It's still quite rare for western players to be admitted as insei, and for them to make the life-changing step to move to Japan. When I read that this was exactly what Antti Törmänen was doing on his blog Go of Ten, I became very intrigued indeed. Even more so because I was moving to Tokyo around the same time he was, and we were both departing from Helsinki airport. I sent him an email to ask him for an interview, so we may all get to know our new hero a little better. This interview was conducted at the Nihon Ki-in on Friday September, 30th. Parts between square brackets were added by me.

Hi Antti, nice to meet you. Perhaps we should start with the absolute basics. Could you tell us a little something about yourself?
Hi, my name is Antti Törmänen, I'm 22 years old. Before moving here, I used to live in Espoo, Finland, which is just next to the capital Helsinki. I'm currently in my 4th year of industrial engineering and management at the Aalto University in Helsinki, and I specialize in work psychology. Though I'm technically still enrolled at university at present, I will be in Japan for most of the year, so I don't expect to do much for my university studies this year [laughs]. I've booked a return flight for May 11th, so I'll probably be an insei until the end of April.

How long have you been playing go? Often when you hear about the progression of really strong players, they rose through the kyu ranks very quickly, did something similar happen to you?
I began playing go in in the spring of 2001. As I didn't really know of other places to play, I spent most of the summer playing on Yahoo Games. Late July, I learned of KGS, registered there, and got the ranking of 12 kyu. Two months later, I was 8 kyu. I continued playing, and next spring I was around 1 kyu, and by the end of that year already around KGS 5 dan. That was under the old ranking system, however, and would be closer to 3 or 4 dan on present-day KGS.

What is your current KGS account, and what is the highest rank you achieved on KGS?
Well, my main account is Tien, but I've had other accounts as well. I achieved 9 dan on Tien for a short while, but the only way to maintain that was to not play [as Parik Stefanov of Go Sensations always points out ^^]. I've had a secret account or two where I achieved a solid 8 dan rank, but it really depends. I've lost fair and square to some 5 dan players as well.

This isn't the first time you've studied abroad. Haven't you been to China to study go as well?
That's right. I've participated in the 'Experience go in China'-program by Liu Yuanbo (MilanMilan on KGS) twice. The first time was in 2009, when I stayed for a month and a half. The day was divided in two parts, with the morning session consisting of a lecture on the opening or a certain go problem, while the afternoon was used for a game with another student or a teacher. Afterwards, we'd review the game.
In 2011 I returned for 3 weeks, and this time I participated as part student, part teacher. I taught the morning lectures for a group of players ranging from kyu strength up to 2 dan. Since I couldn't participate in the other morning sessions to study, I only studied through playing games and having them reviewed.

Regarding these intensive study programs in east asia, do you think it's worth it for aspiring players, or would the money be better spent on books?
I absolutely believe these programs are worth it. You aren't only paying for study resources or strong opponents, but more than that, you're investing in a great environment to study. Everybody there is incredibly motivated to improve, and this sort of commitment is what elevates these programs over home study. [A few days after this interview was conducted, IGN "Goama", issue #151 contained an interview with Yoon Youngsun, who said the exact same thing]

How did you end up becoming an insei?
I first met kobayashi Chizu sensei at the 2007 European Go Congress. After that, we met again in France, at the 2010 Paris Open. I contacted her by email asking if there might be a possibilty for me to study as an insei, and she helped me with the paperwork.

Could you tell us something about your study method throughout your go playing career?
I just played a lot of games on Yahoo and KGS. Really, I believe that's the most important part of any study program, just play a lot. I started reading some books like Ishida's 'Attack and Defense' and Kageyama's 'Fundamentals' [I knew it. Kageyama is the road to success ^^], but I didn't do a lot of go problems. After about 4 or 5 years I started focusing more on those, and worked my way through the classical problem collections.

Speaking of go problems, what is your preferred method of working with those? Do you look at the answers or not?
Usually I think about a problem for about five or ten minutes at most, and if I didn't get the solution by then, I'll look at the answer. I actually kind of follow Kobayashi Chizu sensei's suggestion on this; she has said that it's okay to look at the answer. When playing a game, you don't have time to read every single situation out with brute force, so that's why it's important to recognize different shapes quickly. For this kind of training, thinking about a problem for a bit, and then looking at the answer is fine.

