ABSTRACT
Coined originally in 1990 by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to describe the state many call the ‘‘natural high,’’ flow has been studied systematically over the years with a view to identifying its characteristics and the conditions under which it can be achieved. The term’s origin is the Germanic Flo, meaning flood. In everyday parlance, of course, flow refers to a smooth procession
or movement, a yielding, stream-like pouring, or a gushing, abundant supply of something, such as blood, money, or electric current. Essentially, this is its meaning in physical activity: a mental state in which a performance seems to move by itself without any undue effort from the individual, who experiences a number of sensations, all of which combine to produce a flow. In many senses, the experience closely resembles what athletes call the ZONE. Paul Silvia emphasizes how flow experiences involve a reduction of
SELF-AWARENESS: ‘‘Flow states usually involve feelings of competence, unawareness of time, blurring of boundaries between SELF and environment, and pleasant affective states.’’ Features 1: Conceptual. Csikszentmihalyi later collaborated with
Susan Jackson to formalize the concept in Flow in Sports: The Keys to Optimal Experiences and Performances. As the title suggests, there is a relationship with experience and performance: if one is optimal, the other should correspond. Jackson and Csikszentmihalyi delineated nine features of flow. These are:
(1) A balance between a performer’s PERCEPTION of challenge of a situation and the performer’s SKILL (the C-S balance): The task must extend the performer without being impossibly difficult.
