The Making Smaller Circles Mastery Method
Achieve mastery by deeply internalizing fundamentals until complex skills become instinctive
Josh Waitzkin's making smaller circles concept comes from his journey as a chess prodigy and world champion martial artist. Rather than continuously expanding your repertoire of techniques or knowledge, mastery comes from taking what you already know and internalizing it so deeply that it becomes instinctive, requiring zero conscious processing. In chess, this means studying a single endgame position until you can see its patterns instantly rather than calculating moves. In martial arts, this means practicing a single technique thousands of times until it fires without thought. The circles get smaller as the skill becomes more compressed and automatic, freeing your conscious mind for higher-level strategic thinking. Waitzkin argues that most people plateau because they keep learning new things instead of deeply owning what they already know.
- Mastery comes from depth of internalization not breadth of knowledge
- Making circles smaller means compressing skills until they require zero conscious processing
- Plateaus are usually caused by adding complexity instead of deepening fundamentals
- Once fundamentals become instinctive they free conscious bandwidth for higher-level thinking
- Identify Your Core TechniquesIn any domain, identify the three to five fundamental techniques or principles that account for the majority of effective performance. In writing, this might be clarity, structure, and evidence. In sales, it might be listening, questioning, and framing. In chess, it might be endgame positions and tactical patterns. These fundamentals are your circles to make smaller.Pro tipWaitzkin emphasizes that champions have fewer techniques than their opponents but those techniques are infinitely more refined
- Practice Until InstinctiveTake one fundamental and practice it until it requires zero conscious thought. This means thousands of repetitions in varied contexts. You know a skill is truly internalized when you can deploy it while your conscious mind is occupied with something else entirely. In martial arts, this means the technique fires correctly under the stress and chaos of competition without deliberate execution.Pro tipThe test of internalization is whether you can perform the skill while your conscious mind is engaged in strategic thinking about something elseWarningThis process is boring by design. If practice feels exciting, you may be adding novelty rather than deepening mastery.
- Compress and IntegrateOnce a fundamental is instinctive, notice how it begins to merge with other internalized fundamentals into fluid combinations that emerge spontaneously. This integration is what separates masters from advanced practitioners. You are not consciously combining techniques; they flow together because each component is so deeply owned that it can interact with others without conscious management.
Waitzkin applied the same making smaller circles principle that made him a chess champion to Tai Chi Push Hands, a domain with zero apparent overlap with chess. He focused on deeply internalizing a small number of fundamental techniques rather than learning a broad repertoire. Within a few years he became a world champion, demonstrating that the mastery method transcends specific domains.
Waitzkin was a chess prodigy who became the subject of the film Searching for Bobby Fischer. After leaving competitive chess, he became a world champion in Tai Chi Push Hands. He noticed that mastery in both domains followed the same pattern: the champions were not those who knew the most techniques but those who had internalized a few core techniques so deeply that they could deploy them instantaneously while their opponents were still consciously calculating. He called this making smaller circles because the scope of focus narrows while the depth of mastery increases.