or even use disruptions to build  mental resilience  and make your brain stronger.

For example, Josh once lost an important chess match, because he had a catchy song stuck in his head. Learning from the loss, he started practicing at home with music playing, eventually aligning his thoughts with the rhythm. This worked so well, that he start ed singing songs in his head before tournaments  on purpose , so he could trigger this new flow state .

Lesson 3: High-intensity interval training will cut your recovery rate down fast.

If you’re a runner, or do cardio on a regular basis, you might have heard of HIIT before. It stands for high-intensity interval training – short bursts of very tough exercise, followed by a brief period of recovery time.

For example, if you’re running laps on a track, you could run one lap at your regular pace, then sprint as fast as you can for 10 seconds when you reach the start/finish line, and finish the rest of the lap at your normal pace again. The more you repeat this process, the quicker your heart rate returns to its base level and the longer it takes for it to reach really high levels .

Whether you’re big on sports or not, integrating some form of HIIT into your schedule will be well worth your time: Researchers at the Human Performance Institute have found that this skill translates from physical to mental and will help you reduce stress and recharge after exhausting your mental capacities.

The Art Of Learning Review

A very cool glimpse into the world of high-performers. Screw talent, it’s all about practicing and practicing right. Whether you’re trying to become a writer, better manager or want to dominate in a sport, The Art Of Learning can give you a few valuable principles to make your practice more deliberate. Go Josh!

Who would I recommend The Art Of Learning summary to?

The 13 year old, who’s passionate about basketball, but recently wanted to quit, because his team lost a game, the 49 year old librarian, who’s often frustrated when people make noises at work, and anyone who’s not doing any endurance training at the moment.

Last Updated on August 1, 2022

Niklas Göke

Niklas Göke is an author and writer whose work has attracted tens of millions of readers to date. He is also the founder and CEO of Four Minute Books, a collection of over 1,000 free book summaries teaching readers 3 valuable lessons in just 4 minutes each. Born and raised in Germany, Nik also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration & Engineering from KIT Karlsruhe and a Master’s Degree in Management & Technology from the Technical University of Munich. He lives in Munich and enjoys a great slice of salami pizza almost as much as reading — or writing — the next book — or book summary, of course!

*Four Minute Books participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon. We also participate in other affiliate programs, such as Blinkist, MindValley, Audible, Audiobooks, Reading.FM, and others. Our referral links allow us to earn commissions (at no extra cost to you) and keep the site running. Thank you for your support.

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Book Review - The Art of Learning

This is a review of The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence by Joshua Waitzkin.

I’m sort of surprised how much I liked this book. At times, it bordered on self-help, spiritual BS but Waitzkin’s undeniable competitive success and tempering of the more spiritually flavored advice with insightful musing on how to master a domain or understand one’s opponent elevated it far above the self-help morass.

In this review, I summarize the book while musing on how well Waitzkin’s insights apply to the areas in which I’m interested. As I’m sure the summary components illustrates, I lack Waitzkin’s ability to describe technical insights into skill development in reverent, lyrical terms that highlight their profundity, so I highly recommend reading the actual book if you enjoy the quotes I’ve included in my summary. Before going on, I do want to add a disclaimer that this review is not especially critical of the book. While I have no problem with critical reviews (I am friends with Alexey after all), in this case my goal is to extract insights that apply to my own pursuits, so I only apply a critical lens to Waitzkin’s lessons insofar as it’s relevant to achieving this goal.

The Art of Learning is structured chronologically but different periods of Waitzkin’s development are used to illustrate facets of the art of learning. The narrative tracks Waitzkin’s development into a chess master, his subsequent disillusionment with chess, and his discovery and mastery of Tai Chi Push Hands, culminating in his winning of the World Championship. While Waitzkin’s career story grounded the abstract discussion, I’m more interested in focusing on the themes he discusses and their application to activities in which I’m interested.

Internalizing foundational principles and techniques #

The themes Waitzkin focuses on evolve over the course of the book as the challenges he faces and his attitude towards competition do. However, a couple of key ideas repeatedly reappear. One such idea is internalizing foundational principles so deeply that you can leverage them creatively and build upon them. As an example, Waitzkin discusses how part of his deeply internalized intuition for individual chess pieces’ strengths and weaknesses came from starting his serious training by mastering endgames. In endgame practice, only a few pieces remain on the board and so the player can focus on building a fingertip feel for how these pieces operate and act in tension with each other. To give you a flavor of Waitzkin’s characteristically spiritual but technical style, here’s his description of why studying endgames helped him:

Once he had won my confidence, Bruce began our study with a barren chessboard. We took on positions of reduced complexity and clear principles. Our first focus was king and pawn against king—just three pieces on the table. Over time, I gained an excellent intuitive feel for the power of the king and the subtlety of the pawn. I learned the principle of opposition, the hidden potency of empty space, the idea of zugzwang (putting your opponent in a position where any move he makes will destroy his position). Layer by layer we built up my knowledge and my understanding of how to transform axioms into fuel for creative insight. Then we turned to rook endings, bishop endings, knight endings, spending hundreds of hours as I turned seven and eight years old, exploring the operating principles behind positions that I might never see again. This method of study gave me a feeling for the beautiful subtleties of each chess piece, because in relatively clear-cut positions I could focus on what was essential. I was also gradually internalizing a marvelous methodology of learning—the play between knowledge, intuition, and creativity. From both educational and technical perspectives, I learned from the foundation up. Most of my rivals, on the other hand, began by studying opening variations. There is a vast body of theory that begins from the starting position of all chess games, and it is very tempting to teach children openings right off the bat, because built into this theoretical part of the game there are many imbedded traps, land mines that allow a player to win quickly and easily—in effect, to win without having to struggle to win

We see this same idea again in a different form later when Waitzkin’s discussing mastering Tai Chi:

The straight is the power punch coming from the ground, generating through my left foot, and moving through my left leg, torso, diagonally across and up to the right side of my back, through the shoulder, tricep, and finally delivered by the second and third knuckles of my right hand. First, I practice the motion over and over in slow motion. We have to be able to do something slowly before we can have any hope of doing it correctly with speed. I release my left hip, wind up, and spring the right hand into motion as my left foot and hip joint spin my waist and upper body into action. Different discipline, same idea. Break things down and internalize the pieces so deeply that you know them in your bones.

These quotes also highlight why my love of this book took me by surprise. Often the lessons Waitzkin shares are lessons I’ve heard many times before, yet they don’t feel stale coming from him. “Master the basics and build intuition for their use.” This is deliberate practice literature 101. And it’s certainly not the application to chess that is novel. Chase and Simon’s Perception in Chess paywalled link ) from 1973 was the seed for the entire deliberate practice literature and is all about how what separates expert and novice chess players is the experts’ ability to handle a greater amount of information by chunking meaningful sub-structure in a chess position. But somehow seeing it described abstractly doesn’t do the same thing for me that having Waitzkin describe his lived experience does. Part of this may be the standard insight porn glow, but I think there’s something more. What Chase and Simon and other discussions of deliberate practice lack is the why. As a not that competitive person, crushing my enemies and seeing them driven before me is not going to get me excited about hours spent toiling over chess pieces / writing and rewriting a manuscript / refactoring a program for the 5th time to find the exactly correct abstraction. On the other hand, Waitzkin conveys how this sort of work can itself become intrinsically rewarding and meaningful. Put a different way, with apologies to William Blake:

To see a World in a Single Punch And a Heaven in a Rook’s Advance, Hold Infinity in the depth of your hunch And Eternity in the fleeting chance.

Grow, but be true to your self #

Another aspect of Waitzkin’s discussion of mastery which goes beyond what one finds in scientific papers on deliberate practice is his nuanced understanding of how to harmonize individual personality and skill development. Waitzkin discusses how a trainer pushing him to subjugate his natural, self-described wild style in favor of a plodding strategic one, inspired by Karpov:

But Karpov had cold blood and mine boiled. When he searched for tiny strategic advantages, I yearned for wild dynamics. As I tried to play in the style that pleased my coach, chess began to feel alien. At times I felt as though my head was in a thick cloud and I couldn’t see the variations. My strengths as a young champion—consistency, competitive presence, focus, drive, passion, creativity—were elusive and moving out of reach. I still loved chess, but it no longer felt like an extension of my being.

