Josh Waitzkin
Josh Waitzkin
“
There is absolutely nothing as revealing and catalyzing as being the one who has to rise to the moment under exquisite pressure and a level of opposition that you aren't quite sure you can overcome—or better yet, that you know you can overcome even though it seems insane to nearly everyone else.”

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Contents

1 About
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2 Training
2.1 Stoke Ventures 2.2 Areas of Exploration
3 Projects
3.1 Peak Performance Training 3.2 Jiu Jitsu 3.3 The Art of Learning Project & JW Foundation 3.4 Lila Sciences 3.5 Foiling
4 Latest Features
4.1 Articles 4.2 Podcasts 4.3 Videos
5 Resources
5.1 Philosophy 5.2 Martial Arts 5.3 Performance 5.4 Leadership 5.5 Psychology 5.6 Literature
6 Bio
6.1 Chess: Innocent Moves 6.2 Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning 6.3 Jiu Jitsu 6.4 Foiling
7 Contact
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1
About

Josh Waitzkin is a lifelong learner whose intense passion for boundary-pushing performance across multiple disciplines has broken – and continues to break – new ground in optimal human performance. His lived philosophy of embracing dynamic flux is forged in the Arenas of highly competitive sports and arts. It continues to evolve in his training of ocean big-wave foiling.

Josh takes all of these lessons – proven in the sweat and blood – and uses them to train elite mental and physical competitors, executives, and teams in the realms of creativity, leadership, performance psychology, strategy, and building world-class training cultures. Recent clients include professional sports coaches and teams, top-tier private equity principals and their ecosystems, and groundbreaking companies in life and materials sciences.

Among Josh's current and most high-profile engagements is Lila Sciences. Lila Sciences sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and laboratory science. It runs the entire scientific method autonomously – from hypothesis, to real-world experimentation via autonomous labs, to verification, and discovery. Josh works to instill a world-class training culture at Lila while advising its leaders around first-principles thinking and decision-making in the emerging field of AI science.

Read Full Bio ↓

2
Training

2.1
Stoke Ventures

At the razor's edge of peak performance, whether in athletics, business, finance, chess, or any deeply complex domain, insight and error often coexist. Josh Waitzkin teaches that genius is frequently entangled with eccentricity. Our virtuosity grows from what may appear to be dysfunction. His philosophy centers on cultivating Quality as a way of life, where individuals are ALL IN and self-expression is unobstructed.

Stoke Ventures is Josh Waitzkin's peak-performance consultancy for elite performers, world-class teams, and visionary organizations committed to that All In life. Training begins with a profound diagnostic process grounded almost entirely in listening—revealing both areas of genius and constraints. Each training plan is custom-built to dissolve creative obstructions, internalize universal themes, and cultivate Unobstructed Self-Expression.

Stoke works only with those fully committed to a life of practice—leaders, athletes, and change-makers prepared to train at world-championship intensity.

Apply Now →

2.2
Areas of Exploration

Love_of_training Mindfulness Resilience Thematic_interconnectedness MIQ_training Introspective_sensitivity Creative_feedback_loops Somatic_intelligence Organizational_frictionlessness

3
Projects

3.1
Peak Performance Training

Selectively partnering with the truly elite in athletics, business and finance, Josh's Peak Performance Training is an in-depth exploration of the Learning Process, Performance Psychology, Day Architecture, Energy Management, Leadership, Culture Building, Creativity and Idea Generation.

Josh's lived experience across multiple competitive arts has revealed that there is a vast chasm between good, great, and elite. Those who are truly elite within a given domain burn with an unmatched intensity, striving to wring every last drop of potential from themselves. These are the people Josh coaches in Peak Performance Training, guiding them in instilling principles such as unobstructed self-expression, thriving in cognitive and emotional dissonance, and presence to the questions that matter most – among many others.

Learn More ↗

3.2
Jiu Jitsu

In addition to Josh's multiple world championship titles in the Chinese Martial arts, Josh is a BJJ Black Belt under 9-time World Champion Marcelo Garcia. He is the co-founder of the Marcelo Garcia Academy in NYC, and creator of MGInAction.com.

MGinAction.com ↗ Marcelo Garcia Academy NYC ↗

3.3
The Art of Learning Project & JW Foundation

Josh's non-profit, JW Foundation, was born out of the highly acclaimed 2007 book, The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance. JWF's mission is to reinvigorate the world's belief in the power of education by supporting parents, educators and coaches in igniting a life-long love of learning in children and young adults.

The Art of Learning Project ↗

3.4
Lila Sciences

Josh serves as a senior advisor to Lila Sciences. Lila is introducing the world's first scientific superintelligence platform and autonomous labs for life, chemical, and materials sciences.

