Of course not, but this doesn't say anything about what would happen if they did (or even if they "could") follow such discipline.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

There are many different ways of training employed by amateurs. It is unlikely that they are all perfectly suited to the individuals using them.

What strikes me reading Daal's point is that this is not really how Japanese insei and professionals train. Most of them do not have coaches--even a professional's pupils do not seem to be very closely overseen by them. At least that was the case in the Kitani school. I think the Japanese would do better in international events if they had more coaching and organization. But one can't deny that they reach a very high level ( = higher than western Amateurs) without that sort of oversight.

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Occupy Babel!

There is no value in believing 1. There is value in believing 2. That belief alone can be enough to cause someone to improve.

I've plateaued 3 times, once at 5k, once at 1k, and now. Belief that I had not reached my mental limits allowed me to progress beyond each one.

You certainly cannot know, but this is where faith comes in handy.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

We don't need to take "2" on faith alone, either. I, at least, have had the experience dozens of times of "feeling" that I was no good at something, only to later realize that either I wasn't getting instruction, or I wasn't practicing enough, or both. You can only have that experience so many times before it becomes reasonable to completely discount the feeling of natural incompetence.

I'm not sure what the intended interpretation of 2 is, but I also often wonder if it is too easy to assume that inseis train optimally. It's possible that because of the large amount of time they put in, there are significant sections of their training that aren't as efficient as others, but they don't dare to omit, reduce, or change it, because the whole package has worked in the past. There is also the question of whether there is a difference in what is optimal training for someone in a typical insei age group (i.e., under 18) vs. older players.

Another question is: what is optimal if you have 10 hours a week to study? 2 hours? 50 hours? Some training plans may scale up or down better than others, but at some point no training plan is effective. As an analogy, I often notice that an enormous amount of energy in the U.S. is spent on trying to find the optimal diet for someone who refuses to exercise at all. If people would exercise just a little more, there would be more options, but since they won't, we're bombarded with these absurd shortcut plans.

There is also an amount of training that may be overkill (i.e., so much that it damages your overall physical or psychological health, thereby cancelling out previous efforts.)

There's also the question of what is required to reach, say 80% your potential vs. 95% or 100%. Maybe if a given player trained like an insei she could be 7 dan, but with 1/4 of the effort she could be 5 dan or at 1/10 of the effort be 3 dan. I'm just making these numbers up. The point is that it's hard to know.

A trend isn't proof though. We cannot be sure that go is like those other things.

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

This thread has been really interesting. I actually figured people would find the idea that they could be better but aren't doing well enough really disheartening. It looks like a few people dislike the idea that they'll never be able to get that good regardless of effort even more disheartening. Am I reading between the lines too much here?

Shapenaji:


Topazg:

I'm in the latter group. I would feel much more discouraged if I thought that no matter how much effort I put into something I couldn't get better. I can control, to some extent, how much time and effort I put into something. If I felt that my ability to improve at something was out of my control then why bother putting any more time or effort in? It would just feel like a waste.

As I do feel like it's a matter of time and effort and that each person doesn't have some random limit to how good they can get I'm willing to do things I don't like to do to try to improve. I know tsumego is good for improving reading ability and improving reading ability is important for getting stronger, I don't like tsumego but I'm willing to spend a few hours on it every day (as long as I have no other commitments) to try to improve.

[quote=entropi]
I think the time spent for this discussion is not more wasted than the time spent for memorizing one joseki variation.[/quote]

Was that intentional? (thinking of the proverb)

Um, because you enjoy playing? I've gotten progressively worse at basketball over the last 25 years and that hasn't stopped me from practicing my jump shot.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Thank you, it's a useful insight. I suppose "getting better" is something that appears to have more importance to other people than it does to me (with the exception of my professional skillset because that puts bread on the table - improving here is often a chore rather than a satisfaction however). That is to say, I enjoy improving at anything I do, but it's not a requirement of my participation; I choose to do things because I enjoy them first and foremost, and most other things are a distant second. I'll never be Martha Argerich, but I enjoy playing the piano. I'll never be Pele, but I enjoy kicking a football around with friends. I'll never be Lee Sedol, but I enjoy playing Go, and so on.

If I'm bad at something (tennis for example, I really suck at tennis) that doesn't stop me enjoy playing it. My wife is a far better Rummy player than I am, but we still get cards out so I can get beaten every now and again because I enjoy sitting down playing with her.