What will your study method look like here in Japan?
Right now, I have one weekly meeting scheduled with certain professional players from the Nihon Ki-in. Kobayashi Chizu sensei had a wonderful exchange of ideas planned: Each week, I'll present some games I played in the insei classes to the professionals, and they'll try to comment the game in English only. Thus, they're teaching the game to me, while I'm helping them with the English language. This way they'll be able to travel abroad to teach go in Europe or in the United States. [I was present at the first meeting between Antti and the pro players, and Kobayashi sensei pulled out a huge atlas and spent the first ten minutes showing the young pro players what Europe looked like. It does indeed look very muuch like they're being trained for teaching abroad.]
Apart from this, I'll be doing tsumego on a regular basis every morning, and I'm also studying professional games. Perhaps once in a while, I'll go to a go salon to play, too.

You're also involved with the Nordic Go Academy, could you tell us something about that?
The Nordic go academy (http://www.nordicgoacademy.com) is an internet league-based go project that I founded with two friends of mine, Juri Kuronen 5 dan and Yang Su 6 dan. Basically, the idea was to create a system in which the teaching is done through offline reviews, making the league easier to run for us teachers. Especially while I'm in Japan, it's very difficult for me to teach western players any other way because of the time difference. Our system is based on the premise that each student plays three games a week, and then they send the game record, with any possible questions or inquiries, to us teachers, and we then send the game record back with the commentary. There are also supplementary go simultaneous games, and we're planning on holding weekly lectures as well.

Insei style league systems have become very popular in recent years. Switzerland just started their own system, run by In-Seong Hwang, a Korean 7 dan. Why do you think this method works so well?
The main factor for league systems' success, I believe, is because they create a good atmosphere for learning. You feel like you're part of a group in which everyone is serious about studying. If you just play normal games on a go server, you can of course learn much as well, but it's often possible that your opponent is not playing very seriously, or they might even escape after realizing they're going to lose. Participating in some kind of a program makes you committed to it, and as a result everybody is able to study more seriously.

If there's one thing you could say to yourself when you just started out, in order to improve faster, what would it be?
That would have to be "try to have fun at all times". Improving becomes much easier when you're having fun when playing and studying. Don't try to do things that you don't find interesting. A very common issue that go players have, I feel, is that they put too much emphasis on winning and losing. While winning can of course be fun, I don't think that defeating the opponent is the purpose of the game. Instead, one should always try to find the best move while playing. If one only cares about winning, one becomes short-sighted while playing, and the game also gets boring, or even frustrating to play. In a way, I think, go is not about defeating your opponent, but about defeating your own limitations.

Thank you very much for this interview, and know that we are all cheering for you. Best of luck with your insei studies.

Was that really necessary?

Edit: for clarification, this referred to the aforementioned personal attack.

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Occupy Babel!

[mod]Deleted a message for a personal attack[/mod]

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Someday I want to be strong enough to earn KGS[-].

So jelly he gets to do this, great interview and best of luck to him.

for future curious readers, the deleted post expressed how much more informative and interesting is this interview compared to a recent Go Sensations interview with Andy Liu

well done, Hushfield, thanks both you and Antti

PS: i hope this is not inappropriate
PPS: the deleted post wasn't mine

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Spilling gasoline feels good.

I might be wrong, but probably not.

While I wish Andy had said more, Dinerchtein sometimes takes a very paint by numbers sort of approach to his interviews. I don't know if he gives all the questions at once, or if he formulates new questions as he goes based on previous responses, but if it's the former, I could see someone reacting by saying "why bother?" There's something rude about answering so abruptly, but there's also something rude about asking trite questions. I should stress that several of Dinerchtein's interviews had good questions, and there the interviews were more interesting. I don't know his process, and maybe nothing could have gotten a response out of Andy, but that's what comes to mind.

Interviewing is really hard--I've been thinking about interviewing some people for a project of mine, and just the thought makes me nervous. Other than a school project or two, I've never interviewed anyone, and I'm not sure I'd be any good at it. But even though I have no expertise, I'll say that this is one area where the Western go world needs to see a little more ambition.

P.S. I don't know how you would have handled Andy, but this was very nicely done, Hushfield.

