Multi-table grinding is impassionate and constant. It occupies your brain from start to finish with few moments available for retrospection. Opponents come and go, and if you don't have long-term history with them, they are just a collection of stats that inform your decisions. This is especially the case in full ring grinding. You learn about general situations, pot control, math, position. Impersonal information that undoubtedly makes you a stronger player regardless.
Heads up is dynamic and intense. It flows like a river, the psychological state of your opponent ebbing and flowing as current. You are either the master of the current, or you're drowning. You can learn immensly about the game via heads up play, but in many ways you learn more about your or your opponents psychology. In my opinion, heads up best teaches you how to think about the game correctly in any setting. However, any specific tactics that you learn in heads up must be quickly abandoned or toned down significantly (otherwise you're going to be calling people down with ace high way too often).
Having gone back to the basics and playing 9-12 tables of full ring, I've found the game to be very hard to relate to. The players are so different from what I'm used to in a six max setting. They aren't better or worse necessarily, but it's clear the full ring breeds different skillsets and strategies. Psychology is different. Leveling is different. Hand reading is difficult, when everything is so different from what you're used to.
While I love six max to death, full ring has much to teach as well, and I'm ready to learn. Learning is the key. While I may be a winner in these full ring games, am I winning as much as I could? Of course not. And the same goes for any game you're playing. Complacency is worthless, whether you are crushing the games or just squeaking by.
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