Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Intensity of Study

Was going over some old minue lessons today and found this interesting quote.

"When I was a kyu, I studied this basic joseki variations over and over again (maybe 10~15 times). Other joseki? I just ignored. This applies to other Go study topic. Talking about L&D, it's good to solve new problems. Much better than doing nothing. But, it's even better to solve again several times which we solved in past. So, in summary, for efficiency of Go study, we have to simplfy our study span, and focus on them. I dont mean, u should stop reviews with ur Go friends and many other enjoyable Go studies. What i mean is.. we have to give a priority to some specifid Go study plan, and focus on them. About all other Go study, we just regard as "fun"

So, when we can finish some specific topic? --> when we can find Correct responses on all expected opp's moves without any difficulty, but instantly. All these variations.. So, quantity is not so important. Quality (or intensity) matters more. For example, to study about this just one basic hoshi joseki is much better than to study 100 basic hoshi josekis superficially (for improving)
"

I have been doing that over the last few months, and I think it is helping. It took me a while to figure out which study plan works for me, and to get rid of the nasty blitz habit (which was taking away from study time). I used to think that I had to know 'all those joseki' and was feeling kind of overwhelmed. Now I just choose one basic joseki / variation which I study more deeply for a while, and don't worry about the other 29,999 I am not studying right then.

The interesting thing is that the shapes I am studying, suddenly start coming up in other situations too, and my study proves to be useful outside this one joseki variation.

A friend just studied l-groups very deeply and it has definitely helped his game too. They are on my long list of 'subjects to study soon'.

Just finished the first semeai book of the Korean Problem Academy books. All pretty easy, but good reading practice. Today, I'll start on the second one. That is, after I finish my joseki study ^^.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy Holidays,

I really enjoyed the your post. Since I am a horribly weak DDK would you have any recomendations of a specific order of topics to study?

Best wishes,
Bill

Anonymous said...

Cool!

nice article i am only 21k . Will try to do so.

Keep blogging :)