Hey Michael,
Just a random thought, but how about becoming a writer at Go Game Guru? I could make an account for you and then all the infrastructure is already in place, so you could focus more on studying (one month will go very quickly, so I'd recommend you try not to get bogged down making websites work properly).
We have a large existing audience, a fast site and we can handle a lot of readers. And, of course, we're already setup to publish sgf files and things. The other good option is to post everything here on L19 for the same reasons.
I know you said Go Game Guru was the wrong place to ask about
getting better at Go, but we've just published a slightly epic post about that exact topic, so I hope you've at least had a quick look at what we think. I tend to lean more towards deliberate practice in my thinking too, so you should see that coming through in the article.
I wouldn't have time to play teaching games with you myself, but if you wanted to go ahead with this I'd be happy to help mentor/coach you throughout your experiment
. I don't mean Go stuff so much, though I can help with that too (if you're getting a Go teacher it might get confusing if we give too much conflicting advice in just one month though).
I'm talking about the mental and physical side of things beyond Go (like the stuff that the guy was talking about in the 99% video you mentioned). That's something I'm very interested in too, so I've read a fair bit about it. I could help you come up with a daily routine if you wanted. I could also find time to review two or three games per week by email.
Anyway, if you want to talk more about this, I'll reply to you here or you can get our email address at
http://gogameguru.com/contact/Regarding the other issues that have come up in this thread, here's my 2 cents...
I don't think going overseas will be a significant benefit at your current level. You can do what you need to do at home, and in many ways that will be much better given your timeframe. Being in a familiar and supportive environment can help too.
I agree that a strong dan player who can spend more time with you (given your budget) is a better option as a teacher right now. You still want them to be strong enough that you can benefit from the 'learning by osmosis' factor of playing a much stronger player. However, make sure they know how to teach, that's critical.
EDIT: On second thoughts, I had lessons with Yilun Yang for awhile before I started studying with Younggil. Mr Yang's lessons are very affordable and he is an excellent teacher. He explains things more effectively and clearly than most teachers with his general principle approach. I think he might be a good option for you if he has time. An Younggil is also an excellent teacher (I prefer him to Mr Yang) but he's not actively looking for students now because he has enough already. We could see if he's interested in teaching you though (as part of everything else) if you're interested.
For measuring your progress, speed tests with standard problem books sound like an interesting and (kind of) fun idea. To point out the obvious, if you're going to be playing most of your practise games on KGS, how about using the rank graph as one measure? That's about the only thing it could be even partially useful for... It's an automated measure, so you can spend more time on other stuff.
If you do that though, you do need to learn not to care what your rank is throughout this one month.
David
P.S. I learned some Haskell at uni, thought I've no doubt forgotten most of it by now. Cool language
.
