While this book is a fascinating story, the subtitle correctly points out that the book is less about the (overall) art of learning, instead being one person's personal journey. Josh Waitzkin, best known as being the subject of the film Searching for Bobby Fischer, was one of the top US chess players during his pre-teen and teenage years. But he started losing his interest in playing, and jumped to a different sport: tai chi chuan. Using some of the same techniques that helped him (and avoiding the ones that hurt him) in chess, Waitzkin became a world champion in the Push Hands variation.

The book has three sections. The first deals mostly with the chess years. Waitzkin covers the many tournaments and how he would compete. He tries to be self-critical, but even with his somewhat public life, it's hard for us to get into his mind and play the "what would I have done in that situation?" game.

The second portion of the book moves away from chess and begins the martial arts training. Waitzkin gives graphic descriptions of his physicality, but just like with the chess games, unless you've played the sport, you're left a bit confused by the descriptions.

I expected the final section (named "Bringing It All Together") to offer some general concepts of learning. While they're in there, the labels he gives them ("numbers to leave numbers"; "smaller circles") aren't very helpful. Instead of offering some academic research, the story moves on to show the fulfillment of this journey: the championship tournament. It's a breathless summary of non-stop action, but after it's over, you wonder how to apply these lessons to your own life. There are some practical lessons, but you're left wanting more.

That's not to say this isn't a good book. If you've played chess, taken martial arts classes, or participated in any sport, you'll recognize the highs and lows of competition and the ways you can become better at whatever you do. But many readers will be frustrated thinking there would be more concrete lessons to apply to their own lives. ( )

Interesting book and very well written. I enjoyed much of his techniques on approaching learning. Curiously, I found many of the names for his learning techniques to be very non-intuitive and took away from his discussion.

Still, at least one-third of the story is biographical story with which he tells of his life. This was more than I expected. I was also hoping for more reference to learning and chess and less about how much the movie affected his life and his techniques into martial arts.

Not for everyone, the book is still an enjoyable look into one frame of what it takes to be "the best" in something. ( )

This was very disappointing. I heard the author on NPR and he sounded interesting, but his writing is incoherent. The bulk of the book consists of detailed discussions of chess matches from his childhood and martial arts competitions from his adulthood. He attempts to integrate these with his theories of excellence, but I could not make any sense of it. I gave up about halfway through and skimmed the rest but didn't find anything worthwhile. ( )