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Occupy Babel!

If you look at the controversial interview, you'll see that the questions (and their whimsical grammar) were provided by readers of the site. I don't see anything wrong with the answers, by the way. I'm reminded of a cartoon of a dirty backpacker arriving at the cave of a holy Himalayan hermit: -"Master, how can I reach enlightenment?" -"No idea."

But this is all really distracting from Hushfield's excellent work! Thank you for putting this together, it's really interesting. Maybe you can interview him again about the experience before you leave?

Clearly one of the reasons that this interview is so good is that Antti, besides being a great go player, is quite adept at putting his experiences into words. If you haven't yet had a chance, take a look at his blog, Go of Ten where he has begun to describe his life as an insei. It's quite amusing and informative.

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Patience, grasshopper.

Just to be clear about the interview with Andy, his seeming lack of response has absolutely nothing to do with "hubris" or anything like that. If anything it's the opposite; he feels that he doesn't really have any advice that is worth giving to everyone. I think jts' analogy is apt.

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"There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level." -- Bruce Lee

If you read Antti's blog, it occurs to me the Kiin still holds a couple of really old fashioned values and habits. The values of being polite and ardent are of course still valid, but surely requiring insei to record their games on a paper kifu instead of a smartphone strikes me as old fashioned.

What can I say about Hushfield? I've rarely met a fellow countryman with such verbal skills. I already knew he was an expert in subcultural urban Flemish slang. Now I also learnt about his command of foreign language in a more high-brow environment. Hat off!

I don't know about the insei, but the pros switched to recording their games on PC's a couple of years ago. Naturally they do it after the game. If you read the entry again, I think you will see that the point was that the insei are not allowed to have their phones out while playing. I assume it has less to do with recording the games and more to do with the fact that young Japanese will choose to use their phones constantly given the chance regardless of what else they are doing!

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

Antti is one of those people who takes everything he does seriously. That shows in this interview, in his own blogs, and maybe even in the fact that he's gotten into the Nihon Kiin as an insei for a little while.

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North Lecale

Okay, but you've got to admit that it's peculiar that they get lectures in manners rather than in go theory!

I'm trying to imagine a go professional getting an unfavorable ruling from a match referee and telling the referee they're a loser, a hater, and unattractive on the inside. Somehow I can't imagine it happening.

Not at all. Remember That Antti is a complete outlier. Most of the insei are little kids, and some of them will be professionals as young as eleven years of age!

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21

I don't feel my remark was really a personal attack, just something off the cuff and mostly sarcastic. I think it would have done to just edit that part out instead of deleting the whole post. Nevertheless, good job Hushfield. This was an insightful read. Are there any other Western insei at the Ki-in now, or perhaps pro/insei that speak English? It would be interesting if you could interview a few of them as well

Is the significance of their being 11 that they're too young to understand Go conceptually, or that it's especially important that they keep their hands out of their pockets?

Since the vast majority of pros end up teaching go and relying on private patrons, it would be very peculiar if they were not taught how to maximise their social encounters.

Since at least some patronage of the western go world by Orientals has been lost through our apparent lack of manners, it seems peculiar that more attention is not paid to the necessary skills here.

"Manners" is perhaps misleading though. We are not talking about learning which hand to use a fork with, but mainly respect for other people and the self discipline that goes with that.

I am reminded of part of a Buddhist Q&A that I read as a kid:

"But Master, if what you say is true, then there is no reason to search for anything!"

"By admitting that you would save yourself a lot of trouble."

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The Adkins Principle:
At some point, doesn't thinking have to go on?
— Winona Adkins

Visualize whirled peas.

Everything with love. Stay safe.

Two points as I understand the insei training process:
1. It is especially important that they are trained how to act because they will miss some of the socialization that would naturally occur if they were typical full-time students and finally entered a Japanese company at age 22 or so.
2. They will never receive lectures on the conceptual side of Go. That is not part of the program. They will learn Go in competition with one another and what they study with their teachers will not be abstract concepts but rather the specific games played on that day. (This of course is how I understand it, never having experienced it myself. I am very interested in how Antti finds it! )

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Dave Sigaty
"Short-lived are both the praiser and the praised, and rememberer and the remembered..."
- Marcus Aurelius; Meditations, VIII 21