ON INTEGRAL COACHING

There is something important going on in sports these days.  It deals directly with the evolution of consciousness through sports, but not just sports in the normal way we play them.  Rather, the evolution of consciousness through sports played “in the zone.”  Sports played in a flow state. 

Exactly how playing your sport in a flow state works on the evolution of consciousness needs explanation, but for starters, your normal performance state and your peak performance state involve different “states” of consciousness.  Gross consciousness in your normal performance state; integral consciousness in your peak performance state, and these different states of consciousness can be experienced at different stages of consciousness – different stages of development.

These stages of development can be seen in the graphic as they relate to coaching and competitive consciousness.  It’s important to know that integral consciousness and flow can be experienced at all of these stages of development, yet it has not been until the emergence of integral coaching practices that flow can be experienced intentionally at all of these stages of development, and in every sport you play.

Keyword: Intentionally. 

Historically, playing in the zone has always been seen as a random occurrence, an experience over which we have no control.  In other words, the peak performance experience of playing in the zone comes over us by chance, not by choice.  But that conventional understanding of flow is rapidly changing as this new stage of integral coaching shows that flow can be taught and learned, intentionally, at any stage of athletic development.

Where earlier models of conventional coaching stop at the intentional production of flow, the emerging models of integral coaching start with the intentional “co-creation” of flow.  You see, playing in the zone is not just an experience of your peak performance state; it is actually the co-creation of a whole new performance reality that comes from a direct connection of your body-mind to the flowing present dimension, and this body-mind connection can be intentionally activated, thus intentionally co-creating the peak performance state of flow. 

Flow, at its core, is nothing more than being in the present; nothing more than the reality of the here and now.  Nothing more – and nothing less.  From the perspective of competition, flowing presence can be seen as the key to peak performance in any sport, in any activity, at any age or skill level, and at any stage of development.  There is no higher athletic experience than playing our sport in the zone. 

But there are so many lesser experiences.  And our normal performance reality belongs to this lesser category.  Lesser because our normal performance experience is not the fully-potentiated reality of flow.  Our normal performance experience is a partially-potentiated reality – still a co-created reality, but one whose asymmetrical structure and process prevents its unfolding as a fully-potentiated experience.

What makes playing in the zone the ultimate athletic experience is the underlying symmetry of its structure and process as it unfolds in a fully-potentiated experience of the here and now.  Call it flow, call it the zone, call it the ideal performance state, but whatever you call it, what you are experiencing is the full boat.  Nothing more can be put into the here and now, because it already contains everything you are capable of experiencing.  This is not to say that you cannot or will not experience more in the future.  It’s just to say that playing in the zone will always occurs in the flowing presence of the here and now, and to make it happen by choice and not by chance, all you have to do is connect your mind and your body to the flowing present dimension.

There is nothing more.

But there is oh, so much less.

A CURIOUS RIDE

So much of what the PMP is about has to do with an awareness of a different performance reality.  Yes, we call at the zone, or flow, or the peak performance state.  But it’s so much more than “getting in the zone.”  So much more than just playing better or winning more often – although that’s the main reason people want to learn how to intentionally get in the zone.  Most people think of the zone as a means to an end.  A process that will give them a better outcome.  And they would be right.  Playing in the zone often gives you a better outcome. But winning more often is only one of the reasons players want to get in the zone.  There are other reasons: excellence, full potential, self-actualization, just to name a few.  Perhaps it’s just curiosity; it doesn’t matter.  What matters is that athletes want to see what this “zone thing” is all about.

So we show them, and the zone experience is magnetic.  Once people experience it, they inevitably want more.  But the deeper question is why – why do people always want more of this flow state experience?  What is it about flow that always calls people back for more?  Yes, they always play better when they are in the zone, and that might be the primary reason they come back for more, but there is a deeper reason that has to do with far more than just checks in the win column.  Something so deep that unless you stand outside the whole flow process, you cannot see it working.  Something that underlies the human capacity for co-creating a flow state, and that something is an evolutionary drive towards greater wholeness.

Flow is human wholeness in action, not just playing better, but playing whole.  And in that wholeness, if even for the span of a few minutes, evolutionary tracks are laid down.  Tracks that pave the way for creative advance at whatever our stage of development.  One person “in the zone” doesn’t seem like much in the grand pattern of the cosmos.  But that one person in a state of flow is also one person in a 1-to-1 relationship with that grand pattern itself.  And those 1-to-1 tracks, however small and insignificant they might seem, are tracks of oneness with the cosmos; tracks of wholeness laid down in the present that will have momentous effect on the future.