Throughout the book, Waitzkin harps on the importance of finding ways to continue growing while not losing track of one’s connection to the discipline. He even attributes some of his success in Push Hands to avoiding this mistake, having experienced its impact on his relationship to chess. On its own, this may come off as no different from the trope-y self-help author who stresses the importance of being true to yourself. What separates Waitzkin from a trope-purveyor is his recognition that a fastidious devotion to remaining true to oneself can also limit growth. Continuing in his discussion of Karpov in the context of describing the contrasting opinions of two of his coaches, Waitzkin writes:

On the other side of the argument was Yuri Razuvaev, who insisted that I should continue to nurture my natural voice as a chess player. Razuvaev believed that I was a gifted attacking player who should not be bullied away from my strengths. There was no question that I needed to learn more about Karpov’s type of chess to make the next steps in my development, but Razuvaev pointed out that I could learn Karpov from Kasparov. This was a delicate and rather mystical-feeling idea, and I wish I had possessed the sophistication as a sixteen-year-old boy to see its power. On one level, Razuvaev’s point was that the great attacking players all possess keen understanding of positional chess, and the way for someone like myself to study high-level positional chess is to study the way the great players of my nature have integrated this element of the art. An interesting parallel would be to consider a lifetime rock guitarist who wants to learn about classical music. Let’s say there are two possible guides for him in this educational process. One is an esoteric classical composer who has never thought much of the “vulgarity of rock and roll,” and another is a fellow rocker who fell in love with classical music years ago and decided to dedicate his life to this different genre of music. The ex-rocker might touch a common nerve while the composer might feel like an alien. I needed to learn Karpov through a musician whose blood boiled just like mine

Waitzkin understands that growth requires going beyond some of one’s natural inclinations but argues that there’s a way to achieve this that doesn’t run roughshod over these inclinations. I suspect Waitzkin’s experience is one that many people, in particular the sort of people who can’t help but want to improve at activities they pick up, can relate to. You start out liking a subject or hobby. You get better and better at it. But then, something happens and the magic fades. All of a sudden, practicing and improving becomes a chore. I confess this happened to me with math during undergrad. Prior to college, I’d always considered myself a math person albeit not to the degree some of my current friends who participated in the IMO and went to Math Camp did. I enjoyed the feeling of mastering topics and then being able to quickly answer questions through understanding (as expected, I wasn’t always a fan of showing work). Yet the latter component of the calculus sequence combined with an engineering-style differential equations and a systems class during my first two years of college changed my self-identity from “person who’s good at math” to “person who has no use for all that abstract nonsense. This new negative attitude persisted until about two years when, forced by my desire to become a machine learning practitioner, I rehabilitated my relationship with math.

Waitzkin’s discussion of harmonizing growth with personality helps me understand part of what happened to my relationship to math in those years and why certain aspects of my rehabilitation strategy did/didn’t work. Especially as I’ve spent more time around other highly technical people and observed them solve problems as a software engineer and, more recently, an ML practitioner, I’ve noticed that compared to others, I rely less on and am often worse at step-by-step reasoning (don’t even get me started on algebra mistakes) and instead lean heavily on what I describe as analogies and intuition for lack of a better term (for more on this distinction, I highly recommend this blog post by Lucy Keer). Because I was unwilling to put in the work required to internalize mathematical concepts in the way my intuition could leverage in these college classes, math became a quest to just figure out the right formula to apply to get through a problem set or exam. That college math introduces higher levels of abstractions and the definition-theorem-proof style which notoriously obscures the intuitive basis of mathematical concepts only exacerbated my feeling of ungroundedness from the material. (It’s important to note that this wasn’t the only cause. Like many others, this was my first time experiencing not being able to coast while still doing well, and I was also distracted by other typical college student activities.)

My more recent study of linear algebra provides a good case study to contrast with my college experience. At first, presented with a mass of definitions and exercises, I would just try to power through, focusing on the exact content of definitions and questions rather than taking time to understand the latent generators of their content. This led to repeated cycles of frustration in which I’d look at a theorem to prove or example to provide and find myself reading the words over and over again having no idea how to proceed. However, with the help of a wonderful tutor who knows more math than I ever will, I learned to avoid or at least minimize this agony by spending time probing definitions, asking why they were the way they were, what underlying concepts led to them being defined they were, and exploring how changes to them would cascade through proofs which depended on them. This not only helped me improve but also made the learning process more enjoyable, although still difficult, by better aligning it with my natural inclinations. It’s worth noting that while my math ability and knowledge still pales in comparison to real mathematicians’, two of the greatest (and most eccentric) mathematicians seem to have benefited from doubling down on their natural inclinations rather than subjugating them. The first, Alexander Grothendieck, is seemingly universally agreed upon to have been an alien, capable of seeing things that noone else could. His and his disciples furious work over a ten year period yielded thousands of pages of novel math which laid the foundation of algebraic geometry – which I know nothing about – and led to the resolution of the third Weil conjecture. Grothendieck is famous for his “rising sea” approach to mathematics, which he described as follows:

I can illustrate the second approach with the same image of a nut to be opened. The first analogy that came to my mind is of immersing the nut in some softening liquid, and why not simply water? From time to time you rub so the liquid penetrates better,and otherwise you let time pass. The shell becomes more flexible through weeks and months – when the time is ripe, hand pressure is enough, the shell opens like a perfectly ripened avocado! A different image came to me a few weeks ago. The unknown thing to be known appeared to me as some stretch of earth or hard marl, resisting penetration… the sea advances insensibly in silence, nothing seems to happen, nothing moves, the water is so far off you hardly hear it.. yet it finally surrounds the resistant substance. – Alexander Grothendieck ( source )

Grothendieck’s approach is often contrasted with other mathematicians’, in particular his collaborator Jean Paul Serre, who solved problems through what he describes as applying a chisel to a nut. In a different passage, Grothendieck directly addresses the question of being true to oneself:

Since then I’ve had the chance in the world of mathematics that bid me welcome, to meet quite a number of people, both among my “elders” and among young people in my general age group who were more brilliant, much more ‘gifted’ than I was. I admired the facility with which they picked up, as if at play, new ideas, juggling them as if familiar with them from the cradle–while for myself I felt clumsy, even oafish, wandering painfully up an arduous track, like a dumb ox faced with an amorphous mountain of things I had to learn (so I was assured) things I felt incapable of understanding the essentials or following through to the end. Indeed, there was little about me that identified the kind of bright student who wins at prestigious competitions or assimilates almost by sleight of hand, the most forbidding subjects. In fact, most of these comrades who I gauged to be more brilliant than I have gone on to become distinguished mathematicians. Still from the perspective or thirty or thirty five years, I can state that their imprint upon the mathematics of our time has not been very profound. They’ve done all things, often beautiful things in a context that was already set out before them, which they had no inclination to disturb. Without being aware of it, they’ve remained prisoners of those invisible and despotic circles which delimit the universe of a certain milieu in a given era. To have broken these bounds they would have to rediscover in themselves that capability which was their birthright, as it was mine: The capacity to be alone. – Alexander Grothendieck ( source )

Would Grothendieck have been a great mathematician had he conformed more to the rest of the field? Maybe, but I highly doubt he would have been as original and impactful had he chosen to do so. The second famous mathematician who exemplifies what good can come of letting people learn in a way that’s suited to their personality is Bill Thurston. Thurston is famous for his work on geometry – as with Grothendieck, I understand none of it – and in particular his preternatural geometric intuition. Thurston described his approach as “lazy”, saying:

I’ve always taken a “lazy” attitude toward calculations. I’ve often ended up spending an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out an easy way to see something, preferably to see it in my head without having to write down a long chain of reasoning. I became convinced early on that it can make a huge difference to find ways to take a step-by-step proof or description and find a way to parallelize it, to see it all together all at once—but it often takes a lot of struggle to be able to do that. I think it’s much more common for people to approach long case-bycase and step-by-step proofs and computations as tedious but necessary work, rather than something to figure out a way to avoid. By now, I’ve found lots of “big picture” ways to look at the things I understand, so it’s not as hard. – Bill Thurston ( source )

A colleague of Thurston offers an easy-to-understand anecdote which sheds additional light on Thurston’s unique way of conceptualizing mathematics:

As a first-grader he made the decision “to practice visualization every day.” Asked how he saw in four or five dimensions he said it is the same as in three dimensions: reconstruct things from two-dimensional projections. To stop sibling squabbling Paul would ask the kids math questions. While driving, Paul asked Bill (when he was five), “What is 1 + 2 + · · · + 100?” Bill said, “5,000.” Paul said, “Almost right.” Bill said, “Oh, I filled one square with 1, two squares for 2 and all the way up to 100, so that’s half of 100 × 100 = 10, 000, but I forgot that the middle squares are cut in two, so that’s 5,050!” (1) (1) There’s a very similar story about Gauss being asked this same question and answering it immediately, so asking kids it seems to be a good way to identify future eminent mathematicians. – David Gabai and Steven Kerckchoff ( source )

As with Grothendieck, Thurston’s success partly resulted from his doubling down on an approach that jived with his natural fluency with geometric thinking. Notably, Thurston attended a small liberal arts school where he seemingly learned math almost entirely through independent study from textbooks. This enabled him to learn math at his own pace and in a way that fit with his geometric perspective without being pushed to abandon it by overzealous teachers.

That said, while we’ve seen that Waitzkin’s nuanced approach to harmonizing personality and growth seems to work well for these famous mathematicians, my own discipline of machine learning provides an example in which I think his solution is more in tension with success. Imagine you’re a machine learning researcher in 2010. You’ve heard rumblings about neural networks starting to work better when combined with backpropagation and admit to a certain curiosity about them but you just can’t get over the fact that it’s so hard to come up with theory about them. Your beloved SVMs on the other hand are the target of some of the most elegant theorems in all the land. As a devotee of beautiful theory but also someone who cares about doing useful research, is pivoting to focus on these new messy models an opportunity for growth or a dangerous neglect of your personal inclinations?

Or to take another example I’ve thought about before, suppose you’re a physicist interested in pivoting into biology (now, not historically). Your love of simplicity and mathematical beauty drove you to physics, but the track record of simple mathematical models in biology is not great post-double helix discovery era. Is forcing oneself to abandon the need for mathematical clarity and simplicity neglecting one’s natural inclinations, a necessary step to do important work, or both?

I think Waitzkin would say that in both cases, you should find a way to shift focus that doesn’t alienate you from the thing that drove your passion for research in the first place, but I don’t know what this looks like in practice.

