You hear all the time, about someone who is playing very well for a period of time, that they are “in the zone”. From what I gather, this means that their concentration or ability has somehow increased temporarily. People describe it as if they can do no wrong.
But is there any evidence that this actually happens? Or is it just emotionally clouded perceptions of random streaks of successes? Surely no one would say I’m “in the zone” if the game was flipping coins and I just won the last 10 flips. Yet the same streak of, say, shooting baskets, would cause people to think they are “in the zone”. On the other hand, surely concentration must wax and wane throughout a competition. However, if this correlates to being in the zone is difficult to say. Also, any subjective feeling of being in the zone might be caused by the ecstatic feeling of doing well, which may caused by essentially random chance.
There’s a book by an author whose name escapes me, but the title is Bone Games'', about the zone’’. He defines it as more than a streak of good basket-ball shots; it’s a state you get into when you almost kill yourself mountaineering. I’ve been in that once for a fraction of a second when my foot slipped on lead a good 20-odd feet above my last piece (so I would have fallen 40 feet before the rope caught me), and 30 above a large and solid sort of ledge. I clearly remember being able to recall every crease in those 30 feet of rock, and make and discard multiple plans for not dying, finally coming across a plan based on some advice given to me a couple of weeks earlier with respect to getting good footholds on slabs of rock. When I stopped myself, I had only, in fact, slid maybe 6" down the rock, which cannot have taken nearly long enough to think all that through…
So I definitely believe that I achieved temporarily increased concentration. And I can see how that feeling could be addictive… Though if it can only be achieved through the means of almost screwing up big-time, I think I’ll pass, for my own part
No matter how “in the zone” you are, you cannot affect the outcome of a single coin flip.
Being finely tuned to your muscles CAN affect shots on the basket, passes to a receiver, anything that involves control of your muscles.
I cannot relate to being a pro athlete, but I can relate to being “in the zone” on my job - flying airplanes. For the most part it’s easy: nice weather, light winds, etc. But when I’ve got a full load of passengers at night with lousy weather and strong crosswinds, I can tell you that I reach a point where things seem to slow down and I have more time to react to what’s happening. Whether this is adrenaline or simply heightened awareness I can’t say, but I do know that I can make control inputs faster than normal and have many times looked backed on a landing and said to myself “Man, how did I pull that one off?”
I know that I cannot sustain my “in the zone” feeling for more than a couple of minutes - it’s from 1,000 ft until touchdown. If you told me to maintain that level of alertness for 20 minutes I’d say it was impossible.
Is what you are talking about the same thing that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “Flow”? From what I understand, it results from an optimal, goal-directed balance between challenge and capability. Apparently he thinks it’s real and I’m not going to argue with him. But maybe you mean something else.
Ah Grasshopper, you now consider the confluence of Zen and sports.
Is there any evidence? The stopwatch tells no lies. I run a tenth (or more!) quicker if I am in “the zone”. I know it before I come back in the pits. Not because I felt “fast”, or “good” but because I was in the “zone.”
I’m afraid that is the end of the useful response I have in GQ format—one anecdotal data point.
On a more personal note, there are only two places in my life I have ever been completely relaxed, happy, dreamy-smiling, eyes drooping, with classical music playing in my head. One is in a hammock on a certain beach in the Bahamas. The other is screaming down the backstretch flat out in a race while I am in the “zone.” Though, for me, time is slowed to a crawl.
My own theory is that it is caused by an interesting balance of right brain/left brain, where the left side takes care of business, but, contrary to the extreme speeds and hurtling masses involved, is subjugated by the right side which directs you mainly via whim. Or so it feels. Better than sex it is, grasshopper.
Summary: I have personal experience being in “the zone.” There is objective evidence (lap times) that my performance improved. At the time, I had no way of knowing my times, yet I knew I was faster. I do not see how this could be a clouded perception as I knew I was better with no immediate feedback beyond the feeling.
I can’t open cynic’s link, so forgive me if this is redundant.
Stephen Jay Gould wrote an essay entitled “The Streak of Streaks.” (It is contained in his book “Bully for Brontosauras,” but has also appeared elsewhere.) In it he contends that all athletic hot streaks fall well within the bounds of normal statistical expectations. One run, however, seems to defy those odds and stands head and shoulders above the rest: DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak.
