I met today an old friend whom I haven’t seen in years: Josh Waitzkin. Most remember Josh as a young chess prodigy and later in his teenage years as the “subject” of the book and movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer”.

Today he is a very pleasant, well built and well educated young man. Despite his fame and being one of the most promising young chess players in America at the time, seven years ago, Josh walked away from chess. In the late nineties, he discovered a whole new world that changed his life.

He became very interested in learning about Buddhist and Taoist philosophies as well as Tai Chi. In fact he became 13-time Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands National Champion and Two-time Tai Chi Chuan Push Hands World Champion.

Besides training hours daily in Martial Arts, in the last few years Josh was busy writing a very interesting book about learning.

Josh’s new fascinating book The Art of Learning will be available in stores on May 8th, in which he shares with the reader his experiences growing up as “wunderkind”, the joys and challenges of being a celebrity, how he was able to use his experiences and knowledge learned in chess, in Tai Chi, and a whole lot more.

Look out for this wonderful read that well may become another movie!

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Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
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