At risk of going down an even deeper rabbit hole, another reason we might be skeptical of Waitzkin’s argument about individual style ironically comes from recent developments in chess. The reason for skepticism can be summarized as “style is for puny humans, not true optimizers.” While Kasparov or Carlsen may be able to stick to a certain style and beat all other humans, no style can even come close to matching the power of AlphaZero or even Stockfish. In other words, the superiority of chess-playing engines, which lack a coherent style or pre-disposition, illustrates that style is a solution to the problem of bounded cognition rather than a necessary feature of excellence. On the other hand, as long as we remain stuck with unaugmented brains, style seems to be a necessary crutch for sustainable peak performance.

Systematizing focus #

The power of presence and flow are well described at this point but Waitzkin adds ideas on how to systematize entering flow and using interruptions and adversity to fuel an even deeper level of presence and concentration to the discussion.

Flow on demand #

Waitzkin’s discussion of engaging flow starts by focusing on how one can get into the zone rapidly assuming relatively normal external conditions. In a chapter called Building Your Trigger, Waitzkin outlines a process for finding a flow trigger routine and then condensing it untilsimply thinking about it causes you to enter a flow state. Rather than describe it further, I’ll simply quote an example he provides in which he walks someone (Dennis in the story) through this process:

I have observed that virtually all people have one or two activities that move them in this manner, but they usually dismiss them as “just taking a break.” If only they knew how valuable their breaks could be! Let me emphasize that it doesn’t matter what your serene activity is. Whether you feel most relaxed and focused while taking a bath, jogging, swimming, listening to classical music, or singing in the shower, any such activity can take the place of Dennis’s catch with his son. The next step was to create a four- or five-step routine. Dennis had already mentioned music, meditation, stretching, and eating. I suggested that an hour before the next time he played catch with his son, Dennis should eat a light snack. We decided on a blended fruit and soy shake that he enjoyed making in his kitchen. Then he would go into a quiet room and do a fifteen-minute breathing exercise that he had learned a few years before. It was a simple meditative technique where he followed his breath. When he noticed his mind wandering, he just released the thought like a cloud gliding by and returned to his breath. For beginners, this meditation may seem frustrating because they notice their minds racing all over the place and feel that they are doing badly; but that is not the case. The return to breath is the key to this form of meditation. There is no doing badly or well, just being with your breath, releasing your thoughts when you notice them, and coming back to breath. I highly recommend such techniques. Not only is the return to breath a glimmer of the zone—a moment of undistracted presence—but the ebb and flow of the experience is another form of stress and recovery training. Finally, if there is nothing in your life that feels serene, meditation is the perfect hobby to help you discover a launching point in your search for a personalized routine. Dennis has had a light snack and done some breathing exercises. After these twenty-five minutes, the next step would be a ten-minute stretching routine from his high school football days. I asked Dennis what kind of music he listened to. He had eclectic taste, everything from Metallica to Bob Dylan to classical. I told him that I loved Bob Dylan as well. We decided on “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” a beautiful, mellow, long Dylan song; but really any music would have worked, depending on the individual’s preference. After listening to the song, Dennis would get his son, and they would go outside and toss around the baseball as they did every day. I told Dennis to treat the catch like any other catch, just to have fun. So we created the following routine: 1. Eat a light consistent snack for 10 minutes 2. 15 minutes of meditation 3. 10 minutes of stretching 4. 10 minutes of listening to Bob Dylan 5. Play ball For about a month, Dennis went through his routine every day before playing catch with his son. Each step of the routine was natural for him, and playing ball was always a joy, so there was no strain to the experience. The next step in the process is the critical one: after he had fully internalized his routine, I suggested that he do it the morning before going to an important meeting. So Dennis transplanted his routine from a prelude to playing catch with his son to a prelude to work. He did so and came back raving that he found himself in a totally serene state in what was normally a stressful environment. He had no trouble being fully present throughout the meeting. The point to this system of creating your own trigger is that a physiological connection is formed between the routine and the activity it precedes. Dennis was always present when playing ball with his son, so all we had to do was set up a routine that became linked to that state of mind (clearly it would have been impractical for Dennis to tow Jack around everywhere he went). Once the routine is internalized, it can be used before any activity and a similar state of mind will emerge. Let me emphasize that your personal routine should be determined by your individual tastes. If Dennis had so chosen, he could have done cartwheels, somersaults, screamed into the wind, and then taken a swim before playing catch with his son, and over time those activities would become physiologically connected to the same state of mind. I tend to prefer a routine like Dennis’s, because it is relatively portable and seems more conducive to a mellow presence, but to each his own.

At this point, Waitzkin digresses into discussion of some of his own struggles with getting himself into the zone, but let’s instead just jump to the conclusion of the Dennis story, where we see how to condense the routine:

Next, for a few days, Dennis meditated for twelve minutes instead of fifteen. He still came out in the same great state of mind. Then he stretched for eight minutes, instead of ten. Same presence. Then he changed the order of the stretch and meditation. No problem. Over time, slowly but surely, Dennis condensed his stretching and meditation routine down to just a few minutes. Then he would listen to Bob Dylan and be ready to roll. If he wasn’t hungry, he could do without the snack altogether. His routine had been condensed to around twelve minutes and was more potent than ever. Dennis left it at that because he loved Dylan so much, but the next step would have been to gradually listen to less and less music, until he only had to think about the tune to click into the zone. This process is systematic, straightforward, and rooted in the most stable of all principles, incremental growth.

What I appreciate about this passage and the surrounding discussion is the way in which it demystifies the process of entering the zone. Having read Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow , I’ve often been bothered by the mysterious air surrounding flow. Waitzkin, lacking the luxury of being able to wait for the zone to strike him, has broken down the flow engagement process in a way that enables someone like me to develop my own process. Although I haven’t yet actually developed such a routine, writing this section has revived my intention to.

Be like water #

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. – Bruce Lee ( source )

Chess and Push Hands competitions acted as a crucible for Waitzkin learning to not only engage focus on demand but also channel distraction, adversity, and his emotional responses to them into even deeper focus. On the topic of distraction, Waitzkin’s approach is very reminiscent of Bruce Lee’s admonition to be like water . Early in his chess career, Waitzkin would try to force himself to focus and ignore distractions. Like anyone who’s employed this strategy while experimenting with meditation, he found this didn’t work. Instead, he found that the best way to deal with distractions was a two-pronged approach:

• In the moment, let them flow through him rather than block them out.
• Practice in distracting situations like playing chess in a smoky room or with loud music playing to build resilience.

Elaborating on the first point, Waitzkin believes the key to not letting distractions rattle you is to harness the emotions they produce into improving your performance.

Some of Waitzkin’s most challenging experiences with distraction occurred as a result of competitors intentionally seeking to throw him off his game. He describes intentionally practicing with a dirty Push Hands partner, playing chess against a boy who would kick him while he was trying to think, and competing against an especially aggressive Push Hands opponent in the World Championship. Yet none of these stories capture what I see as the essence of dealing with an opponent as well as my favorite passage in the entire book, a story relayed by Waitzkin about a seasoned hunter in the Amazon’s encounter with a jaguar. I’m including the entire thing here because it’s so good (the hunter’s name is José):

One night José was moving through the forest, darkness closing in, on the way home with a small capybara strapped to his back. Suddenly his skin prickled. He stopped, listened, heard the deep rumble of a cat. He smelled the animal, knew it was near. He felt for his blowgun, but it had been a long night hunting and there were no darts left. José was standing next to a giant Sumaumeira tree, which are often used by Amazonians for communicating over long distances in the jungle. Immediately, José took his machete and swung it back and forth in a blur, clanging against the tree’s magnificent exposed root and sending a pounding call for help through the darkness. These vibrations can be heard over a mile away. Hopefully his son would be listening. Then José stood in silence, waiting. He smelled the cat. It was close. A few moments later a large black jaguar, onza negra, over two hundred pounds, glided down from a tree twenty feet ahead of him and started moving in. José remembered the glowing yellow eyes, as though a demon were coming for him. He knew if he ran the cat would be on him instantly. He tossed his night’s catch forward onto the forest floor, then held his machete and stood his ground, moving his weapon rhythmically, preparing for the fight of his life. The cat walked straight toward him, and then changed course about eight feet away. It started pacing. Back and forth, keeping distance, but never taking its eyes off José. It watched the machete, followed its movements. At first, the jaguar’s pacing felt good. José thought that maybe it was indecisive, considering the dead rodent. The minutes passed. José’s arm got tired from swaying. He watched the rippling muscles of the cat’s legs, imagined them hurling the beast on top of him. There would be only one chance. When the cat came, he would need to dodge and strike in a blur. He would have to get to the neck or take off a limb and somehow roll away from the razor claws. It would all happen in an instant. But the waiting was eating him up inside. His whole being was on edge, poised for battle, exploding, while the cat paced, languid, easy, yellow eyes glowing, edging closer, now seven feet away, now six feet. After ten minutes the tension was unbearable. José was drenched in sweat, his right arm shook from the weight of the machete. He switched hands, felt the weapon in his left, hoped the cat didn’t notice the new awkwardness for a minute or so while he recovered. He felt dreamy, as if the cat were hypnotizing him. Fear overwhelmed him. This man of the jungle was falling apart. After fifteen minutes, the cat started moving faster. It edged in, coiled, watched the machete move, then turned back to pacing. It looked for openings, felt the timing of the weapon. José was all strung out. His nerves were frayed. The yellow eyes were taking him over. His body shook. José started sobbing. He backed away from the cat, and this was a mistake. The jaguar moved in. Straight in. It showed its teeth, crouched to leap. José had no fight left. He gave himself up and there was a crack through the night. Then shouting. The cat turned. Another crack rang out and then two young men ran through the bush screaming. José’s son took aim with his gun, but the cat vanished into the darkness, leaving a father weeping on the jungle floor. Three years later, José still hadn’t recovered from this encounter. The villagers say he went mad. His spirit was broken.

