Joshua Waitzkin

Joshua Waitzkin, born on 4 December 1976, is an American former chess player, martial arts world champion and author. A child prodigy, he won the U.S. Junior Chess Championship in 1993 and 1994, became a National Master at 13 and an International Master at 16, and his early life is the basis of the film Searching for Bobby Fischer. He has not played in a US Chess Federation tournament since 1999. As a young adult he turned to tai chi, holding several US national medals and a 2004 world champion title in tai chi pushing hands, and he coached the US Pushing Hands Team of William C. C. Chen to several titles at the Tai Chi World Cup in Taiwan. He is a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu under Marcelo Garcia and co-founded the Marcelo Garcia Academy in New York City, but a broken back suffered while sparring ended his competitive jiu-jitsu. He wrote the books Attacking Chess and The Art of Learning.