Zone

To be in the zone is an accepted concept in modern sports psychology that dates from the late 1970s. It is not known who coined the expression but Ted Williams, a famous baseball player, and Arthur Ashe, the tennis player, are both claimants according to their biographers. These claims, however, have not been proven. Being in the zone is a heightened state of consciousness and determination to perform at one’s maximum ability. Sports psychologists have identified the following characteristics of being in the zone, across a variety of different sports: clear goals and instant feedback assimilation, balance between challenges and skills, action and awareness merged, extreme concentration and control, loss of self-consciousness and altered sense of time together with self-rewarding experience. There you are. Next time you hear that a sports person is in the zone; he or she is apparently performing all or some of the foregoing functions at the same time.