To me, what’s so powerful about this story is how much it captures the feeling of being worn down by something (not necessarily a predator or another person) relentless. And while Waitzkin doesn’t return to this story after telling it, in my mind, all of his subsequent discussion of dealing with adversity is ultimately about preparing for a metaphorical jaguar.

I’ll conclude this section with what I expect to be my most controversial opinion in this entire review - the person in the business world who most embodies Waitzkin’s ideal of channeling hardship and emotion into deeper resolve and focus is Elon Musk. Reading the Musk’s biography and learning about how much he was willing to risk repeatedly on his companies, I am convinced that presented with a jaguar, Elon would break down physically rather than breaking down mentally like José.

Conclusion #

As I was writing this review and re-reading my notes on and passages from the book, I kept finding more and more topics I wanted to cover. For example, I’ve only just scratched the surface of Waitzkin’s discussion of how to translate epiphanies and breakthroughs into principles and chunks! However, this review is already long and I feel like short of writing my own version of the book, I’ve captured what I want to capture.

Underlying Waitzkin’s various stories and discussions is a philosophy in which mastery is intrinsically tied to personal growth and development. This sounds vacuous when stated abstractly but I believe Waitzkin’s story provides at least inspiration and lessons for both how one can and why one would want to adopt this perspective in their own pursuits.

As always, if you have feedback on this feel free to reach out !

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The Journey Towards The Art of Learning

At what point is life transformed into the most sacred and holy? When and how does life return to the primordial beginnings of very dust that has fashioned all of life? Further, at what point does the dust become aware of the life it has created and become? The Mind, Body, and Spirit are still great mysteries that have yet to be fully understood. These three components are what compose the human being, and each aspect contains within it pieces of the other. But what are these different parts of the human being, and how can we come to know each part not only separate from the whole, but also in relation to it? The Mind, Body, and Spirit nourish and complement one another in such a way that the discovery of the essence of each requires an intense reflective penetration that can only be experienced through silence. This understanding however is perhaps only for those who have walked along the path of wisdom. For others still seeking this path of understanding do not yet have yet the capacity to comprehend the mysteries of the three-fold being. Hence, the human being who desires to encounter and apprehend the worlds of the Mind, Body, and Spirt, sets out on a journey that does not offer a beaten path. Rather the being that wishes to venture into the vast subconscious abyss, which is the self, does so without the knowledge of where it is going, where it will end up, nor what it will find in the deepest chambers of the self. The Mind, Body and Spirit all ache to be known in essence, but the task to uncover their mysteries demands much more than what the physical world has bequeathed upon the human being. The tools that the journey requires are tools that must be cultivated by the art of learning to learn . Such is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the journey; a continuous, cyclical process of learning.

The art of learning, similar to any other art, cannot be cultivated without immense effort, will, sacrifice, and yearning. Listening, which becomes possible only in the presence of awareness, is the noblest of all arts, for in it is contained lasting understanding through which humility is born and wisdom cultivated. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom. But the beginning of self-knowledge (knowing the essences of Mind, Body, and Spirit) begins with listening. Self-knowledge cannot come about without first having the ability to observe and listen to what the self is saying, doing, thinking, and being. The acquisition of knowledge of the self, demands that the self be listened to. Listening, however, does not exclusively belong to the task of the ear alone, rather listening belongs to the function of one’s entire being. One’s entire being, internal (Mind and Spirit/ metaphysical) as well external (Body/ physical) have the capacity to listen, only in so far as it is allowed. It is only when one’s being is allowed and not weighed down and put to sleep by the various ‘inner attachments’ that make up one’s opinions, beliefs, ideals, prejudices, presuppositions, conclusions, and habits that it is possible for the process of listening with one’s entire being to begin. To listen and to be aware of one’s thoughts, thinking patterns, and the intention behind them, is to be completely aware of all inner and outer movements that one makes. It is only when the intelligence of the human being is not corrupted and destroyed by the conditioned reality in which it lives, that the Mind, Body, and Spirit can be trained to be sensitive enough that listening with totality can begin. It is only when the human being has focused its entire attention towards active observation of the self that they enter a space of awareness. In this state of awareness, all intentions, actions and motives, thoughts, and interactions remain pure and are filled with sincerity. An action in which the self is absent benefits all unconditionally. Awareness then, also is something that is a part of the art of learning.

To learn is to be aware and to be aware is to be alive. To be alive is to be alert and to be alert is to struggle against forgetfulness. To struggle against forgetfulness is to experience pain. To experience pain is to suffer. To suffer is to have sorrow as a companion. To be in the companionship of sorrow leads to endurance. To endure is to be patient. To be patient is to grow and to grow is to learn. To learn is to observe and to observe is to be sensitive. To be sensitive is to listen with totality of one’s being. To listen in totality is to be free of psychological, emotional, intellectual, and physical attachments to one’s history. To be free of one’s psychological, emotional, intellectual, and physical attachments is to be detached. To be detached is to be unconditioned. To be unconditioned is to understand. To understand is to care and to care is to be humble. To be humble is to move towards perfection. To move towards perfection is to transcend male/female configurations, social, cultural, national, political, and economic categorizations. To transcend the impositions that the physical world has burdened the human individual with is to move towards becoming a Human Being and to become a Human Being is to love . Hence, from life love is born, and from life is learned the art of how to love .

Listening, however, first demands silence- a quality that is attained only in the presence of freedom. Only when the mind has completely freed itself of all psychological, emotional, intellectual and physical attachments will listening come into being. In this way, the mind, as it were, is able to stand outside itself to look and observe itself. It therefore becomes a mirror that is constantly polishing itself for clearer reflection of itself. This gives birth to a vision that is void of biases and prejudices. A vision that not only does not compare the present with the past but is also able to look beyond the concepts of good and evil, just and unjust, true and false. The presence of this vision given birth to a human being who is able to honestly, sympathetically, compassionately, critically and intelligently look, listen and learn from one moment to the next. Only for such a Being is it possible to polish the rusted and to guide the lost.

Life, then, is only for those who love and those who have the strength to make love out of life. The constant creative striving towards love-making is that which gives Life to life. Great is the struggle and suffering for the one who loves, for the lover endures in the hopes of creating a life out of that which life has given; this is the battle of the art of loving life. At times Life and love may seem immensely dark, hopeless, and utterly exhausting. Hope and faith, however, must never be lost during periods of hopelessness. NEVER! For indeed, Life is found under the dark ‘cloud of unknowing’. It is, after all, in the presence of utter hopelessness and exhaustion that humility- the creator of selflessness, compassion and love- is born.

Without exception, all human beings are here to learn of only one thing: life. But to learn life, one must first learn love. Life cannot be in the absence of love, and love cannot be without the presence of awareness. Awareness, however, cannot come into being without psychological freedom. This psychological freedom however, takes place only when the Mind, Body, and Spirit have been unshackled from the constraints of their conditioned realities. All that a human being comes to know is acquired through a relative world. A world in which things can only be known in so far as an opposite exists simultaneously. To learn then, in a relative world means to be cognizant of the governing opposing forces that construct the conditioned reality in which one lives. Opposites such as just and unjust, good and evil, right and wrong, true and false are in place to establish various points of reference. The world of relativity is bound by subjective observations, judgements, values, and ideals that shape the life that one lives. Perceiving opposites signifies the existence of judgments, which are the result of psychological attachments and conditioning which signify the absence of freedom. And, in the absence of freedom nothing can be learned though it may appear otherwise. Outside of this subjective relative world however is where objective observation takes place. Objective observation demands that one has access to as many possible subjective thoughts, feelings, ideas, and outcomes in order to choose without condition and understand the world of actuality rather than the world of relativity.

All whose eyes open unto this world must liken this world to a laboratory. Nothing in this laboratory is to be owned by any single being but rather shared by all. The things which have come into being to make up the world in which we live must be looked upon as instruments through which learning becomes possible. The function of the instrumental use of the world is to conduct experiments that lead to an increased, refined, and critical awareness of self. This is not to say that the human being will succeed in every trial but that with the possibility of success also comes failure. The human being must fall again and again until one learns how to stand erect in the midst of all of life’s gifts: sorrows as well as joys, pains as well as pleasures, agonies as well as ecstasies. Every moment of success, as well as every failure, has something profound to offer and teach. It is only in awareness however that learning can take place; one must look, listen, and learn with one’s total being. The human being must engage in the arduous experiments of life and must sacrifice what they think they know for that which they do not so that the art of learning can be mastered.

