Sport Zone

Over the years, I have counseled many bowlers. I have showed them how they can get into the zone before they release their ball and roll it down the lane. I also teach them what they can do when they
get nervous, lose their confidence and start to feel themselves slipping out of the zone.

Bowlers, like shooters and archers really can control the outcome of their performances. The only variable they have to contend with once they dial into the zone is the differences between the two lanes which they are competing on. As all bowlers know, lanes have different tracks and different breaks and the amount of oil on the surface can vary from one lane to another.

Also, unlike some other sports they are not competing directly against their opponents and they can not control what their opponents might do. They can, however, control the relationship between themselves, the ball, the lane and the pins.

Bowlers who I coach, master the art of placing themselves into a state of mind which we call “the zone.” This “zone” resembles a hypnotic state where the athlete is totally absorbed in what he or she is trying to do with the ball and with their bodies. He or she is confident, focused and relaxed. They are zeroed in on their spot or their line. They tend to be optimistic and believe that their bowling dreams and goals can become realities. The release of the ball is effortless and automatic and they don’t have to think too much about it. While in the zone, bowlers find it easy to replicate their stroke over and over again. They get into a machine like rhythm.

Choking can be thought of as being the opposite of being in the zone. I do all I can to help bowlers avoid this dreaded state of mind and I teach them techniques to manage choking if they start to lose their confidence and focus or if they become too tense to perform to their potential.

For instance, some bowlers have to change what they think and what they say to themselves prior to stepping on the lane. Some need to change their target. Frequently, when bowlers feel the pressure, they speed up their approach a bit. This can damage their timing, their leverage, their accuracy and their score.

Typically, bowlers begin to combat choking by learning one simple technique or by making one simple change which gets their mind and their body away from choking and on to the right path for performing to their potential.

The purpose of this essay is to explain the “zone” or “flow” phenomenon experienced by athletes when playing sport. Athletes experiencing, ‘zone phenomenon’ has been well documented by sports psychologists and other professionals who have studied sporting non-sporting related zone experiences. This article is concerned with sport and will claim that a lack of reflective awareness on the part of professional athletes while playing sport will invariably lead to a zone or flow response.

Reflective awareness for the purposes of this article means to think about what one is experiencing. Reflective awareness can also be referred to as a ‘what it is like?’ experience. The explanation will be done by way of comparing two arguments. The first argument presented is the ‘Philosophical Zombie’ and the second is the ‘Tennis Playing Zombie’.

Before comparing any arguments it is important to establish what ‘reflective awareness’ or ‘what it is like?’ experiences are.This is because such experiences are the basis of any zombie argument. ‘What it is like?’ experiences are those experiences which create a unique mind events or personal thoughts. In other words, the physical brain generates non-physical mind events as a consequence of operating in a physical world.

Zombies on the other hand are able to by-pass these types of human thoughts They interact with their environment in a type of action/reaction system. This is not unlike some of the state of the art experimental robots which have sensorimotor circuits which give them sensation and perception. This allows them to perform mundane tasks which make use of feedback and analysis systems. A zombie or a robots approach to a task which they are capable of is always necessary and sufficient. Therefore, playing “in the zone” means as far as humanly possible to play without reflective awareness. In essence, to play like a zombie.

The philosophical zombie argument is found in many articles and journals on philosophy. The philosophical zombie is a fictitious creatures used in thought experiments to draw out the distinction between automated action from conscious thought. While zombies are fictional creatures which lack consciousness, the tennis playing zombie is a real character; more specifically they are professional athletes who have ‘philosophical zombie experiences’ while in the zone. As there is no precedent for a tennis-playing zombie it will be explained in greater detail. Both arguments will be treated in turn.

The Philosophical Zombie Argument

A philosophical zombie is an animated imaginary being that is like us in every way, except in its inability to undergo conscious experience. The philosophical zombie is the work of various schools of philosophy, who created it to highlight the nature of consciousness and its relationship to the physical world. It can also explore the possibility of how other creatures, sentient or otherwise, might think.

As far as the zombie argument is concerned it is assumed that zombies, if the existed, they would not be able to appreciate such things as beautiful sunsets, winning a tennis match, or drinking fine wine. It is important to note that appreciating such sensations is very different to simply having them. It is assumed that all zombies can experience sunsets in the same way, but the subtle difference lies in the claim they would not appreciate such experiences because they are incapable of subjective consciousness. In other words, they cannot have ‘What it is like?’ experiences.

