Kirby wrote:I could be generalizing from one example - my own experience. But it is difficult for me to understand the other perspective, if my brain doesn't work that way.
I am surprised that Marcus said that he was a "Beta" learner. I don't know his true tsumego ability, but I don't understand that way of learning well.
If I try to click through a tsumego, and take a look at the "paint" inside of the cans that Marcus describes, I am seeing new variations, sure... But I cannot feel my brain being exerted.
I do not feel effort. I do not feel improvement. I do not feel like I am learning. Maybe I am. Maybe I'm not, and my brain just doesn't work that way.
The key here is not to just stare at the paint in the can. You have to use the paint.
Let's back up for a moment and examine our goal. My goal in doing Tsumego is to improve my reading ability. Improving my reading ability is what improves my overall skill in Go. How I use Tsumego to improve might be different, though. Everyone has to find their own way of doing things that works best for them. Because I have a specific goal (instead of to simply "get stronger at go", I have "get stronger at go by improving my reading") I can evaluate my progress in a more direct way (instead of "I went up in rank" as a sign of improvement, I can examine my games and the tsumego I undertake and see what shapes I understand and what shapes I don't) and adjust my process based on that improvement (or lack thereof).
In my case, the way in which I apply the shapes and the ideas I've just learned has an impact to your overall style of play, and in some ways the application is influenced by my style of play as well. For me, learning is not a very structured process (beyond, of course the idea of "start simple and build from there"), and it shows in everything that I do.
I learn quickly, and it's a good trait to have, but my learning is very broad as opposed to gaining extreme depth in any given subject/skill.
Let's take another skill that I've learned over the years: piano. If you set me down a a piano and put a piece of music in front of me, I can struggle through and learn the piece slowly, reading the music and studying. For me, this is a SLOW process. My wife, however, can sit down at a piano with a piece of music in front of her and it takes literally a quarter of the time for her to learn the piece (given at least a basic level of complexity). However, give me a recording of the piece and have someone sit down and play it for me a few times, and I can learn the piece much faster, in some cases without the actual sheet music. That's how I learned the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and it took me very little time (relatively) to learn it. My wife would not be able to learn a piece in this way.
Expanding on this, I can take all the examples of songs that I have learned and memorized, and I can apply the ideas in the form of my own creations on the piano. In doing so, I'm usually at the keyboard playing around, figuring out what I want. I go to the actual keys earlier than some composers would. My wife does not attempt composition, but I've found that those who have similar skills to her will tend to have a good idea of what their piece is going to sound like BEFORE they try it out ... usually based on musical theory. I know theory at this point as well, but I learned it by playing, not by studying.
Getting back to Go. At this point in time, I work through basic tsumego in the same way most people do: I read the solution, make sure there aren't any traps, and then play it out. This whole process takes only a few seconds. How I developed that "mind-picture" that gives me the ability to visualize and quickly evaluate a situation is though repetitive use of the patterns I see. I got here by playing through solutions and learning to recognize the shapes that way. A lot of this was done by just playing games, and losing a lot.
For harder problems, I tend to rely on intuition. If my first line of play doesn't work, I think of another one and play it out, not worrying about variations. I do the same thing in most of my games. Guess what? I fail a lot, especially when the situation is strange to me. However, I've developed some very good intuition over the course of my go-playing "career". If my intuition fails, I go back and examine why and sharpen that intuition for later games.
I feel like I am being lazy if I click through a tsumego. Marcus says not to be lazy. For the beta learner, he says:
However, some people just learn better by opening up the idea first, and then building on and improving their internal structure.
I do not understand how this works. Could I get elaboration on how one does the "building on and improving internal structure" part? This baffles me.
Have you ever taken a tsumego and the solution and just played with stones on the board? Do you play out different ideas, even though you've already got the solution? Do you change the shape (add/remove or move stones) and try to apply the same solution? All these require thinking, and all these are interesting exercises. You can do them in your head, or you can play them out, but the key is to THINK about the shape and add it to your understanding of the game. In both cases, you need to interact with your internal representation, and that internal representation will be affected by your efforts.
There are no shortcuts. If you don't put the effort in to learn and grow, you won't. I've spent a lot of time examining how I learn (not anyone else) over the years. Because of this, my strategy and process for learning is constantly changing to meet what I expect is going to be effective
given the time and resources at my disposal. Solving Tsumego the "right" way all the time is not as cost effective as my own process tailored to my specific learning strengths.
Oh, and since it just popped up, read Bill's post.
I do not have time to say much now, but let me add a couple of cents.