In short, learning in this laboratory demands the absolute absence of opinions and beliefs. They are signs of immaturity and weakness, since they give birth to fear, confusion, anxiety, fragmentation, hatred, pride, and all sorts of vanities. When the mind is attached to a past experience, it translated and defines the present according to the past, and within this play of the mind, the present becomes the past. Such a Mind is incapable of seeing all that is involved in the present for it is in the habit of experiencing images and memories from the past. These past experiences are not only filled with biases and prejudices, but also, belong to a different conceptuality of time and space. Such a mind projects these past images unto the present. Therefore, not only does the present become distorted and corrupt, but goes wholly and totally unexperienced. This results in one’s involvement in image making, and hence, getting caught in the net of images. Though unconscious this activity may be, it nevertheless is a mechanical network of the mind that blocks all forms of awareness. Such a mind does not perceive with the intent to learn, but with the intent to support its own previous conclusions, prejudices and biases. Everything that does not affirm the prior notion held with the mind’s preconceived notions are tossed aside and looked upon as unsound, false, and unworthy.

In the end, all those who have the strength to experiment in this laboratory are lovers and are able to live and create a Life out of love. They may not succeed in finding answers to the mysteries of man and life, but one thing is for sure: life and love are indeed the greatest of all mysteries!

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Want to see where this curriculum can get you? Find this page useful and want to pledge some support for a fellow artist? My new comic "Prisoners" is now available on Gumroad. Thanks!

Radiorunner's curriculum for the solo artist

A curriculum built for the self-taught artist looking for structure and direction.

Based on a design and concept by RadioRunner . Handcoded by Brendan Meachen . Released because I wanted an easy resource for myself and I thought the community might benefit.

• Figure drawing

Perspective I

• Composition & storytelling I
• Anatomy I - head
• Anatomy II - torso

Perspective III

• Anatomy III - arms
• Clothed figure drawing
• Colour & light I

Perspective IV

• Anatomy IV - legs
• Intro to animals

Perspective V

• Color & light II
• Character design
• Composition & storytelling II

Perspective VI

• Anatomy V - imagination

Perspective VII

• Environment design I
• Environment design II
• Anatomy VI - caricature / animal

Painting II

• Painting III - matte painting
• Personal project

Certified advice by moderndayjames

"Make sure that you're learning is balanced, and takes you where you want to go.

Your art journey is similar to learning music: if you only learn the scales and theory, then you understand the rules. But that doesn't mean you can make enjoyable music from what you know. At the same time, if you don't know any rules of music, you may just be making trash.

There's middle ground in there, where you know just enough to get you to where you want to go, while still breaking boundaries and exploring cool things spontaneously (like accidentally playing a modal scale in a different key).

So - if you only learn the rules of your art, you won't know how to explor it creatively. If you only focus on creative exploration, you won't learn how to create effectively within the rules of your artform."

Play with child-like wonder

Do what pleases you from time to time, and draw what you like. Practice composition, new techniques, and new mediums. Explore what you learn with personal projects.

Observe like a painter

Sculpt your images. Practice shape design (painting, expressive pencil drawing). Watch and listen to Marco Bucci and Sinix to elarn more.

Think like a draftsman

Balance the rest by studying hard principles to elevate your creative exploration. Watch and listen to Scott Robertson , Feng Zhu , and Kim Jung Gi to elarn more.

Navigating the curriculum

The curriculum is based on the struture of Marc Brunet's "ARTSchool", so if you like it you may want to check out his own course. Overall however, the Solo Artist curriculum has a much higher emphasis on

Perspective and Draftsmanship

You may find the subject material front unit to unit seemingly random. This is by design - so that you don't go mad driling perspective for 2 months at a time.

If you want to swap a unit or term around feel free to do so. This is merely a guide for a structural approach to self-teaching.

The intended purpose is to balance a foundation of technical perspective and creative learning, so that you may learn to draw anything from imagination.

2 years and 3 months

is how long you should expect to stick with the Solo Artis curriculum

9 terms in total

3 units per term

4 weeks per unit

Feel free to divide this curriculum to take however long you'd wish. I've planned it this way to provide a tangible structure for how long to stay on each unit before moving on.

The curriculum

Figure drawing i.

Figure drawing Fundamentals, Proko Premium

• Proko Figure Drawing fundamentals
• Love Life Drawing

"Figure drawing for all it's worth" Andrew Loomis

30 days of Croquis Cafe Gesture Sessions (Vimeo)

Do the gesture challenge concurrently with the figure drawing course. In the early stages, learning the flow of gesture is the most important thing - it prevents stiffness in your drawings

Drawabox.com Lessons 0-3

• Introduction to Perspective, Marshall Vandruff
• "Perspective Made Easy", Ernest Norling
• "Fundamentals of Perspective", Gary Myers

Drawabox.com

• 250 Box Challenge
• 250 Cylinder Challenge

Drawabox is a dense course, and important for your foundation in draftsmanship. If anything, extend the length of this unit and cut the next one short. The 250 box challenge follows Lesson 1, going into Lesson 2.

Composition & Storytelling I

Creative Composition, SVSLearn

• Aaron Blaise: Methods for pleasing compositions
• moderndayjames: Composition 1
• Sycra: Effective Composition Using Shapes
• Blender Guru: Composition
• "Framed Ink", Marcos Mateu-Mestre

Thumbnail 50 favourite movie scenes

Watch Sycra's video "Iterative Drawing" and iterate on 5 compositions, 10x each

SVSLearn is available through a monthly subscription. Sycra's video on "iterative Drawing" is a great one to learn how to challenge yourself to create variations - whether they're good or bad.

Anatomy I - The Head

Understanding & painting the head, Marco Bucci

• Proko: The Loomis Method
• Proko: Portrait Drawing Fundamentals
• Sinix: Anatomy Quick Tips
• New Masters Academy
• Constructive Head Drawing, Steve Huston
• The Frank Reilly Drawing Method, Frank Reilly

Ahmed Aldoori's 100 head challenge

If you have access to physical / traditional painting you could consider it here in the second half of Marco Bucci's course. Otherwise continue to focus on pencil. Andrew Loomis, Frank Reily, and Steve Huston are highkly recommended to learn once you become a little more comfortable with head construction.

Perspective II

Drawabox.com Lessons 4-7

• Perspective 1
• Perspective 2
• Perspective 6

Drawabox.com 100 Treasure Chest challenge

Rotate 50 boxes and 50 cylinders

For Drawabox assignments do not focus on finished drawings. The main priority is to exercise your understanding of form and construction. Challenge yourself to begin rotating forms.

Anatomy II - The Torso

Anatomy of the Human Body for Artists (Torso), Proko Premium

• Proko: Torso Anatomy Series
• "Figure Drawing for All it's Worth", Andrew Loomis
• "FORCE: Dynamic Life Drawing", Mike Mattesi
• Glenn Vilppu or Steve Huston , w/ New Masters Academy

100 exagerated gestures

• Draw the gesture of a reference
• Mannequenise it
• Draw a new exagerrated pose based on mannequin

After going through anatomy, look up some FORCE gesture videos on TouTube (Proko has good interviews). Learn how to exagerate gesture beyond your reference pose. This is helpful to stretch drawing from your imagination, and avoid stiff drawings.

"How to Draw", Scott Robertson

• Perspective 3
• Perspective 4
• Perspective 5

Drawabox.com 25 wheel challenge

Rotate 50 boxes & 50 cylinders

"How to Draw" is the artists perspective Bible. It's especially good if you want to draw inorganic objects, but still important regardless! moderndayjames covers some great topics here - start rotating forms from imagination!

Anatomy III - The Arms

Anatomy of the Human Body for Artists (Arms), Proko Premium

• Proko: Arms Anatomy Series
• Elements of Character
• Anatomy of the Head
• Sketching the Head II

25 rotated heads

I think the challenges are especially important in this unit. Most artists will agree that hands and drawing people from imagination are difficult. It's important to face your weaknesses head on.

Clothed Figure Drawing

Clothing & Drapery w/ Glenn Vilpu, New Masters Academy

• Character Sketching I: Cloth & Drapery
• Cloth & Drapery II: Movement in Fabric
• Sinix: Clothing Folds and You
• Marc Brunet: How to Paint Folds

Cubebrush Artschool (w/ Brushboost Sub)

• Term 3, Clothed Figure Drawing

30 Day Clothed Figure Gesture Challenge

20 - 30 minutes

• 5x 1 minute
• 5x 2 minutes
• 3x 5 minutes or 1x 10 minutes sketches

Try all different kinds of fabrics. Different weights all fold differently. Satin is relective and light, it creases everywhere. Denim is matte and heavy, the folds are deeper and less frequent. you can get access to Cubebrush ARTSchool through it's monthly subscription, Brushboost.

Colour & Light I

"How to Render", Scott Robertson

• Light & Shadow: 10 Minutes to Better Painting
• Ambient Occlusion 1 & 2
• Proko: Shading Light & Form
• Fundamentals of Light, Sam Nielson

50 Still-Life Lighting Studies

• Examin lighting in drastically different setups
• Use a lamp and change the position over the subject

Learning the science behind light is most impotant here. When studying light focus primarily on the three main average values of the scene, and go more granular form there. Try thumbnailing instead of detailed drawings. you learn more through repeated attempts!

moderndayjames Visual Library

• Visual Library I
• Visual Library II
• Vehicle Sketching I
• Vehicle Sketching II
• Visual Library III - Drawing Mechs
• "Framed Perspective I: Technical Perspective and Visual Storytelling", Marcos Mateu-Mestre

For Mech Drawing

• SVSLearn - Drawing Robots & Machinery
• Term 6, Mech Design

100 Rotated Objects (based on mdj's Visual Library videos) or 100 Unique Studies (machinery, vehicles, Plants, Animals)

This is a key unit. Familiarise yourself with the techniques James teaches in these vidoes. Framed Pespective is good for learning how to apply perspective for setting a scene.