If we were to call our zombie an ‘abomination of nature’ he may act hurt and offended, but in reality he would be neither. He cannot actually be hurt or offended because his emotions are a by-product of the physical process. Zombies are epiphenomenalist; their thoughts and feelings are a by-product of the brain. A thermometer reading 100 degs. C., when placed in boiling water is a by-product of water boiling. The thermometer, regardless of what it reads has no effect on the temperature of water. In a similar fashion a zombie reacting to events in the physical world may produce thoughts and feelings, but these in no way determines his present or future actions.

Unlike zombies, humans take their thoughts seriously. Our thoughts usually initiate some type of action, we can ponder them and sometimes they can drive us to distraction. We often find it difficult to ignore them. Just how seriously we take our thoughts and how they affect our actions can be explored through the tennis playing zombie.

The Tennis Playing Zombie is not an imaginary being; it is a modern, elite sportsperson who has an uncanny knack of playing to the best of their ability nearly every time they step out onto the court. Unlike the philosophical zombie they are sentient beings, but like the philosophical zombie they operate on automata because they don’t have, ‘what it is like?’ to play tennis experiences while on court.

All elite tennis players have awareness when they are playing. When they walk out onto the court it would be hard to ignore the crowd or the sense of occasion, and in some cases this may lead to a realization of, ‘I know what it is like to be nervous’. It also goes without saying that it is necessary to be aware of what is happening on court while playing. All players know what it is like to hit a winner or loose a crucial point. The problem for most players is that while awareness is a general state of being it is sometimes difficult to choose what to and what not to reflect on. However, it will be shown that it is not only possible not to reflect on anything, it is actually best sporting practice. Zombies are aware of what is happening around them, but don’t reflect on thoughts and experiences.

All elite players know that negative emotions can affect performance, while others have recognised that too much positive emotion can also negatively affect performance, if allowed to linger on too long. They seem to instinctively know that taking their thoughts too seriously while on court can stop them from producing their best.

The ideal mental state for an elite performer is to become an epiphenomenalist while on court. In other words, they must be able to view their thoughts as a by-product of the physical activity in which they are engaging in. Just as steam is a by-product of boiling water, thoughts should be allowed to drift away like steam evaporating in the air. As a tennis-playing zombie the athlete has been trained in the physical requirements and specialized techniques needed to play tennis at its highest level. Elite players don’t need or want the distractions of, ‘what it is like?’ experiences while playing. Some athletes have shown frustration with such experiences and have claimed that the conscious mind is a hindrance rather than a help when trying to perform at an optimal level. Instead they try for a performance brought on by adequately reacting to a situation without the need to think about what they are doing. They want their actions to be largely automatic.

I am of the opinion that elite tennis players who can achieve this are for all intention purposes, tennis-playing zombies. But how are sentient beings able to stop reflecting and become zombies while they are playing sport? Elite players don’t have to reflect upon how to play their shots. Long practice sessions and may matches have ensured players don’t have stop and think how to produce a serve or backhand. In fact, once committed to “muscle memory” the mechanics can be difficult to change.

This however does not solve the problem of ‘what it is like?’ experiences. No matter how well drilled a players shots are they can still suffer from nerves and anxiety which will inhibit a zone like performance. What is required is a “blank” or “neutral” mind which will facilitate a direct link between perception and action. The automatic performance of an action without the need for cognition is know in sports psychology as an ecological model of performance (Hardy et.al., 2003). I am of the opinion that a blank mind satisfies the ecological criteria even though there is no evidence to support this claim. The reason for this may lie in the fact it doesn’t seem possible for anyone to play sport without drawing on their cognitive powers. In other words, it is impossible to play with a blank mind. Or is it?

The Tennis Playing Zombie Argument

Tennis player (A) dislikes tennis player (B), both on and off the court. They are drawn to play each other in a singles match. The first time (A) comes to the net (B) sizes the opportunity and drives the ball straight at him. (A) becomes very angry because he sees this as a deliberate attempt by (B) to injure him. Player (A) begins to boil over with rage; it is all he can do to stop himself jumping the net and having it out with (B). As a result his skills are dramatically affected and he loses the match.

If we were to as (A) ‘what it feels like’ to play (B), he might liken it to a war. He doesn’t like the ball being driven straight at him and he can’t stand the smirk on (B’s) face when he hit’s a winner past him. Next week (A) plays (C) in a game of singles and exactly the same thing happens when (A) finds himself at the net. Because (A) believes (rightly or wrongly) that (C) is his friend, he interprets this as an accident and both are able to laugh the incident off. (A) has a very different experience, given the similarity of situations. The scenario thus far suggests that, ‘what it is like to be in a situation?’ is very much a subjective experience. However, this is about to change dramatically for the embattled tennis player.