SJG is too windy and full of himself for my tastes, but it’s still a fun read.
That is a cool study, and a great post that fits your user name .
Thanks for the link.
The study looks fine as is, and is a great read for the OP. I’m not sure Tversky and Gilovich “get it” though. From my (one time through) reading, what I get from the study is that hitting one shot does not increase the likelihood of hitting the next shot, and that player cannot predict on a shot by shot basis in lab conditions if they are “hot” or not.
I don’t really think that a shot by shot basis is appropriate for a study on the entire concept of “the zone”. It IS appropriate for the question of whether a successful shot gives a confidence boost that increases the likelyhood of a subsequent successful shot, and, on those terms, I like the study.
The Zone exists for writers, as well. At least, it exists for me.
When I’m in the Zone, I have bursts of creativity while I’m writing. I can type as fast as my nerves will pulse and I can think as fast as I can type. I can see the path ahead of me very sharply, and a kind of disciplined breathlessness takes hold, a hot flame under complete control that propells me on a single course all the way through.
When I’m in the Zone, the outside world does not exist. I no longer have physical needs or discomforts, merely a slightly giddy warmness suffusing my whole body. I pay no attention to anything but the work at hand, focused down to the pinpoint of a rare frenzied focus.
Normally, I write in a somewhat relaxed way. I create my outline in one burst of creativity, nothing approaching the Zone but enough to keep me coming back to the trade, and then I approach writing as the mere fleshing out of a skeleton: Workmanlike, needing a certain skill and talent but not the mental wizardry the outline and basic inspiration both require.
Normally, I have a brief flame, transcribe it hurriedly into an outline, and spend the rest of my time expanding that. The Zone entails a constant flame, which I can transcribe directly into a finished product completely in stride. That’s the difference.
Count me as another anecdotal supporter of the Zone.
I grew up playing football and tennis on a regylar basis. At times, I found that I could put myself in the Zone and other times, it would just come on naturally.
The only way to describe it is that I had an amazing sense of everything around me. My vision was keen. I had absolutely perfect control over my muscles. My movements were fluid, graceful, and easy, not strained. Time seemed to slow down, and my opponents seemed to be going in slow-motion. I could accurately predict my opponents’ movements.
When I was in the Zone, my play was almost perfect.
I wonder how much of “The Zone” is really conditioned reflexes? A buddy of mine is ex-military, and he was telling me about the time that he was in a bar, when some nutter walked in and opened fire with an automatic or semi-automatic rifle. My buddy said that he flipped the table he was sitting at over and had thrown himself to the floor behind it before he knew what was going on.
In my own experience, there’s been times at work where I’ve rapidly performed several complex operations in less time than normal, without ever really bringing my mind to bear on the task. There certainly seems to be a “rhythm” that I hit, when condition’s are right, that enables me to perform better than I normally would, and, in fact, better than I should be able to. (It’s kind of hard to explain without going into massive detail, but one of my job’s at work is to print labels for cartons. Normally, there’s a limit [dictated by how the labelling machine works] that prevents you from entering more than one label at a time [you key in the info and the machine spits out a label a few seconds later], however, I’ve found that if I can get a really good rhythm going, I can actually get ahead of the machine such that after I stop keying in data, the machine will continue to spit out a good four or five more labels before it quits.)
I certainly seem happiest at those moments, and I really enjoy what I’m doing when it happens.
Neil Davis in his biography One Crowded Hour talks about being in the zone. He was perhaps the most famous combat cinematagrapher of the 60’s and 70’s and covered Viet Nam. He often talked about troops covering whoever was “hot” at the moment. Same thing. It was the guy that magically had “it” and the other troops all knew instinctively who had “it” and that following that guy just might get them out alive.
Neil goes into this a lot and he had a pretty long run of being in the zone before filming his own death in a Thai coup.
I had a very vivid occurrance once when bowling, of all things (I’m not much of a bowler). Suddenly, it was just so easy to throw strikes that I couldn’t miss. It felt like my body and mind were taken over by a professional bowler and I was just an observer - very strange. I threw about 15 strikes in a row. Unfortunately it was spread over two games, so no “300” for me. I felt it leaving, threw one more strike, and then it was spares the rest of the way.
