Mindset

Stable · #1

My girlfriend is a professional cello player and recently received some advice that I think is directly relevant to go.

The advice was that many people practice with an incorrect mindset - when you perform you should be completely "in the moment", devoid of outside concerns competing for your attention, and obviously the best players do this naturally. When most people practice however, they are constantly thinking about their mistakes, second-guessing themselves throughout. The answer is then to practice in the same mindset as you perform, and worry about the mistakes afterwards.

I think this should be even easier for us to do as go players, because especially online the game record is right there already recorded for us. Rather than worry about mindset when studying, I think the most simple application of this would be to always attempt a good mindset in more casual online games so that we can call on it for important ones.

What do you guys think?

entropi · #2

Does practising cello correspond to casual Go play, whereas performing corresponds to serious play (like tournament)?

If so, I would say does not apply much to Go. For a musician, practising a piece and performing in front of an audience are fundamentally different things because while practising one tends to stop and take it over again whenever one makes a mistake. Probably the advice your girlfriend got was not to that.
But for Go players, the same fundamental difference between casual and serious games does not exist.

But that's only my interpretation of the advice. Curious to see the opinions of others.

daniel_the_smith · #3

I agree with the advice as applied to go. You cannot play your best on this move if part of your mind is thinking about how you could have played the last one better. What is done is done; save the postmortem for the review. Every second you spend feeling regret during the game is a wasted second.

(P.S. I took cello lessons for like 7 years when I was younger, I suppose I reached the level of advanced amateur. I'm not so sure about the advice as applied to cello practice! Practicing playing completely through a piece with correct emotions etc is important, but so is practicing small, difficult segments for technical mastery! That latter part is, IMO, where my own practice was deficient. Oh, and I am horribly rusty now.)

Koosh · #4

President and Founder of Kyocera (Kazuo Inamori), wrote in his philosophy book that ascending to the upper realms of a skill or profession allows you to open your eyes and understand everything in the world through your own vision and experience.
So, what does this have to do with Go?
For starters, I think we can all at least agree that there are some key things - like motivation - which fuel progress in any endeavor.

Likewise, I think it supports the idea that all good advice (for example – the advice provided by a professional cellist) can generally be applied to all talents and skills.

In this case, the message appears to be that people practice with an incorrect mindset, and that they should practice with the same mindset that they intend to perform.
Professionals only care about playing well and winning their games, which motivates them to perfect their skill and rise to the top. I think that’s a model mindset.

Do we practice/perform with this mindset? I think it is safe to say that a higher rank reflects those who have (or had at one point) this mindset.

If you don’t want it badly enough that you strive even when practicing, you won’t get it.

Stable · #5

entropi: I think that the difference between casual (non-pressured) and tournament games is highly equivalent to performing/practicing, I am always amazed by the extra pressure we can unconciously put on ourselves.

Daniel_: yes I think, it only applies to play-throughs, but then afterwards you use the play through to find which bits you should use for terchnical practice.

Koosh, what's Kyocera?

Koosh · #6

Kyocera is a large Japanese corporation that makes industrial grade ceramics. They also expanded to own KDDI, a huge cellphone company in Japan and now control Japan Airlines as well.

Anyway, huge company.

Boidhre · #7

Very interesting, I've definitely played my best go when I was in the moment and my worst go when I was in analysis mode. Now I don't have enough experience to generalise this to others but I think your girlfriend is getting at something here that might apply to many go players.

SpongeBob · #8

daniel_the_smith wrote:

Every second you spend feeling regret during the game is a wasted second.

More than that - regret can negatively affect your play. I sometimes realise that after the game: I made a bad move a feel bad about it. With this negative mindset, I am bound to make further mistakes. Those further mistakes then were the ones that did really cost me the game.
So I think being able to NOT think about how past moves could have been played better is a crucial ability.

Bonobo · #9

Koosh wrote:

Kyocera is a large Japanese corporation that makes industrial grade ceramics. They also expanded to own KDDI, a huge cellphone company in Japan and now control Japan Airlines as well.

Anyway, huge company.

My Kyocera laser printer is the finest printer I’ve ever had, and other than with usual laser printers, the only thing one ever has to purchase after the initial printer purchase is toner—no fixation oil, no fixation unit replacement, etc.

Mindset

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