Burnout!!

Have you ever found yourself spending too much time with go? It's relatively easy to do, in my experience. Playing a lot and studying a lot is the way to get stronger-- however, sometimes in the midst of all this go, it can be easy to loose track of things. The last few weeks I spent a lot of time with go. Five whole hours, one day. Okay, so that's not quite honest. Five whole hours every day for almost half a week, hot on the tail of two to three hours every day, passionately trying to get better.

I noticed, however, that as this trek wore on, I started to see less and less, and my play concepts started to be too rushed and insecure. I was getting rushed and trying to play my games based on the strength of others-- using sequences that had been perpetrated against me just recently as an attempt to get them out of my head. So the result?

I've put myself on suspension. The goal is to not study a lick of go, or day-dream about the game itself (my thoughts are still free to wonder about the forming up of Oklahoma's Go community) until my prized tesuji book arrives here from Japan. I estimate the time at just a little over a week. I presume that the book shipped by the seventh (when i ordered from kiseido immediately before the holidays, they were out of stock and I received an email apologizing and informing me that nothing in Japan was going to move until about the 7th, the latest the book should be shipped by) and so I only have another five days or so, since kiseido is magical and always manages to get their books to me in five days or less. When it does come, I'll be able to study go, but I won't let myself play for several more days after.

It's been a hard task so far-- I keep finding myself gazing longingly at my new Joseki dictionaries (i'd already burned through about 25 pages dense with diagrams and explanations) or sitting at my go board. But I feel that if I leave the game alone for a little while and let my mind absorb what I have seen and learned in these intense couple weeks past, I'll be able to give it another go with an undistorted mind. I need to get back to playing moves that say "go ahead, tenuki. I dare you" and away from moves that say "fear my general strength and please please please play protectively so I can go back and grab the important move that I *should* have played!"

Sometimes, I think, a little time away from the go board can be far more beneficial than a couple dedicated weeks boring into the depths of its landscape. Does anyone have similar or opposing experiences? Maybe there are a few of us who just need a deep breath right now!

Wish me luck on my abstinence. I'm studying kanji to fill the void! (JLPTのため！)

Keep eating wisdom (even if I took a break,) I'll see you on the board when I return to OK!

-Zack