The zone state is NOT the goal
For many years I perpetuated the myth that the zone state was the ideal performance state and I tried to help players achieve it.
How wrong I was and it is not surprising that I failed!
It now seems to be clear that the zone cannot be the ideal performance state because it is accidental and ‘unconscious’. We cannot make it happen because it comes and goes on its own accord with a will of its own. So what good is it if we are a victim to its whims?
However, as we bring more and more attention to our body both on the court and off, the mind becomes more and more quiet. As the mind becomes more silent, we experience time differently. It seems like we have more time, but the reality is the time is the same.
Our experience is measurably different. When we focus on things outside of ourselves, panic and anxiousness can often set in, but if we can keep the attention on ourselves, everything changes. Try it. The ‘goal’ is not to lose yourself in the activity, but find yourself in the activity. To remember the doer in all doing!
The way we are off the court cannot be any different to the way we are on the court. If the mind is super active off the court, we are going to struggle with the same symptom on the court also.
The irony is the more we work on ourselves off the court, the better our on court performance will become because we are addressing the root.
However, if we address only the symptom on court, nothing will change. How can change happen by playing with the shadow?
explore, experiment, enjoy!