Anatomy IV - The Legs

Anatomy of the Human Body for Artists (Legs), Proko Premium

• Proko: Legs Anatomy Series
• Any previously recommended Anatomy courses

100 Studies of interacting characters - figure drawings of at least 2 figures interacting in a scene

The challenges here are both important. Feet are weird and require repeted study. Also there's not enough material out there that encourages drawing characters together. Focus on them making physical contact and doing actions together - kissing, hugging, picking things up, fighting, etc.

Intro to Animals

FORCE: Animal Drawing, Mike Matessi

Aaron Blaise (pick one)

• Wolves, Coyotes, and Foxes
• Animal Anatomy Bundle, moderndayjames

30 day Gesture Sessions of Anmals, change the type of animal each week.

• 4 legged animals
• aquatic animals
• flying animals
• big, small reqtilian, etc

You'll have had some animal drawing from Drawabox already. Try moderndayjames' GumRoad bundle to pursue more of a perspective route. Otherwise focus on the gesture of animals. Aaron Blaise is an absolute pro on gesture, and hs great character design tips. Pick your favourite animal and follow one of his courses.

"Framed Perspective II", Marcos Mateu-Mestre

• Vehicle Sketching III
• Vehicle Sketching IV
• Sketching Figures in Extreme Perspective
• 100 Extreme Perspectives
• 50 Vehicle Rotation Studies
• 50 Unique Vehicle Designs

You have two options here: focus on characters in perspective, or inorganic subjects (vehicles). Pick the one you prefer as the units primary focus.

Colour & Light II

"Colour and Light", James Gurney

• Understanding Colour
• Lighting Mastery Series
• Sycra: How to pick colours that work
• Colouring w/ Kurt: where do highlights go?
• Designing w/ Colour & Light, Nathan Fowkes
• Painting w/ Light & Colour, Tonko House & Cody Gramstead

150 Color Replication Studies

• Environments
• Character Designs
• Movie Frames

or 50 Color Variation Studies

• 50 subjects, drawn with 3X different colout palettes

James Gurney's book is the artist's Bible on colourt and light. The YouTube recommendations here are good too. For the challenges do mostly tuhmbnails - exercise picking colours accurately. For example different kinds of colour schemes and unique colours.

Character Design

Character Design w/ Aaron Blaise

• Marco Bucci: Character Design Mini Series
• Gesture Drawing, Alex Woo
• Fundamentals of Character Design, Stephen Silver
• Expressive Characters, Wouter Tulp

moderndayjames' 100 Expressions Challenge

50 Character Design variation Studies

• 50 subjects, 3 variations each

Both challenges are great here. If you haven't seen the practice before, look up silhouetting for character design (featured in Marco Bucci's series) - it's a good way to stretch your creative muscles.

Composition & Storytelling II

Pictorial Composition w/ Nathan Fowkes, Schoolism

• Composition I
• Sketching at a Distance
• WorldBuilding I, II, III
• Story-Driven Illustrations, Djamilia Knopf
• Lighting for Story & Concept Art, Sam Nielson

50 Compositions including figures

• 2 total variations
• Change colour, perspective, and composition

100 environment Colour / Composition Studies

• Pick movie shots that tell a story in a single frame

Focus on thumbnailing during the challenge. If you have time towards the end, pick some of your favourites and make more complete works based on them.

Krenz Cushart's Gumroad Bundle

• Draw a human Body in Perspective
• Rotate things in Perspective 1 & 2
• Control Angle & Proportion in Perspective
• moderndayjames: Emulating Even Amundsen Series

Draw 100 figures in perspective

Rotate 50 figures a full 360 degrees

Draw 50 compositions of figures in extreme perspectives

The moderndayjames vidoes are based on Krenz Cusharts's bundle. Make sure to do your rotations right - create the perfect perspective map first, and then try again from imagination

Anatomy V - Imagination

"Figure Drawing: Design & Invention", Michael Hampton

• Deciphering Bridgmans's Anatomy
• Deciphering Bridgman II
• Anatomical Shape Language
• Proko: How to study Bridgman
• "Constructive Anatomy", George B. Bridgeman

50 Character Designs

• 3 Variations each w/ varied anatomical proportions

or invent 100 Figure Poses

• 50 Calm Poses
• 50 Action Poses

Next level: Rotate these poses 3x each

Look up Proko's "Draftsmen" podcast, S1E10, "How to Learn Anatomy" and listen to thier thoughts on Bridgman before evaluating for yourself whether you want to learn from his book. Try the YouTube videos instead. Both Hampton and Bridgeman are experts however.

moderndayjames "Becoming a Gi" Series

• Dynamic Sketching 2, Peter Han

As many studies as possible from imagination

• Rotate subjects full 360 degrees
• Practice curvilinear perspective ("Becoming a Gi 3")
• Draw subjects in every angle ("Becoming a Gi 3")

One can only become a Gi through deliberate practice. Draw as many things from imagination as you can. If you're having trouble start with a construction, and then draw it again from memory.

Environment Design I

Art Camp 3, Noah Bradley

• FZDSchool - Environmental Thumbnails
• Environment Design, Nathan Fowkes

100 Landscape Thumbnails

• Create 1 deviation for each thumbnail: colour, shape design, biome, time of day, composition

Optional: Create 10 full works based on your thumbnails

Read Noah Bradley's "How I became an Artist" blogpost, and then his "Don't Go to Art School" post. Art Camp 3 will whip you into shape, don't skip it.

Environment Design II

Environment Design Course, James Paick (Gumroad) /a>

100 Environment Thumbnail Studies

• Make at least half feature figures, animals, or some additional subject

The general intended difference of this unit from the last is to focus more on architectural scenes - buildings, structures, sprawling cityscapes and intimate streets.

Digital Painting 1 + Brushwork Techniques, Marco Bucci

• Paint like a sculptor
• The best brush (for beginners)
• Proko: Make digital paintings look traditional
• Essentials of Realism, Jonathan Hardesty

50 value studies

50 colour studies

• Limit time to 60 minutes each

Optional: Develop traditional painting habits. Paint on only one layer, with no undo

Now we're getting into true-blue painting! If learning digitally, learn from traditonal paiting sources - creativity is bred through limitation. Limit yourself to a defined colour paletter, no layering, and disabling undo. if you want to learn traditional painting instead then go ahead!

Anatomy VI - Caricature / Animal

The Art of Caricature w/ Court Jones, Proko Premium

• FZDSchool: EP 62 - Real-time Creature Designs
• Austin Batchelor: Mixing 3 Animals into 1 Creature
• Creature Anatomy, Terryl Whitlatch
• The Art of Caricature, Jason Seiler
• Realistic Portraits, Jason Seiler

100 Caricatures

100 Animal Studies

50 Creature Designs (after completing at least 50 animal studies)

Choose your priority for this unit, caricature or animal drawing. Caricature will really help you learn exageration and character design, which will transfer into your normal day to day work. I've seen many recommend to learn the practice. Terryl Whitlatches "Creature Anatomy" Schoolism course looks top notch.

Digital Painting 2 & 3, Marco Bucci

• Intro to Gouache
• Digital Painting 1
• Digital Painting 2
• Digital Painting 3

50 Value Studies

50 Colour Studies

• Limit time for both to 60 minutes or less

Pick a focus of study - environments, portraiture, figures, full-scenes - or everything! You do you. Apply the recommended challenges to your main focus.

Painting III - Matte Painting

Art Camp: Enviroment Concept Design, Titus Lunter

• Cubebrush ARTSchool
• Term 9, Matte Painting
• Digital Painting, Craig Mullins

10 Matte Painting Studies (include Photobashing)

If you're unable to photobash, 10 Full Works of Normal Painting

Matte painting is a practice used in concept art to achieve photorealistic paintings quickly. While not for everyone, you may learn some good concepts for efficiency. If you don't want to learn phtobrashing, continue to paint full scene studies (from your favourite artist of movies).

Personal Project

"The Skillful Huntsman", Felix Yoon, Khang Le, Mike Yamada, & Scott Robertson

• FengZhu / FZDSchool
• Introduction to Visual Development w/ Victoria Ying
• Painting w/ Light & Colour, Dice Tsutsumi & Robert Kondo

3 Personal Projects

• Visual design
• Multiple perspectives
• Colour variations
• Character variations
• Environment variations

For your personal project, challenge yourself to conceptualise and visualise every aspect of your creative project. "The Skillful Huntsman" walks you through the entire process. It that's too grand in scope, apply the practices you learn to something like a cast of characters, species of animal, or locale.