The next time (A) has to play (B) again, he knows that he should easily beat his opponent, but fears that personal feelings will get in the way of a strong performance. Indeed, there appears no way he can win. (A) laments his predicament into the sympathetic ear of (C). As luck would have it (C) is an expert in mindfulness meditation and suggests to (A) that he needs to change the way he thinks on the tennis court. (C) explains that from what (A) has told him thus far he clearly needs to adopt a right mindfulness approach to tennis. Right mindfulness involves a focused awareness towards present circumstances. By focusing on the immediate one can begin to minimize unpleasant experiences. One can change the circumstances by clearing the mind and thinking about nothing. The mind has a habit of chatting away to itself, especially if we are in a stressful situation. The chatter is even louder when things are going badly for us. (A) acknowledges that he can relate to this.

(C) explains that the challenge for mindfulness meditation is to view these thoughts as being totally irrelevant to what is happening at the moment. If we really want to we can let these thoughts evaporate into nothingness. If these thoughts are fleeting and change from time to time why do we persist to hang on to them? What is required is a concentrated focus on an object whereby we observe the object as having no intrinsic qualities. In other words, we try to experience the object in the immediate present. (C) explains that this is like staring into a fire and becoming entranced by the flickering flame, we become entranced by the changing nature of the flame. A flickering flame appears totally chaotic therefore it is our fascination with the fleeting present state of the flame that makes us concentrate on it. (A) protests that this is of no use to him while playing tennis.

(C) explains that no formal meditation procedure is required. All (A) should be doing is concentrating on the immediate present. This is can be as simple as concentrating on one’s breathing patterns. It is also possible to turn our attention outward towards the tennis environment and focus on a single object such as the net. This will help clear the mind of all thoughts because we are passing no judgments on what we are focusing or concentrating on.
Again, (A) protests that this is still of now value while playing. Tennis is a fast moving game which requires rapid shifts in terms of focus. We need to look at our opponent, look at the ball then look at the ball hitting the racquet. We also need to look where are are running on the court. Just staring at the net makes no sense at all.

(C) suggests that (A) tries an alternative to just focusing on one single object. (C) knows that passive meditation practiced with an unfocused gaze can lead to the mind becoming defused. This is somewhat like,’staring into space’ The idea is that the mind cannot cope with an overload of visual input. An unfocused gaze forces the mind to try recognize every object within a wide visual field. If (A) stares at the net with an unfocused gaze he will notice not only the net but everything within his peripheral vision. The result is a numbing of the thought process for the duration of the gaze if (A) can make an effort to notice everything at once.Any chattering in the mind would immediately cease. An unfocused gaze will lead to everything looking slightly fuzzy in visual terms because there is no one object of focus, we are trying look at as many things as possible all at once. (C) is of course aware that when playing tennis (A) needs to focus on the ball or his opponent, but he thinks that if (A) gives this aspect of the game as little time as possible it will work. When (A) is hitting the ball over the net or receiving the ball he will automatically focus on the ball; no conscious effort in this regard is required. However, as soon as there is a break in play between points he will attempt to give the whole tennis environment equal visual status once again. His aim should be to create a mind that is blank, or as close to lacking consciousness as possible, for as long a possible.

(C) thinks that wide use of the gazing technique will lead to, ‘what it is like?’ experiences being severely limited. There should be no what it is like to hit a winner, lose a important point or play someone you don’t like; all experiences will have a similar character about them. There will be nothing to reflect upon only concentration on a process. After the match it will be interesting to get (A’s) opinion on what it was like to play this way.

(A’s) account might read something like this: ” I didn’t have any ‘what it is like?’ experiences- it all seemed the same”. When asked how long he had been playing for, his response might be, “It’s difficult to say how much time I spend out on the court. Time seemed to slow down, or was irrelevant in any case. I had almost a loss of self-consciousness, because I was fully immersed in what I was doing”. And how did that feel? “It was quite pleasurable; it was like I was thinking just one thought-”play the entire time”. How would you rate your game? “the whole experience was more objective than subjective, it was a bit like being a tennis-playing zombie…”

Such a recount of playing tennis is very similar to what professional sportspeople classify as playing “in the zone” or having a “flow experience”. Now (A) has a very convoluted way of getting into the zone but professional sportspeople are able to slip into the zone easily and at will. They have to- their livelihood depends on it.

A study by (Young, in 1999) confirmed the findings of earlier studies by (Cooper, 1998 and Loeher,1995) that “the zone” or “flow experience” is a universal phenomenon, regardless of the sports involved. When it comes to playing in the zone, there is no ‘what it is like to play tennis?’, ‘what it is like to play basketball?’ or ‘what it is like to play any other sport?’ All sports have an uncanny similarity when it comes to experiencing them in the zone.