I suppose I shouldn't really be participating in a thread that is geared around inspiring people to make progress at their Go, I suppose I always have concerns that if people are left with the impression they can get great at something if only they discipline themselves better, a failure to improve can generate even stronger feelings of incompetence than it did before - sorry if I've been discouraging to people on this thread, I'll probably observe from now on

If your ultimate goal in life is improving in go, you are right, there is no value in believing 1. But my point of view is that accepting 1 but still being able to enjoy playing, is an achievement.

I know people who completely stopped playing simply because they had hard time to accept that they reached their mental limits. This should not be.

If I am able to accept that at my age I will never ever be able run 100 meters under 10 seconds, but still enjoy jogging, I should be able to do the same at Go.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

It's not really change for it's own sake that interests me, I just think most activities are more fun when you're good at them. There's normally a steep curve from "what is this I don't even" to "oh, this is kind of fun" to "wow, this is fascinating and beautiful."

Which proverb? Hehe, apparently that was not intentional. I hope what I miss won't turn out to be something embarassing

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

"Study joseki, and lose two stones" (in strength)

I don't think having your ultimate goal be "improvement at go" is necessary to undercut 1. The question of whether or not to believe in 1 or 2, is a broader question, about the limits of human potential, and whether we're anywhere near them.

Believing that you have not reached your mental limits is not the same as poor self-assessment. If someone believes they are better than they are, well, that's dangerous, in many fields. (Life-threatening in some)

However, if you'd like to leave the door open on improvement, you'd better believe there's something behind it. As I see it, a belief in 2, rather than 1, leaves both doors open. I can pursue it, or choose not to. If I believe in 1, when I hit a plateau, I can never even look for the door, because I don't believe in it.

(See: SEP fields)

Just because I believe the door is there, doesn't mean I have to walk through it.



See, this doesn't sound like they reached their mental limits, this sounds like they had a hard time with where they were, upon examining themselves, they didn't like what they saw, and continuing to play forced them to have to keep looking in the mirror.

You can accept who you are AND accept that you have untapped potential, these are not mutually exclusive. And unfortunately, these people sound as though they were driven to find the latter by envy, rather than curiosity.



You are welcome to enjoy running, but the question is, could you be better than you are now? Where's the value in saying "no"?

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Tactics yes, Tact no...

I enjoy playing but I always feel dissapointed in myself when I know I've made a mistake or when I find more mistakes while reviewing my games. That's why I want to improve, I want to make less mistakes and not feel like I played poorly. If I thought I could never improve it wouldn't be worth it because I'm not happy with the level I play at right now. Even if I make it to 4 or 5 or 6 dan (or stronger) I may still be unhappy with my level of play but I won't quit before I find out.

Trying to improve above a certain level means devoting oneself to the goal, disciplined working, reviewing training methods etc etc etc. In other words, it's an investment. Like any other investment it causes a certain degree of stress simply because it brings uncertainty (i.e. you cannot be sure you will improve whatever you invest).

The value of saying "no" is that it saves you this stress and leaves you alone with the joy of playing Go at your present level. Of course at the cost of "no further improvement". That's a trade.

And false (at least according to me false) assumptions like "anybody can hit 5d with correct training" only distort your view in making the correct decision in that respect.

The real question is what Go means for you. Is it the improvement or is it the playing, what you enjoy? Likewise, if I just jog for health, what would be reason for me to invest getting faster at 100m?

But of course, this does not mean that I would definitely refuse to learn new things at Go simply because I don't foresee any improvement. I would still enjoy learning new shapes, new tesujis, new concepts, and maybe the improvement will come just by itself naturally. But I would definitely not invest much time in training positional judgement, or memorizing joseki, or studying fuseki (all of which I hate) etc.

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If you say no, Elwood and I will come here for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week.

I wish I did. If I did it would be much easier to spend a lot of time on it. I do enjoy some tsumego but it may be that I spend too much time on problems that are too easy or too hard. For example, I'm working through Cho Chikun's Ecyclopedia of Life and Death - Intermediate level and it's just boring. I think there are two reasons I find it boring, the problems are mostly easy for me and the problems are arranged in a way that a lot of very similar problems come up in a row. I have other problem collections but I've worked through them multiple times already except for the problems that are too difficult.