Beyond Excellence in Sports: Flow by Choice Not Chance

Today Jeff talks with Scott Ford, author of Integral Consciousness in Sport: Unifying Body, Mind and Spirit Through Flow.

Scott, an elite tennis coach for decades, is at the leading edge of thinking and practices for enhancing athletic performance. He has mapped out a five-stage developmental sequence of athletic performance, the first three of which are familiar:

1. Learn the rules, tools and techniques
2. Strategies and tactic for winning
3. Mental/emotional training for self-excellence

Stage 3, online for less than 50 years, is where many elite athletes function today.

But it is at stage 4 and 5 that things get more interesting. At these higher stages we are working with flow or the zone, that elusive state where the player and the game merge. This “subject / object collapse” is what Scott calls “flowing presence” and is the gateway not just to greater performance, but to a profound enjoyment and fulfillment in the act itself.

Scott is also a founding member of the Sports, Energy and Consciousness Group, a collective of doctors, psychologists, scientists, world-class athletes and leading-edge coaching, which is having its third annual conference in San Rafael this July.

In this podcast Scott offers a specific practice for entering flow, which is applicable for “in the zone” performance in all aspects of life.