• Ahmed Aldoori
• Austin Batchelor (if you use Procreate for iPad check him out)
• The Art of Aaron Blaise (legendary animator of Disney Studios)
• BAM Animation
• Blender Guru (specifically his series on Light and Colour)
• Bobby Chiu (creator of Schoolism)
• Brad Colbow (drawing tablet reviews)
• Brooke Eggleston's Character School
• Chris Oatley
• Croquis Cafe (gesture drawing sessions, mainly on Vimeo)
• Ctrl+Paint (learn to paint digitally)
• Dan Bradshaw Drawing Tutorials (draws like a printer, very Kim Jung Gi like
• Draw This (life-drawing resource)
• Draw with Jazza
• FZDSchool (Feng Zhu's concept art channel)
• Jake Parker (Creator of SVSLearn and Inktober)
• James Gurney (Master painter, creator of Dinotopia - learn physical painting here)
• James Julier (Bob Ross like landscape painting for Procreate on iPad)
• Colouring with Kurt (Comic book colourist, great tutorials on light and colour)
• Lucas Peinador
• LuluSketches
• Marc Brunet (Creator of Cubebrush ARTSchool)
• Marco Bucci (Learn Digital Painting w/ traditional methods)
• MikeyMegaMega (Anime tutorials)
• Moderndayjames (The source for perspective, imagination, and concept drawing)
• New Masters Academy (Vippu, Steve Huston, and Reilly all teach here)
• Noah Bradley (Art Camp 1, 2, and 3)
• Robert Marzullo (comic book style)
• Trent Kaniuga
• Sinix Design (Learn the painterly style)
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Designing the Learner’s Journey

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Instructor: Michael Allen

Finding ways to engage learners on their individual learning journeys can be a bit like a “choose your own adventure” model of learning. If you’re not sure how to approach this model, you’re in luck! Expert instructional designer Michael Allen explores how you can use every learner’s time productively. Michael shows you how to focus your time and energy on what matters most, by focusing on content, experience, and the learner, and by demonstrating competency, confidence, and a joyful performance. He explains ways that self-efficacy, fear, stress, and disinterest can be learning blocks and how you can help learners overcome these learning blocks. Michael walks you through a powerful learner-centric instructional design method, then addresses characteristics that influence learning. Attitudes make a big difference in learning and performance, and this course can help you to design the learner’s journey in ways that help each learner to thrive.

What You Need To Know To Start Fishing

Fishing is not just a recreational activity; it's a timeless art that connects us with nature and offers a sense of tranquility.

Whether you're a complete beginner or looking to revisit the joy of fishing, starting this hobby is exciting and fulfilling.

This guide'll walk you through the essential steps to begin your fishing journey.

Research and Learning

Before you head out to the waters, take some time to learn about fishing basics.

Research different types of fishing, such as freshwater, saltwater, fly fishing, or ice fishing, and determine which one aligns with your interests and location.

Countless resources are available online, including articles, videos, and tutorials covering fishing techniques, equipment, and safety guidelines.

Choose the Right Fishing Gear

Selecting the right fishing gear is crucial for a successful and enjoyable experience. Depending on the type of fishing you're interested in, you'll need basic equipment such as a fishing rod, fishing line, hooks, sinkers, and bait.

If you're unsure about what gear to choose, visit a local fishing shop or consult experienced anglers who can provide valuable insights based on your preferences and the type of fish you're targeting.

Researching where to find fishing rods is a key aspect of getting started.

Get Your Fishing License

In most places, you'll need a fishing license to legally fish.

The requirements and regulations for obtaining a fishing license vary by location, so it's important to check with your local wildlife or natural resources department. Fishing licenses are essential for maintaining the health of fish populations and the environment and contributing to conservation efforts.

Learn Knot Tying

Knot tying is an essential skill for anglers. You'll need to tie strong knots to secure your hooks, lures, and other tackle to your fishing line.

Practice common fishing knots, such as the improved clinch knot and the Palomar knot, to ensure your equipment stays secure while fishing.

Choose the Right Fishing Spot

Research and scout different fishing spots in your area. Lakes, rivers, ponds, and even coastal areas can offer unique fishing experiences. Consider the type of fish you're targeting and their preferred habitats.

Local fishing forums, apps, and websites can provide valuable information about popular fishing spots, local regulations, and recent fishing reports.

Understand Fishing Techniques

You'll need to learn various fishing techniques depending on the type of fish you're targeting. Casting, trolling, jigging, and bottom fishing are just a few examples of techniques that anglers use to catch different types of fish.

Learning these techniques will increase your chances of success and add variety and excitement to your fishing trips.

Practice Patience and Persistence

Fishing requires patience and persistence. It's important to understand that not every fishing trip will result in a big catch.

Embrace the experience of being in nature, enjoying the peaceful surroundings, and appreciating the time spent away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Remember that every fishing outing contributes to your growth as an angler.

Respect Nature and Regulations

Responsible fishing involves respecting the environment and adhering to fishing regulations. Follow catch limits, size restrictions, and seasonal closures to ensure the sustainability of fish populations.

Also, practice proper catch-and-release techniques if you're not planning to keep the fish you catch.

Share the Experience

Fishing is not just about catching fish; it's about creating memories and sharing experiences. Consider inviting friends, family members, or fellow enthusiasts to join you on your fishing trips.

Sharing your passion for fishing can lead to meaningful connections and lifelong memories.

Embrace Lifelong Learning

Fishing is a journey of continuous learning. As you gain experience, you'll discover new techniques, fishing spots, and equipment that resonate with you.

Attend fishing workshops , join fishing clubs, and connect with other anglers to enhance your knowledge and skills.

Exploring Different Fishing Techniques

Fishing encompasses a variety of techniques that cater to different types of fish and environments.

One popular technique is casting, where you cast your bait or lure into the water and retrieve it to attract fish.

Trolling involves dragging bait or lures behind a moving boat, which is effective for catching predatory fish in open waters. Jigging is a technique that involves using a jig—a type of fishing lure that mimics prey—to attract fish by creating movement.

Bottom fishing, on the other hand, is about dropping your bait to the bottom of the water to catch fish that dwell near the seabed.

Understanding Fishing Seasons and Species

Different fish species have distinct behaviors and preferences throughout the year. Some species are more active during certain seasons or weather conditions. Research the fishing seasons for the specific fish you're interested in targeting.

For example, spring and fall are often great times for bass fishing, while summer may be ideal for catching trout in certain rivers.

Understanding the behavior of the fish you're after will greatly improve your chances of success.

Selecting the Right Bait and Lures

Bait selection is crucial for attracting fish to your hook. Live bait, such as worms, minnows, and crickets, is popular and can entice a wide range of fish.

Artificial lures, on the other hand, come in various shapes, colors, and sizes to mimic the appearance and movement of natural prey.

Experiment with different bait and lure options to determine what works best for the fish you're targeting and your fishing technique.

Mastering Catch-and-Release Techniques

Practicing responsible fishing includes proper catch-and-release techniques. If you're not planning to keep the fish you catch, ensure its safe return to the water. Handle the fish gently and minimize its time out of the water.

Use barbless hooks to make the removal process easier and less harmful to the fish. Hold the fish horizontally and support its body, avoiding excessive stress on its internal organs.

By practicing effective catch-and-release methods, you contribute to conserving fish populations for future generations.

Documenting Your Fishing Adventures

Capture the essence of your fishing experiences by documenting them. Keep a fishing journal where you record details about your trips, such as the location, weather conditions, fishing techniques used, and the fish you caught.

Photographs and videos are also great ways to memorialize your catches and the beautiful landscapes you encounter.

Sharing your fishing stories and photos with fellow anglers can foster community and inspire others to embark on their fishing journeys.

As you embark on your fishing journey, remember that fishing is more than just a hobby; it's a lifelong pursuit of adventure, learning, and connection with nature.

By understanding the basics of fishing equipment, techniques, seasons, and responsible practices, you'll be well-equipped to create unforgettable memories while becoming a skilled angler.

So grab your fishing gear, immerse yourself in the tranquility of the water, and savor the anticipation of reeling in your next big catch.

The post What You Need To Know To Start Fishing appeared first on Kellys Thoughts On Things .

Engineering, Art & Tech

“the best of me” 2024 art exhibition was a display of talent.

Finalist Bachelor of Fine Art students 2021-2024 showcased their work spanning their academic journey while on the program in the exhibition held at the Makerere Art Gallery/Institute of Heritage Conservation and Restoration from 14th to  30th June 2024.

The “Best of Me” exhibition is a culmination of the tireless dedication and exceptional talent of the final-year students. The exhibition marked the end of their Bachelor of Industrial and Fine Arts program at Makerere University and the beginning of professional artistic careers.

The unique collection, spanning an impressive array of course units, marked the end of an era and the beginning of countless artistic journeys. Each piece in the exhibition was a testament to the dedication, talent, and diverse skill set of remarkable students, who exhibited a mastery of the intricate arts of photography, painting, structural textile, applied textile, sculpture, ceramics, drawing, fashion design, illustration, communication design, and advertising design, weaving, and much more.

The exploration of the exhibition was an encounter with a vast spectrum of sizes, materials, and functionalities, each thoughtfully chosen to enhance the themes conveyed. The works delved into a rich tapestry of subjects, reflecting the depth and breadth of the artists’ inspirations and experiences. From the vibrant celebration of cultural heritage to the nuanced explorations of womanhood and parenthood, the artworks offered profound insights into education, play, health, climate action, mental health awareness, weather, social-economic development, justice, crime, politics, and urbanization.

“The Best of Me” was not just an exhibition; it was a narrative of passion, resilience, and the transformative power of art. It was a tribute to the students’ journey, encapsulating their growth, learning, and the exceptional creativity that they honed over the years. This final showcase stands as a poignant reminder of the lasting impact of the Industrial and Fine Arts program and a celebration of the legacy it leaves behind.

Click here to access the the gallery

The School of Engineering vouches for Competence Based Learning and Green skilling for better graduates

Why are developments always ahead of planning makerere university and its partners to address urban expansion planning.

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A team of staff of northeastern university paid a courtesy call on the principal of the college of engineering, design, art and technology (cedat).

A team of staff of  Northeastern University  comprised of J.J. Kappa, Khalid I. Koddi, and Swaby Meisha paid a courtesy call on the Principal of the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) while on a mission to lay strategies for the forthcoming study abroad program.

