In my psychological coaching work with athletes in extreme sport, I differentiate the concept that I call ‘Rhythm’ with the concept used in Sport and Positive Psychology called ‘Flow.’ The athletes I work with do often call Rhythm their flow. So this can be confusing, sorry!
If you’re just interested in what I do, and not the underlying principles of Rhythm compared to Flow, none of this might matter, so no worries there. But if, like me, you want more detail and to dig into my approach and what makes it unique, then my aim is to make this informative, without going into too much depth.
Flow in Sport and Positive Psychology
The concept of ‘Flow’ or being in ‘the zone’ in Sport and Positive Psychology is very much attributed to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. He researched this phenomenon decades ago and came to some conclusions about what it is and how he suggests we can enter the state more easily and reliably to achieve what has been coined as ‘optimal experience.’
If you know about the subject, or decide to look into it more, you’d probably recognise a lot of of the features described below, particularly if you’ve been in ‘Flow’ yourself. Features of the experience include:
- you feel like you’re fully in the moment
- your actions flowing from one to the other like it’s automatic
- your perception of time changes
- you’re totally focussed on what you’re doing
This is all fine. I’m not here to debate the validity of ‘Flow,’ rather to distinguish it from my ‘Rhythm,’ but I do recommend caution about taking it at face value when it comes to extreme sports. Here are some reasons why:
The Ambiguity of ‘Flow’
The definition of Flow as taken from Wikipedia is as follows:
the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity.
Definition of Flow is psychology from Wikipedia
The triggers required for getting into ‘Flow’ are defined as:
(a) clear goals, immediate
feedback and the challenge/skills balance where both the task’s challenge and an individual’s skills are high(b) novelty, complexity, unpredictability, and insight
(c) risk
(d) deep embodiment or the hyper-awareness of cross sensory modalities, major
First few seconds for flow: A comprehensive proposal of the neurobiology and neurodynamics of state onset. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
intrinsic motivators such as curiosity, autonomy, passion, purpose and
mastery
Volume 143, December 2022
Within ‘Flow’ theory, these triggers are thought to be causal, so in effect the experience of all these together mean that you’re in a ‘Flow’ state.
When I read this list of triggers, I can’t help but feel they can apply to just about any experience in life, which, of course they do, because the theory of ‘Flow’ applies to any activity and all activities in our lives.
So the definition of both ‘Flow’ and its triggers are actually pretty vague and unclear. This is due to the methods and methodology used by many researchers in the field so far. This problem has been highlighted by researchers undertaking neuroscientific research into the underlying brain mechanisms involved in ‘Flow.’
My ‘Rhythm’ has entirely different roots
It’s impossible to suggest that the magical experience of being totally at one and absorbed in the moment isn’t a real experience. Given its common occurance then, it isn’t surprising to find it studied much further back in time, over 2000 years compared to modern psychology’s 50 years, and in different cultures.
There is another experience which has similar qualities, yet is fundamentally different to ‘Flow’ in many aspects. It is one that has been studied in great detail, not only in day-to-day life, but in contexts as extreme as martial arts and warfare.
In Chinese classical thought this is a way of being called Wu Wei. This is a state of smooth natural, efficient action with a curious mental state of thinking without thinking.
Wu Wei has incorrectly been likened to ‘Flow’ both in modern psychology and popular term.
In many senses, Wu Wei is the opposite of ‘Flow’ because it is not goal oriented, it does not constantly strive for greater achievement and complexity, and it does not demand immediate feedback. Yet it is seen as the foundation to sublime performance. Learning Wu Wei is an integral part of the process in becoming skilled, not a result of being highly skilled and challenged as in ‘Flow.’
In fact, it is essential in Wu Wei to learn not to continually seek challenge and reward. This is because seeking these things is counterproductive to optimal performance. In Wu Wei, there must be room for spontaneity,
A very important distinction between ‘Flow’ and Wu Wei is that ‘Flow’ is considered to be a cognitive state – i.e. mental – whereas in Chinese classical thought there is no difference between body and mind. Therefore, Wu Wei is a whole state of being. But even more importantly, this whole state of being includes the outside environment.
I began learning about Wu Wei around 20 years ago when I started learning the martial art, Tai Chi Chuan. I’ve been teaching Tai Chi students about it for about 8 years too. Tai Chi Chuan provides a methodised practise to cultivate Wu Wei. This methodised practise became an important element in my Master’s Degree in Psychological Coaching where my research project involved performance coaching with motorcycle racers.
I apply what I have learned about Wu Wei and its cultivation in all my performance coaching work. It is embedded in my approach to ‘Rhythm.’
Contexts of Flow
The original reasearch in ‘Flow’ was based on observations of people doing fairly ‘normal’ activities, like artists painting.
These observations noticed that artists, for example, could get totally absorbed in the activity, forgeting to eat, sleep and generally take care of themselves for very long periods of time, hours if not days.
The research of ‘Flow’ in sporting activities largely covers relatively low risk sports, like track and field athletics together with other fairly mainstream individual and team sports.