Remember the all time worst episode of ST-TOS, Spock’s Brain, when Bones got the “teacher” and says “it’s child’s play”? Later, he feels it slipping away and can’t quite get it. My bowling experience felt exactly like that. Very weird.
I can recall a number of other experiences, whether writing, playing pinball, football, debating, driving, or other activities where I was clearly “in the zone”. It’s not simply a matter of a string of fortunate occurrances - there is a different “state of mind” that is strongly felt. For me it only lasts a few minutes. Perhaps for others it can last much longer.
Same thing happened to me, flex. I rarely bowl (maybe about 10 times in my entire life), and I’ve never been any good.
But one day in Chattanooga about 10 years ago, I felt something switch on in my brain. I just couldn’t stop getting strikes. In the end I got my 300, and sirens, flashing lights and stuff were going off all around the bowling alley. I had a huge crowd of regular bowlers gathered around me, and I heard a guy behind me say “Man, I’ve seen good bowlers before, but this guy is awesome!”
The next time I went bowling I didn’t even get a spare, and it has been thus ever since.
Count me in as more non-scientific evidence of “The Zone”. I play lacrosse and race motorcycles. There have been may lacrosse games where I am in “The Zone”. The ball looks like a beach ball, and the entire game moves in slow motion. I have time to identify the shooter and “see” where he will shoot. I can get in position to stop the shot well before the ball gets to me. This feeling usually lasts the entire game. On the other hand I also have occational games where the ball looks like a golf ball and I can’t stop shots to save my life.
In racing (or practice) I have experienced “The Zone” as well. It usually only lasts a few minutes, sometimes it will last for an entire sprint race, but not often. I can tell immediatly when I am in that state. My lines get better, things slow down and I just seem to have more time to think and process information.
I have noticed that my time in “The Zone” seems to be longer for lacrosse than racing. In lacrosse there tends to be relativly short periods of intense action followed by longer periods of relaxation as I’m waiting for the ball to get back to my side of the field and get into a position to be shot. In racing I am at full concentration for the entire time I am on the bike. I have also noticed that while adrenaline helps the effect “The Zone” is not totally dependant on it. I have been in “The Zone” doing fairly mundane things as well. At work I will sometimes get to the point where all of the problems I need to take care of seem simple, and I can think of answers that I would normally not think of. The effect does intensify with adrenaline, but so do most (if not all) of your sences. But there is nothing like being in “The Zone” and full of adrenaline.
Damn, gotta go race…
WARNING: ANECTDOTAL
I am no pro athlete, but I have felt “the zone” in basketball and track. I don’t think it is hyper-concentration as much as conditioned responses, where concentration is essentially reduced, and the body relies on senses and reactions. Decision making is subconscious, you move more smoothly and accurately, and you feel slightly detached from the activity. You KNOW the shot is going in, the next hurdle will be crossed perfectly, but you are not thinking of backspin on the basketball, or eyeballing the distances, your body just does it all. Once you start to dissect the action, it goes away. Kinda Zen-like.
Among pool players, this phenomenon is known as being “in dead stroke”. I have occasionally experienced it myself. There are times when I’m at the table where conscious thoughts of how much force and what, if any, spin to apply to the cue ball, and where to contact the object ball, simply disappear. Instead, I move from shot to shot almost as if in a trance while I pocket balls and the cue ball seems to find the correct position for the next shot. I do stop and survey the table occasionally while in this condition but, again, I am not consciously assessing the layout of balls or laying out an attack sequence on those balls, although that is happening at some level in my brain.
I believe this to be a result of years of playing pool – the constant repetition of mental and physical actions involved in analysing clusters and speads of balls and addressing the cue ball and figuring points of contact.
Unfortunately, “dead stroke” does not happen to me anywhere near enough to allow me to play pool as a profession. Damnit!
Serial successes (hot streaks) don’t necessarily produce flow although flow may create the mindset that can produce serial successes. Hot streaks are not necessarily indicative of a flow state; this is particularly true of professionals who are trained to be in a constant state of flow. A study like that would best be performed on amateurs. You can’t make any generalizations about anything from that study other than that which it explicitly measured.
