Capablanca was right!

Good greetings,

so after some monkey tilt on puzzles and some days break of learning, i started back at learning with watching some general videos on how to improve overall learning. Watching some of the biggest Youtube coaches i figured to know quite nothing about endgames, even if i thought so. Imho absolutely essential for the overall improvement, and not just for playing the endgame. It improves my mental game, because i know i will be prepared if endgames occur, which gives a lot of confidence. Regarding the future time management it is a big advantage playing some moves more or less automatically, instead of burning time by calculating stuff.
I guess endgame studys also improves other stages of the game, since a lot of basic concepts are at least touched through it.
So i got some books about endgame studys and started working with the first one. And not just going roughly through the diagrams, but my claim is that i want to understand every example completely, no matter how long it takes and no matter if i have to play around long time with engine and board editor or whatever. This will obviously take some time and once more delay my debut in online play, but "no pressure" is my motto, so no big deal.
Meanwhile i played some OTB games against a friend, who plays much worse than me, but she bagged me for playing and encourages me to explain things to her. Of course i can not tell her everything extremely deep, since my skill is relatively low. But it helps her, since i am actually giving her advice i have just been through and not taking any knowledge for granted. It helps me to learn through teaching, since i can consolidate my freshly learned knowledge. She doesn ́t really mind losing but learning and i enjoy winning one match after another, so it is a real win-win situation. She is actually so motivated now, that she wants to buy a certain chess book for beginners, which i recommended to her. I really hope she beats me one day, but i will do everything that she won ́t ;)

Regarding my mental game i came to the conclusion, that i don ́t want to end up in this "just one more game/puzzle" mode. I am keen to be like that, so i am developing ideas to avoid that. One would be to turn off the Elo display on Lichess. Another idea is to set a timer or set myself a certain number of game/puzzles and stop then, even if it hurts. Having other "non screen hobbys" is something i fortunately not lack of, so being aware of my mental state and cut chess off if necessary, to do something else, is a basic thing imho. The local chess club thing will happen as well, better soon than later. They meet every thursday, so i hope to get to that next week. They will probably just eat me alive playing, but i should really overcome the thought that i have to prove anything. Making mistakes and learning through that is no1 prio. The worst thing which can happen is they just laugh at me, tell me to learn some more basic stuff before coming back, but i don ́t think that is going to happen. I thing best is to have no expectation besides learning and just jump into the cold water.
It is still tempting to dive more into opening strategys and middle game tactics with puzzling, and i will probably still spend time on looking into it, but my main focus for the next time is the endgame. One thing i often hear/read is "endgames are boring" or something similar, but in the end i think winning is not boring at all.
I learned once in my life that emotions are a good trigger for faster learning. I want to try to keep that in mind and develop a curiosity and not ending up in a state where the impression arises I "have to learn" this and that. Really WANTING to know what ́s behind a certain position/move/concept or whatever occurs. For example trying to see things with humor, it really amuses me how draws occur out of a winning position, especially stalemate. It might seem trivial, but it is probably the most frustrating and one of the most funny things at the same time, if you already think you won and then by accident stalemate. It probably happened to everybody. Keeping up the idea that improving endgame will lead to less frustration and more fun at actual playing I have the claim to see blundering a stalemate with humor if it happens and getting curious how i can improve through the mistake. If i freak out about, what do accomplish besides ruining my mental game? So regarding these things in the books i really laugh about it, which seems crazy in a way, but i think it is boosting the learning. This is just one example how i expect that emotions lead to faster learning.
All in all i start to love chess more and more. Like picking up on something i thought never to learn it is a feeling of great satisfaction for me. Like learning a complicated language which really doesn ́t make sense for a long time all of the sudden i realise "hey, there is actually improvement". Loving it!

have a great time