Out of the comfortzone

.
.
.
If I remember well it was Wormwood who advocated to train out of your comfortzone. Since I associate WW with a person who is often right for the wrong reason (=ideal mindset for fast chess improvement), I always listen to him carefully. When he writes something, that is, which isn't very often.

The idea of training out of your comfortzone stemms from physical training, if I'm not mistaken. I'm always a bit sceptical when transiting idea's from the physical area to the brain area. Yet there seems to be something in it.

At the moment I'm busy with the positional exercises of Aagaards excelling at positional chess. My score is 0% after the first 5 exercises, because the way of looking at a position is quite unfamiliar to what I'm used to. I notice that my mind is not at ease. I frown upon the given solutions, allthough they are probably right. I seek distractions, like writing this post and such kind of things. I'm definitely not in my comfortzone.

Yet I belief there is no better way than to continue. Especially because the way of thinking is alien to me I feel that I learn alot. For instance that I'm overfocused on piece activity and the initiative, while I tend to be blind for certain pawnweaknesses.

Trying to understand the mysterious solutions of Aagaards book forces me to formulate new narratives and new knowledge. Most of this you will not find in books. Take for instance the following example.

From a random book I have learned that a backward pawn is weak when it can be attacked. Today I learned by seeing it myself that when a pawn is adjacent to another, but it cannot move forward because it is restrained, it can be weak too. Since it cannot move into the save coverage of its brother.

Such new knowledge I'm forced to formulate in order to explain to myself why a certain solution of Aagaard actually works. That's a very priceless exercise. But it feels uncomfortable, for some reason. Yet I will continue.