AI-powered science has the potential to solve numerous human existential crises. It's also the leading dynamic edge of scientific discovery. Just as computers and AlphaGo led to paradigm shifts in how humans conceptualize and strategize in the games chess and go, AI Science will radically upend our conceptual schemes in the sciences. Lila Sciences is an audacious project that puts the scientific method on autopilot (with proper human oversight), allowing AI to add knowledge and discoveries to the scientific canon.

In his work at Lila, Josh helps ethically guide the emergent field of AI science and trains the humans who are its stewards to operate in a world in which conceptual schemes and mental models are upended with increasing frequency.

Lila Sciences ↗

3.5
Foiling

Big-wave foiling has become Josh's dynamic, embodied practice and his greatest athletic passion. Riding submerged wings reduces friction compared with traditional surfing, enhancing speed, time in flight, and maneuverability.

Waves are some of the most tangible reminders of flux and dynamism that humans have. To ride them is to surrender to their power and receive their energy, transmuting them into something akin to a dance. Foiling is an art akin to surfing with the key difference being the use of hydrofoils. To experience foiling is to experience human flight.

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Latest Features

4.1
Articles

4.2
Podcasts

4.3
Videos

5
Resources

5.1
Philosophy

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance 0 Lila 1 On Quality 2 Tao Te Ching 3 Chuang Tzu 4 Lessons of History 5 Mulamadhyamakakarika 6 Vimalakirti Sutra 7

5.2
Martial Arts

5.3
Performance

5.4
Leadership

5.5
Psychology

5.6
Literature

6
Bio

6.1
Chess: Innocent Moves
1984-1998

Chess: Innocent Moves Chess: Innocent Moves Chess: Innocent Moves Chess: Innocent Moves Chess: Innocent Moves

Chess found Josh at the age of six while walking amid the trash-talking chess hustlers of Washington Square Park. He was enthralled and the game soon became a rich form of self-expression. From age nine until his teenage years, Josh dominated the U.S. scholastic chess scene with his aggressive, intuitive style of play, becoming an eight-time National Champion.

Josh's father, Fred, wrote the book Searching for Bobby Fischer about Josh's childhood experiences. The book became the Paramount Pictures film by the same name in 1993. The film and the fame it produced forever altered Josh's relationship to chess. It also forced him to test whether his lessons from chess translated into other disciplines.

6.2
Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning
1998-2004

Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning Tai Chi Chuan: Non-Local Learning

Josh moved on to the Tai Chi Chuan, a Chinese grappling art. As he immersed himself in this world and accompanying philosophy, Josh began to feel principles that were integral to chess also manifesting themselves in the arena of combat. He was no longer playing chess or doing Tai Chi, but riding an energetic current that flowed through both – and any other arts, disciplines or pursuits.

After amassing multiple and international world championships, Josh's competitive Tai Chi life came to a dramatic climax at the seventh Chung Hwa Cup International Tai Chi Chuan Championships in Taiwan December 4-5, 2004, where he worked through a brutal field and won the Middleweight World Championship title in Fixed Step Push Hands and became the Middleweight World Co-Champion in Moving Step Push Hands.

6.3
Jiu Jitsu
2004-2012

Jiu Jitsu Jiu Jitsu Jiu Jitsu Jiu Jitsu Jiu Jitsu Jiu Jitsu

Josh then took on the grappling art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, earning the first black belt from Marcelo Garcia, arguably the greatest pound-for-pound grappler of all time. He and Marcelo Garcia co-founded Marcelo's Manhattan-based academy, and the groundbreaking platform MGInAction.

Josh was living life in a world-class training camp, preparing for a run at ADCC, the Super Bowl of submission grappling, when his Jiu Jitsu journey came to an abrupt halt. He was a brown belt and expectant father when he broke his back during a live sparring session. Josh was told by his physicians that if he ever returned to Jiu Jitsu, he would be crippled for life.

6.4
Foiling
2018-Present

Foiling Foiling Foiling Foiling Foiling Foiling

In many ways, falling in love with foiling was a homecoming for Josh. As a lifetime waterman who spent multiple summers aboard the family's boat, spear fishing and exploring far-flung Bahamian islands, returning to the water was only natural.

You can find Josh on the water, foiling, seven days a week. During the big swell seasons, he tow foils hulking off-shore reef breaks. In lighter swells, he paddle foils, or experiments with emergent foiling technologies and wing configurations. Josh's chosen art represents the confluence of everything he has learned – so far – as a performer and competitor. When he's foiling, or doing anything else for that matter, it's an embrace of Dynamic Quality as a way of life.

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Contact

Interested in working with Josh? Get in touch.