Universal zone experiences are a case for ” the zombie experience”, how else can we explain such a similarity of experiences regardless of the sport or the professionals involved? Philosophical Zombies experience the world in the same way just as professional sportspeople experience sport in the same way. Sportspeople express a strong affinity with what they are doing. There is an awareness that the mind and the environment are merging into a reciprocal relationship (automatic by-passing of the cognitive process). This is because athletes are operating without the need for reflective awareness. This is one explanation as to why athletes are able to carry out a procedure, but later on are unable to give an explanation as to how they managed to do it. In other words, there was no ‘what it is like experience?’, so elaboration becomes difficult.

The tennis player would also not be able to articulate the experience of a single on-court item, he/she was becoming increasingly unaware of their environment because they were in a non-reflective state of mind. We could ask said player, ” was it a satisfying experience playing in the zone?” No doubt they would answer in the affirmative, but this is only upon reflection after the match. They don’t actually think, or more to the point, don’t try and think, ‘this is fun’ while they are playing. Once a player starts reflecting on what is happening, there is a danger of slipping out of the zone because they are having a, ‘what it is like?’ experience.

The “zone’ or ‘flow’ experience is a universal state of mind which is best described as a state of mind which lacks reflective awareness. It has been stated that a lack of reflective awareness enables the athlete to a direct link between perception and action thus by passing the cognitive process. The advantage of by-passing the cognitive process would be that it allows for a more rapid processing of environmental information. (Hardy et. al., 2003) Like the tennis playing zombie a better performance is possible through doing what is necessary and efficient without having to think about it.

An obvious criticism of the tennis playing zombie is that human players might need to change their pregame strategy while actually playing. In other words, if things are not going to plan they might have to monitor what is happening and then think about implementing a different strategy. However, this is not necessarily the case. Sports psychologists make us of hierarchical model of cognitive control to explain automatic motor performance without the need for conscious awareness. The idea is that higher level processing indirectly controls lower order operations. When engaged in sporting competition athletes do think about things from time to time, if only because they are human. However, for most of the time they trust their motor system to do what is necessary in terms of mechanics. It seems that necessary adjustments are implemented as a motor response rather than a cognitive response.(Hardy et.al.,2003). Interestingly enough this is in spite of the fact that they come from higher level processing.

Conclusion

The arguments presented thus far points to the fact that it is possible to play tennis without recourse to cognition, provided the mind can be induced into a neutral or blank state while actually undertaking the performance.A blank mind appears to be able to channel higher order perception into controlling motor action without a recourse to cognition. Such an achievement I believe is conducive to achieving a “zone’ or “flow” response. Passive on court meditation is only one of any number of way that it is possible to induce a blank state of mind. No doubt athletes have their own methods that they have developed over time.The advantage of by-passing the cognitive process is exactly the same advantage afforded to any zombie. Zombies can’t get nervous or anxious regardless of how stressful a situation may seem to a human. Zombies are shielded from stress and anxiety by their lack of ability to reflect upon a situation. Athletes who shield themselves from such experiences by a blank mind approach give themselves the best opportunity to ‘cross-over’ into the zone.

Do you love bowling? Are you pro or do you bowl in a league or two a few nights a week? Do you love the feeling of seeing the ball in the one-three pocket? Can you feel a strike ball the second it leaves your hand? Do you know what it is like to bowl in the zone and get on a roll? Do you hate seeing a high ball knowing that you will face a split? Don’t you hate it when you miss a seven pin or a ten pin?

Once you master the mechanical and physical techniques that are involved in bowling, this sport becomes quite mental. That is, once you know how to roll the ball, hit your marks, keep your rhythm and your balance the game becomes quite psychological.

Over the years, I have counseled many bowlers. Some have been recreational bowlers and others have been professionals. I have used hypnosis, guided imagery, relaxation training, confidence building techniques, focusing techniques and motivational strategies to help them achieve their long term goals and their short term goals.

Some want raise their average. Some want to earn their living on the lanes. Some bowlers want to be stars in their weekly leagues. Others want to avoid choking when the pressure is on.

In counseling these bowlers, I tend to learn a great deal about their personalities, their dreams and their approach to the game. Believe it or not, many of them have very different things running through their mind when they step up to the lane and get their fingers into their ball.

Some bowlers are target oriented. Others are more technique oriented. Some enjoy the pressure and the crowds. Others like to feel alone, centered and focused on the lanes. They like feeling that they are in their own cocoon of concentration. The mental training I do with them is about getting them into the ideal state of mind to perform to their fullest potential.

One of the very important decisions I help my clients make is whether or not they want to watch their opponents bowl. They also need to decide if they want to watch the score or not. Some players do better attending to the competition and some do better bowling in a physical and psychological vacuum.