Last June I found myself next to the mother-in-law of one of the world's best volleyball players. She commented on the extreme amount of focus the young woman had during the match. Only what was necessary, but in great depth and richness. I found myself wondering if she was in a state of flow. A few years earlier I talked with another very high level player about his perception of time during a match. He mentioned times when time seemed to run slowly and he had almost a detached sense of self. He "knew" exactly where the other three players were and how they were moving even though he could only see one of them.
I've been told I'm very good at focusing. Sukie tells me when I'm really thinking I'm often in a strange posture on the rug or in a chair and unresponsive - "about like a petit mal seizure except it goes on for ten minutes to an hour." Sometimes when I'm walking with someone talking about an exciting idea just it and the conversation remain. A couple of times my walking partner has saved me from traffic. And sometimes I draw in the air on an imaginary sheet of paper or slate board sometimes going back to look at what I've written or even change it. It doesn't happen all the time, but often enough. During the deepest times time goes all wonky and there's a feeling of perfection I find difficult to give words to. I take this to be the type of flow Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes. It's usually presented in terms of skiing a perfect line with time moving very slowly, but a variety of types have been proposed. A few days ago I experienced it thinking about the sound of the skater on thin black ice.
Watching the video I was taken by the sound - questions began to form. Soon I was almost flying across the ice striking it with a blade of my skate here and then as I glided along. The scene was like that of the video, only the strides were longer. I heard the swishing sound of tiny bits of ice being thrown by the blade's motion. I imagined the blade, warm with friction, gliding on the three or four molecule thin layer of liquid water on the surface. No strange sound yet. I looked at a single stride starting and the blade came down on the ice. The collision of steel and ice produced a strong short impulse that shook the thin ice layer. I saw the vibrations in its frequency domain - a very rich and wide range of acoustic frequencies all color coded ranging from blue for the highest pitches to yellow for the lowest (a mental Fourier Transform of the impulse). The vibrations made their way out though the clear solid crystal ice lattice and I watched as a ring of acoustic energy advanced outward on the surface at the speed of sound in ice. All of this in very slow motion. Think of the ring as a flattened doughnut. As it moved out it separated into a partial rainbow from blue at the outer to a yellow inner edge. The separation from outer to inner edge increased as the ring moved grew. My mind had factoring in frequency dispersion of sound in ice. As these rings moved outward from each skate strike, now I was above myself watching the rings expand and move towards the shoreline they shook air molecules hard enough to make a sound loud enough to complete the journey. Now I was standing on the shore watching the ring expand towards me and listening for a sound. It struck the shore and shook the air making its way to me. I heard the sound and with it had a hypothesis. There was enough information to say something about the frequency dispersion in ice and I tested it in my mind by throwing a rock out where it could make a similar impulse. Should you find some thin black ice try tossing a rock out onto it - at least fifty feet or so - and listen. You should hear it.
When the living room came back into focus I realized about ten minutes had passed. It felt like a few seconds. The image of the flow was still very clear and now I could think about it numerically. Often it's an exhilarating feeling - joy and delight come to mind.
There are undoubtedly many methods to encourage flow. I wonder if that's what a skier is doing as she visualizes a run? It's rather intense play and it can be structured or unstructured. I'm no artist, but like to draw imagines I see and hear. Early in the morning I draw for awhile . An alarm pulls me out if I get carried away. Sometimes it stimulates flow, but I think it also improves my ability to link different ideas ... to think differently. For me this usually works best after physical exercise.
Flow can occur in groups. Again this is a discussion where athletes probably have much to say. I suspect elite beach volleyball teams are examples and much has been made of the communal problem solving nature of the Norwegian men's ski team at this year's Olympics. I've seen it in very small groups where the participants know each other very well. It's not brainstorming (brainstorming has a well deserved poor reputation), but rather a form of play among experts. It's well understood there are stupid ideas, but it's the idea that is stupid rather than the person. In my experience these groups tend to be self selecting. The best ones have very diverse individuals. They're are a big reason why those people love doing what they do.
I've seen them come together for general as well as specific tasks. Everyone really wants to get something done - in a sense everyone's rowing in the same direction. I've seen them in music, art, the "hard" sciences, engineering and sports and suspect that's a tiny fragment of what can be.
I've seen dozens and dozens of teams that stand no chance of ever getting there. Putting together such teams takes insight that goes beyond experience. The few I've put together were laced with passion.
So a definition... Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and others have formal descriptions. For me it's the verb of a playground and the tools and experiences you've built to find delight in focus and depth.
A favorite Feynman quote (it applies to many other endeavors):
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.”
Jheri asked about how universal visualization is as part of flow. I really don't know. In my case it is very visual. although my vision has sound mixed in. It also has physics and math bolted on. For many types of investigations is much better than any computer visualization I've seen. Much more flexible and intuitive. When you get working with information and are up to your waist in detail - that's when you use computers.
She asked how does flow work in the blind.. I have no idea. That's a fascinating question. I'm also very curious about athletes. It must involve motion of themselves and others at some very deep level and probably incorporates other senses (of the 20 plus some senses we have). I'd love to hear from an athlete who experiences it regularly.
Posted by: steve crandall | 02/18/2018 at 03:42 PM