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| | === Bobby Fischer and exercise to increase mental performance === | | === Bobby Fischer and exercise to increase mental performance === |
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| − | According to the Columbus Dispatch: | + | ''Valley News'' reported concerning Bobby Fischer and exercise to increase mental performance: |
| | + | {{Cquote|Bobby Fischer is revered for his mastery of chess. According to Garry Kasparov, he was a decade or so ahead of his time. |
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| | + | But Fischer was body as well as mind. A teacher, at a summer camp the prodigy-to-be had attended as a child, told me that he had been the best underwater swimmer at a summer camp he attended. |
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| | + | It is hard to think of a sport that Fischer did not try at one time or another. Tennis, baseball, weight-lifting, pingpong and walking (at a world-class level, as a trainer described it) come to mind, in addition to swimming. |
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| | + | His physical efforts complemented his apparently natural high level of energy and stamina. At his best, a glow of health and physical strength seemed to encompass him — the aura probably intimidating many who would oppose him on the chessboard. |
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| | + | Part of his legacy was a conscious and public embrace of the mind-body connection. Until Fischer, that awareness was honored more in the breach than in the actual world of chess at large. |
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| | + | Magnus Carlsen, the current world champion, sounded very much like Fischer of half a century ago when he told Men’s Health magazine: “Training your brain is just as important as training your body. … It’s just like a muscle — if you’re not using it, you can lose it.”<ref>[https://www.vnews.com/Archives/2015/02/e5Chess2218-epk-vn-020815 Shelby Lyman on Chess: Mind-Body Connection]</ref>}} |
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| | + | According to the ''Columbus Dispatch'': |
| | {{Cquote|When he wandered the streets of New York in his teens and 20s, he walked much faster than most other people. | | {{Cquote|When he wandered the streets of New York in his teens and 20s, he walked much faster than most other people. |
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