Playing In The Zone

The Zone
I can't remember exactly when I first heard the term. It denotes a place, as in the dictionary definition, but there is more to it than that. It calls up the imagery of the supernatural ("the twilight zone") and carries an implicit connection to altered states of consciousness (as in "zoned out" or "lost in the ozone"), a connection made explicit by less popular related terms: "He was playing out of his skin." "He went crazy." But “the zone,” with its rich ambiguity and layers of meaning, says it best. It is indeed a place, but a map won't get you there.

I believe these spells are fragile, where a bad call, a poor play, an injury, or some other minor disturbance might be enough to break your rhythm. When the spell breaks, you always experience a letdown because sometimes there is nothing you can do to bring it back.

While the term is recent, the experience it points to is not. My experience of that place, the place of uncontrollable actions, the place where things just happen without thinking, without hesitation: The "mystical, magical feeling" that would on occasions lift your action to what normally would be an unobtainable level: “Every so often a game would heat up so that it became more than a physical or even mental challange, and would be magical. The feeling is difficult to describe, and I certainly never thought about it much, maybe because it is hard to describe the feeling, or I had never experianced it, the elation, the absolute feeling of oh my god I can't miss. When it happened I could feel my play rise to a new level. At that special level all sorts of amasing things happened. It was almost as if I was playing in slow motion, playing a shot that normally would be unplayable, reacting to anything and everything without thinking. During this spell of unnatural ability I could almost sense how the next play would develop and where the next shot would be going. Even before my opponent hit the ball, I could react without thinking, covering every shot unconsciously.

While in the midst of it, I never sensed I was there. I was so intensely engrossed in the match, nothing else mattered, I felt nothing and was carefree, I lost all sense of being and time. At the completion of the match it was like, oh my god what happened, I hadn't realized I'd won, the game was over "I want to keep this going" oh my god that was awesome, it was better than the highest high, better than any drug. "I want it back".

Such moments come when they come, cherish the experiance, that moment in time, as you may never achieve it again.

When thinking back even now I still get excited about that moment in time and I wonder will I ever find the zone again.

Training To Play In The Zone

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