In our second meeting of our Social Foundations of Coaching class we discussed the article Flow in Sports by Susan A. Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. This article goes in depth into a state of mind that many athletes work and train to achieve in a time of competition. The authors describe the flow through nine different characteristics, challenge-skills balance, action-awareness merging, clear goals, unambiguous feedback, concentration on the task at hand, sense of control, loss of self-consciousness, transformation of time, and autotelic experience. These are the characteristics athletes have described experiencing while feeling as though they are in a state of flow during competition. To be in a state of flow an athlete does not have to experience all of these characteristics at once, because flow is different for every athlete, but often multiple forms of these characteristics are experienced by the athlete when in his or her own flow.
It is a goal of nearly all athletes to get themselves in a state of flow, groove, rhythm, or whatever they may refer to it as. But as the article explains it takes a nearly perfect set of circumstances to allow an athlete the opportunity to reach this level. The authors point out that a combination of challenges and skills need to be correct for the opportunity to exist. The area where the skills and challenges of the competition and athlete intersect must be opportune for flow to be achieved. If the challenge is too high or the skills of the athlete are too low in comparison to the opponent then the athlete will be unable to reach flow, because he or she will simply be out matched. Also, if the challenge is too low or the athlete is too far superior then flow will not be reached because the competition will not be enough to keep the focus of the player or athlete. However, when everything lines up and flow is achieved then that athlete will have been able to get to that ultimate level he or she has worked to reach.
Scott Martin, ND 2012
Social Foundations of Coaching
Notre Dame