‘Flow’ has now come to be studied in just about every activity, including computer programming, web site design and more generally in business. ‘Flow’ is now being touted by some practitioners in psychology, coaching and business consultancy as the next shortcut or hack to hugely increased productivity across the business (this is something I’ll write about in another Blog-Article).
However, from the perspective of context, speeding around a race circuit at up to 200mph, or down a mountain on a mountain bike or pair of skiis at over 70mph, or flying a glider in thermals, are very different to losing yourself for hours painting a painting, playing chess, writing a book, or working at a desk.
It may seem obvious, but the perceptual challenges required to speed down a mountain bike trail, follow a Super-G course, or climb the beta on a cliff are very different because the perceptual input feeds different relationships with the environment and qualities of movement in the athlete. They’re also different from a perspective of intensity. These variations between activities demand various states of mind.
How Rhythm deals with Context
There are, of course, some similarities in the quality of the experience between day-to-day low risk activities and extreme sports, but the one thing that differentiates all these things, and therefore the overall state of mind, is context, or in other words, the environment.
As we’ve seen above, the focus, attention, and awareness you need when navigating dangerous environments at high speeds or height requires different states of mind. I know this personally because I have done all of the activities mentioned above myself in addition to my research with elite performers.
In my elite performance coaching services, we follow a process that explores the necessary features and qualities of your mental and physical experience doing the activity you are pursuing to find the ideal cocktail that makes up your ideal state of mind/s – well, actually we look at your whole state of being so it includes your body too.
For example, a MotoGP or World-cup Downhill Mountain Bike racer will, for instance, need a curious and slightly playful sense of Rhythm when walking the track to get to know it better, a focussed yet also playful feeling when completing practise runs to find the best lines. In MotoGP the rider will seek to find the best lines for qualifying as well as sets of lines for the race itself that provide a race Rhythm. For the Downhill Racer, it’s about preparing for one run on race day that lasts about the 5 minute mark.
It’s all in the mind in the Psychology of Flow
In traditional psychology, ‘Flow’ is of course all in the mind. So ‘Flow’ is essentially about fixing the way you think and also fixing the environment to help you think better and get into your ‘Flow.’ The theory actually suggests you don’t think about your environment to help ‘Flow’ but focus on what you think you control which what’s inside you.
This is partly because most of the field of psychology and neuroscience consider that we create our reality inside our minds.
Rhythm is not all in the mind
Drawing on Wu Wei and other schools of psychology that aren’t mainstream but still important – one of these schools of psychology was responsible for developing how fighter pilots become trained – is that Rhythm is not just in the mind and created by the mind, but outside in the environment to be found.
In being out there in the environment, the best athletes are those that get to feel, see, hear, and know the environment they’re navigating best and apply this to how they move through space.
My ‘Rhythm’ is about getting ‘outside’ the mind, reaching out into the world, which guides action.
Take Downhill Mountain Biking as an example. There is a track that winds its way down the mountain. The track will contain certain obstacles, both large and small, put there to make it more challenging for the riders. The track also winds through obstacles like trees. All this has to be navigated by each rider. The fastest way down the mountain is not created in the mind, but as a result of the rider carefully studying the track on foot followed by riding. Often, the track is broken down into shorter sections the rider might practise over and over again. This is done to get a feeling. Following observation, the riders see or sense lines that produce a feeling of rhythm, which they then test through their riding which produces a learning feedback loop to refine action.
To make this whole process more difficult a rider may have a plan for the race run with particular lines, but that has got to be held lightly because by the time they start their race run, the track could have completely changed because so many riders have already ridden the track. This is worst in wet conditions on mostly natural tracks. And so there has to be room for spontaneity!
‘Rhythm’ recognises that the state of mind required for these activities is really a continuum that varies depending on your activity and environment. It’s not a fixed state you switch on and off.
I also believe that ‘Flow’ as described in Sport and Postitive Psychology is something we only want in moderation – we need all the ‘other’ states to function highly across our whole lives, particularly rest, recuperation and nourishment. Flow is no magical pill and is unsustainable, despite what people in the industry might say about how it can boost performance.
What I call ‘Rhythm’ is both more nuanced and flexible. It’s less like a single channel you jump into in the hope you’re going to find the flow in there, but like a selection of Spotify playlists – a different one for different situations with different qualities. Through my coaching, you’ll explore the quality of your experiences to select the right playlist for your activity.
Fear
If fear is mentioned at all in the mainstream body of knowledge on ‘Flow’ it’s mentioned as something to be overcome, or as the opposite of ‘Flow.’
In my experience, fear is an essential component to peak performance in extreme sport – it is actively used by the best in the world to guide their actions. Without fear, performance would be reduced as opposed to enhanced and it would lead to reckless engagement in the activity.
Fear is also an essential emotion that connects us to our environment.
In what I call ‘Rhythm’ fear is embraced as a positive and essential emotion, that can act as a guardian angel. We spend time developing a healthy relationship with fear to enhance your performance and Rhythm.