Mind to no-mind
After a month away from Sudoku, I thought I’d give it a try on Tuesday.
For some reason, my mind was clear, with no expectations of performance. Although I had my little Sudoku tricks and techniques, I thought I’d just dive into it. Interesting. There was no self-consciousness, no narrowing of focus to one particular technique, and most importantly, no stress. I scanned the puzzle, and as I saw each solution present itself through a recognition of a technique, I acted on it, then returned to non-prejudicial scanning, as it were. This was a departure from the previous method of thinking “now I will use this technique” and scanning the puzzle looking for places to apply the technique.
But of course, I had to learn the techniques first, in order to apply them when opportunities presented themselves. It seems to be another example of “train with mind, execute with no-mind”.
(Of course, Tuesday’s Sudoku puzzles are the easy ones. Maybe I’ll try this on a Friday.)