I've read another interesting article in the NY Times. It is about a man who became a memory athlete, and in the article, he talks about getting past the "OK plateau," which is a level of proficiency that one might consider satisfactory. He describes a difference in approach between the amateur and the professional, and I think it is an interesting read for those of us with a sense of being stuck.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011 ... crets.html

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Thanks for posting, really interesting.

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very cool article, though i dont think playing go with earmuffs and sprayed safety goggles is the look im going for anytime soon:D

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Thanks daal, very nice!

That's a great article. I feel a bit inspired!

I feel a bit confused. How does one incorporate this into daily life, particularly go playing?

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I think the point is not just about improving one's memory recall, but rather about pushing push one's plateaus and improving whatever skill one want to excel at.

I can certainly relate to the idea of "autonomous mode" in go, weightlifting, typing, almost anything. For a while, you improve almost automatically just so long as you practice regularly. But you reach certain plateaus where practicing more, or harder isn't enough for improvement and you have to break out of your routine to stimulate improvement.

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If I remember right, I read the article earlier this week, the human brain easily remembers visual things than thoughts/sentences/words. I would already think we do this when playing Go, so it might not help that much, but I know that I've practiced this before and it does work out well, instead of remembering a word as a word, its remembering a word as an image of a word.

I wonder how this relates to learning Asian scripts such as Chinese and Japanese?

I know that I used to find learning such things incomprehensible until I actually started trying, only to discover that it really wasn't that hard to memorize characters.

Somewhere I have a book, The Art of Memory, by Frances Yeats. Verrry interesting.

The method of loci, which the article features, was attributed to Cicero in the Middle Ages. Memory systems were popular in the early modern era, and, as the article indicates, were related to philosophy, to how one viewed the world. Giordano Bruno earned a living as a memory expert and teacher. His system was devised in accordance with a solar religion. (That's why he was burned at the stake. He embraced Copernican ideas because they put the sun at the center instead of the earth.) Another memory expert cum philosopher was Raymond Lull, whose system had a marvelous innovation. It moved. (See http://lullianarts.net/ .)

When I was learning go, the only tsumego problems I had were the ones in Korschelt and the Maeda set. I did not make much use of them because I would remember the answers and thought that I should wait to review until I had forgotten them. I now think that that was a mistake. I think I would have done better to etch them into my memory even more.

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I found the same to be true for me as well. Its a lot easier than one might think.

And it may be partly because the basic characters often pictures of the thing they represent already.

I did the same with the tsumego from smartgo I was starting to memorize the solutions so I switched problems to keep from memorizing them. Hmmmn...

This thread is interesting ... Well I don't have to worry about switching around no more maybe memorizing is not that bad after all

In so far as this articles relates to go...

I find it interesting that everyone is discussing how they should be memorizing tsumego, local positions, and etc. The application I naturally extracted based on my reading of the article was that to cross plateaus, you have to play with opponents who are clearly stronger than you all of the time.

Rationale being: if plateaus occur because we have reached a point where our abilities are adequate for the situation, you have to recalibrate your measure of what is adequate. Losing every single game you play to someone 3 or more stones stronger than you is sure to accomplish this.

Should this really be off-topic?

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Actually cdy, I was thinking about trying to change the way I see shapes/the board. I currently see shapes (as the name implies) as objects, like a table, etc. Perhaps it would be more effective to try and get a feel for the board as a path, or landscape. I've been thinking I need to play stronger players more for some time, and about getting weekly lessons when I've finished my thesis.

Also, I was thinking I need to change the way I train techniques in capoeira, but that's definitely off-topic.

Nice article, very interesting reading indeed. But what does it say exactly?
There are no limits but just plateaus, implying you can improve virtually endlessly, if you are never satisfied with your level and think differently.

This smells like "anyone can reach 5 dan if he wants enough". I say a big NO!

People only listen those who managed to do it, and they of course say "you can also do it if you try hard". But where is the proof that "anybody" can do it? There are also millions who tried and failed. It is inspiring and very well written but sorry I don't buy the essence of it.

Or maybe I missed another important message in the article???

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What about "anyone can reach 5 dan if he works at it hard enough in the right manner and under optimal conditions?"

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Patience, grasshopper.

The point as I see it entropi is that trying hard is not enough. You have to try hard in an efficient way. That's the point of the plateus (plateux? hehehe) - the author got stuck and discouraged despite hard work, until he was shown a different way of training.
I wonder how much of a highly skilled person's (let's avoid the genius debate) success is due to naturally thinking/training in a more efficient way, and how much is due to being shown the right way by an enlightened teacher early on and taking the lesson well.

I still doubt that "anyone" can make it to the higher levels of skill in any given activity, but maybe that's not the point. Probably (certainly?) lots, or at least more people can do better than they otherwise would, if they are given training in how to train more effieciently. No?

To go with your example, my interpretation of the article is that if everyone in your go playing environment is 5 dan or stronger and you play go against them for a long enough period of time (a couple or several years, let's say) then yes, everyone can and should reach a level of 5 dan.

I believe that is a reasonable proposition assuming the subject still has the requisite mental agility and drive to persist.

Edit: I should not say that this is my interpretation of the article, because that's not accurate. Rather, I meant to say this is a conjecture I find supported by my interpretation of the articles comments about plateaus.