Over twenty students from  Northeastern University  will next summer come to the Margret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Art for a period of three weeks. While here, students will take on two courses identified by the faculty, engage with the local community to get the cultural experience and visit the cultural sites such as the museum and Nagenda International Academy of Art and Design (NIAD) among other areas.

While receiving the team, the Principal, Prof. Moses Musinguzi gave a brief background to the College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) as one of the ten Colleges making up  Makerere University , as well as MTSIFA as one of the Schools making up the College.

Click here for details

The School of Engineering, College of Engineering, Design, Art and Technology (CEDAT) in a bid to improve the teaching and learning of engineering students convened a stakeholder engagement to discuss green skilling and competence-based assessment framework in engineering programs at Makerere University.

The discourse was held on Wednesday 26 th  June 2024 at the CEDAT conference hall attracting the participation of academia, the industry, and other key stakeholders pertinent to the promotion of quality teaching and learning like the National Curriculum Development Centre and the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training (DRGT), with the main purpose of inputting into the ongoing efforts by the School of Engineering to improve the quality of graduates produced

Assoc. Prof. Dorothy Okello, the Dean School of Engineering, in her welcome remarks, said the discourse was one of the strategies laid out to facilitate the process of improving the quality of graduates that the college was sending out to the world of work.  She said with support from the UNESCO China Funds in Trust in 2013, the School of Engineering published reports on Labor Market Analysis and a Tracer study for engineering graduates that highlighted the employment status of the graduates which established where and whether they were employed or not or had left the profession.  She said the studies also evaluated the situation at the college to assess the internal readiness in training the graduates.

For more information click here

Makerere University, together with the Ministry of Lands, Housing, and Urban Development and the Urban Authorities Association of Uganda (UAAU) are set to undertake an urban expansion planning drive that will result in better-planned cities and urban areas in Uganda.

A national workshop on Urban Extension Planning in Uganda financed by Cities Alliance was held on Wednesday 25 th  April 2024, in the CEDAT Conference Hall during which participants delved into the concept, the principles and importance of urban expansion, and its fundamental stages. They also explored the best practices for Urban Expansion Plan implementation and financial strategies.

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Spirited ‘Funny Girl’ captures excitement of early musical theater

The show that made Barbra Streisand famous is playing at Maine State Music Theatre through July 13.

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Jenna Lea Rosen as Fanny Brice with the cast of “Funny Girl” at Maine State Music Theatre. Photo by MSMT/Jared Morneau Photography

Who are the luckiest people in the world? At least for theater fans, the answer is “people who need people,” a line made famous well over half a century ago by Barbra Streisand in the original production of the musical “Funny Girl.”

THEATER REVIEW

WHAT: “Funny Girl: the Musical” by Maine State Music Theatre

WHERE: Pickard Theater, Bowdoin College Campus, Brunswick

REVIEWED: June 28 (matinee); continues through July 13

TICKETS: Starting at $93

CONTACT: 207-725-8769, msmt.org

On the heels of the show’s recent Broadway revival, the Maine State Music Theatre has opened a spirited production of the classic musical on its home stage at the Pickard Theater on the campus of Bowdoin College in Brunswick.

The show primarily captures the rousing excitement of early musical theater while unavoidably making us think about how it launched the career of Streisand. At a lengthy but enjoyable two-and-one-half hours, plus intermission, it’s a show that still charms with its memorable songs, old-style comedy and bittersweet love story.

The impressive production, directed and choreographed by Kenny Ingram and with the time-honored music of Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill and book by Isobel Lennart, tells the semi-fictionalized story of Fanny Brice, a real-life figure who rose from humble origins to showbiz stardom as a give-it-everything-you’ve-got performer in the early 20th century.

At first socially awkward and vulnerable, but with a unique talent and an admirable determination to succeed, Fanny gained the attention of famed impresario Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr. and went on to star in many of his glitzy stage shows. At the same time, Fanny’s personal life was a bit of a rollercoaster ride.

Jenna Lea Rosen takes the lead role and scores comedically with her initially wide-eyed approach to Fanny’s personal and professional challenges. Armed with a feisty “New Yawk” accent, the actress easily takes charge of backstage, front stage and offstage scenes. Her vocals are compelling on both comic numbers (“Sadie, Sadie” and “Rat-Tat-Tat-Tat”) and in more intimate moments (“People” and “Don’t Rain On My Parade”). Advertisement

Douglas Raymond Williams plays Fanny’s handsome rogue of a love interest who brings her to a fuller life but fails her in the end. His opera-trained vocals alongside Rosen (“I Want to be Seen With You” and “You are Woman, I am Man”) establish both the heat and uncertainties within their relationship.

Among the many standout secondary actors and choristers, Tyler Johnson-Campion is a tap-dancing whiz. His work with Sue Cella, who plays Fanny’s mom, is a treat on “Who Taught Her Everything.” Cella also has some fun moments squabbling with a competitive friend played by Maine State favorite Charis Leos.

Tommy Betz shines as a Tenor and David Girolmo returns to the Pickard stage as the stern but supportive Mr. Ziegfeld. Jeremiah Valentino Porter gets to toot a hot horn on “Cornet Man.”

The Maine State Music Theatre Orchestra, led by Jason Wetzel, mixes up the period flavors with a newer Broadway expansiveness. The costumes designed by J. Theresa Bush and scenic design by Jeffrey D. Kmiec take the audience back to a distant era when musical theater and its early stars were on the rise.

Steve Feeney is a freelance writer who lives in Portland.

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The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance Spiral-bound – May 27, 2008

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• Reading age 1 year and up
• Print length 288 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Generic
• Publication date May 27, 2008
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• ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0CC43HZT9
• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Generic; 37102nd edition (May 27, 2008)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Spiral-bound ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
• Reading age ‏ : ‎ 1 year and up
• Best Sellers Rank: #7,727,802 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books )

About the author

Josh waitzkin.

Josh Waitzkin, an eight-time National Chess Champion in his youth, was the subject of the book and movie Searching for Bobby Fischer. At eighteen, he published his first book, Josh Waitzkin's Attacking Chess. Since the age of twenty, he has developed and been spokesperson for Chessmaster, the largest computer chess program in the world. Now a martial arts champion, he holds a combined twenty-one National Championship titles in addition to several World Championship titles. When not traveling the country giving seminars and keynote presentations, he lives and trains in New York City.

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Customers say

Customers find the book fascinating, artfully crafted, and room for interpretation. They also appreciate the practical advice and insights to take away. Readers describe the writing style as well-written, heartfelt, and natural. They appreciate the author's excellent job intermingling the two stories of his chess.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the book fascinating, entertaining, and easy to read. They also say it provides real food for thought and is a great read on the art of performance.

"...This book is an incredible read , resource, and guide for facilitating change in a classroom and life." Read more

"...There is some real food for thought , and that's why I give it 4 stars despite all my reservations - you only need to learn one or two useful tips to..." Read more

"...During flow, people typically experience deep enjoyment, maximum creativity , and a total engagement with the moment...." Read more

"...What I think makes this book particularly amazing and useful, is that Josh not only provides uniquely brilliant insights into 'how to win', but more..." Read more

Customers find the book has lots of insights to take away. They also describe the author as extremely intelligent, inspirational, and a first-rate teaching tool. Readers also say the principles Josh highlights are applicable not just to professional competitions, but also to everyday life. They say the book is a hope for the future, and mention the importance of focus and commitment.

"...by an educator, per say, The Art of Learning has an incredible amount of inspiring material that can be applied to an educational setting...." Read more

"...The main strength of the book is that it does give some useful advice !..." Read more

"...For example, the importance of focus and commitment : "My growth became defined by [begin italics] barrierlessness [end italics]...." Read more

"...What I think makes this book particularly amazing and useful , is that Josh not only provides uniquely brilliant insights into 'how to win', but more..." Read more

Customers find the writing style well-written, thoughtful, and cogent. They also say the author's voice is at once confident and humble. Readers also say that the book feels natural and that the author did an excellent job of intermingling the two stories of his chess.

"...patterns in day-to-day life so that, when the time comes, everything feels natural ...." Read more

"...The book is really well written and engaging...." Read more

"...resource for those wishing to append their library with a very cogent and strong guide to personal excellence in life, having been written from the..." Read more

"...He does a beautiful job writing about his experience .Josh shares his learning journey through both arts...." Read more

Customers are mixed about the content. Some find the book full of gems, an incredible read, and resource for facilitating. They also appreciate the honesty, depth, and clarity in the book. However, others say the book is self-indulgent, selfish, and loses all its charm.

"...Which brings to mind the last major flaw: the storytelling itself is relatively narcissistic ...." Read more

"...This book is an incredible read, resource , and guide for facilitating change in a classroom and life." Read more

"...The story loses all its charm here . The book becomes a phallocentric and narcissistic male fantasy...." Read more

"...The book is poignant, straight-forward, honest , and resonant...." Read more

Customers find the book title misleading.

"...The most serious flaw is the somewhat misleading title . The author surprisingly doesn't give a lot of clear pointers on how to learn...." Read more

"I was really disappointed in this book. I think the title is misaligned with the content since learning was not a major focus...." Read more

"...but I am compelled to vent... feeling absolutely snookered by the misleading title , the "endorsements" of some otherwise respectable authors, and..." Read more

"As most reviews that are negative say, the title is misleading . It really is more of an autobiographical story...." Read more

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