Just the other day, I borrowed a basketball from the security guard and walked over to the nearby park. Shooting hoops helps get my mind off things so it made me feel very relaxed, much more than I was before I borrowed the ball.
For some reason, I was just unable to miss for a good few minutes and I felt like I was tapping into flow state while playing sports for the first time in a while. This nearby Arab kid came over and asked me something in German, which I politely but awkwardly responded with “English?”
This kid thought about it and conjured up “one v one?” I didn’t really want to do anything more than move my arms at the time so I asked him if he wanted to play some HORSE. He didn’t understand what I meant so I just pseudo sign-language communicated my way into taking turns shooting.
All was good and I felt pretty relaxed balling with this random kiddo until this German kid and her friend kicked a football way off mark. Before I could really process the situation, my body acted on its own to intercept the ball. I somehow intercepted the ball midair with my weak foot, was able to control it perfectly, and sent it back right back to where the kids were on the field.
I was genuinely surprised how smoothly I pulled that off. It was like since the situation dictated someone to save the ball from bouncing over the short fence and into the traffic, I was instinctually able to control a football. That definitely gave me some rep boost at the local playground, but it really showed how flow state pushes me to do things I didn’t know I could do when I need to show off in front of a bunch of grade schoolers.
This made me think back to a chapter of a manga called Blue Lock I read a couple months ago. Ego, essentially the coach of the players, basically says they’re all at their physical limits, so the only difference that’s left is being in “flow” state. Ego shows this exact diagram they show on page 74 that’s still in my head today.
This literally reflects what happened at the playground that day. I had skills much higher than the challenges demanded of me so I was relaxed but admittedly bored (A2). Then a challenge appears, to intercept the ball that’s closest to my weak foot rapidly approaching my direction while bouncing on uneven terrain. That moment, my skills were barely just in range for the challenge posed to me, thus I was able to visit the flow channel (A4).
It’s not that flow is an unfamiliar feeling or concept to me, but it truly does surprise me when my body is able to do something I wasn’t able to visualize in my own head before it happened. I was also really surprised to see the concept of the “invisible hand” be brought up on the topic of flow. As an econ student back in high school, I’m all too familiar with the invisible hand and yet I never realized how well it applies to this flow state when you visualize it using this exact flow chart.
And no, I didn’t get a standing ovation from the kids for stopping their ball. They just said a timid “danke” and continued kicking the football.