What flow brings to the evolutionary picture is not just peak performance, but rather a higher-order reality in which everything is different; all that was is included in all that now is, but in order to live this higher-order reality, one must transcend their normal reality and all its limitations.  Not an easy sell in this age of rampant narcissism and virtual reality.  The higher-order reality of flow is about as far from virtual as you can get.  It’s real, and it’s a reality that lies within the reach of all human beings, because it is a reality that already and always lies within all human beings. More exactly, a fully- potentiated reality that arises as this 1-to-1 interplay we call flow.

Part of what we do when we teach people to get in the zone is to introduce them to this 1-to-1 reality.  But the deeper teach is to introduce them to their own 1-to-1 self; their own Authentic Self.  And it is with the awakening of their Authentic Self that they come face-to-face with who they really are and who they can become if they choose to take this evolutionary ride towards greater wholeness.

Should they take this ride?  That’s up to them.  Many won’t, such is the vice-like grip of ego.  But many will, and for them there awaits the ride of their life.  We cannot take that ride for them, but we most certainly can take that ride with them.  And it is a curious ride indeed!

ABOUT THE ZONE

One thing can be said for all sports; they can all be played in either your normal performance state or your peak performance state. The question is, why would anyone choose to play in their normal performance state when they have the option of playing in their peak performance state? Seems like a no-brainer, and yet our normal state of consciousness, called Gross Consciousness is a tough nut to crack. Getting into our normal state of consciousness is no problem; it is the conscious state we grew into as we grew up. It’s our default conscious state, so getting into a gross state of consciousness is not the challenge. Getting out of it is. And that’s why the shift from playing in the norm to playing in the zone is such a challenging shift. It requires a shift out of your default state of gross consciousness and into your higher-order state of integral consciousness.

Transformational practices involve this shift of consciousness from gross to integral, so playing your sport in the zone can be seen as a transformational practice wherein the practitioner is not only growing up into a higher level of performance, but also waking up to a higher state of consciousness.

I can’t remember anything negative ever being said about the zone experience. It’s interesting, however, that there exists a deep resistance to the shift from gross to integral consciousness. The egoic self is the culprit in this resistance to integral consciousness, which is understandable since the shift we’re talking about involves the transcendence of ego. Why wouldn’t there be a deep resistance to integral consciousness when it involves your egoic self essentially getting dumped for your Authentic Self? The biggest challenge facing people who want to take up a transformational practice is that the transformation we’re talking about is the transcendence of ego, and frankly, ego doesn’t want to be transcended. It will resist as if fighting for its life, which, arguably, it is.

Playing your sport in the zone might not sound like a transformational practice, but if you look a little closer, the zone doesn’t side-step any of the transformational dynamics involved in waking up to your Authentic Self. In fact, playing in the zone confronts these dynamics in a very direct and immediate way. Get in the zone and you immediately experience the higher-order reality of your Authentic Self playing your sport in an integral state of consciousness.

 Keyword: immediately. With the zone, there is no waiting around through years of sitting in meditation before you get even a glimmer of your Authentic Self. Play your sport in the zone and that waiting period is reduced to right here, right now. Welcome to transformation.

The immediacy of this awakening not only impacts your sense of who you really are as an athlete and a human being, but it also impacts your level of athletic performance. Playing your sport in the zone always results in a higher level of performance. Always. It never fails. Your Authentic Self playing in the zone always plays better than your egoic self playing in the norm.

There are plenty of reasons for this immediate leap in your level of performance, but for now the discussion is about the immediacy of the transformative process. The shift that traditionally has taken years to achieve can now be achieved in minutes. Repeat: minutes, not years!

That’s a huge claim, and yet this transcension from egoic self to Authentic Self has an underlying dynamic that is causal to this transformational immediacy, and that underlying dynamic is the immediacy of the present dimension. The underlying spatiotemporal dimension of the zone is the present dimension. Ego slips away with presence; there is no time for ego to make comparisons when you are in the flowing present. There is only time for the purity of an unselfconscious relationship between you and the game you are playing; the relationship of your Authentic Self playing the game in the flowing presence of the zone.

There is no better way to play your game than through a one-to-one interface between your body-mind and the flowing present. But that’s not our default interface. Our default interface involves the body-mind in a state of temporal and spatial flux, constantly flip-flopping back and forth between the past and the future. Nowhere is there a parallel interface to integrate past and future into a unified, flowing present.

We assume that we are in the present in our normal waking state. But that’s an illusion. We spend most of our waking state just slightly behind the present in the immediate flowing past. And because we have been conditioned since birth to connect to the flowing past of our various environments, we are also conditioned to the state of consciousness that comes with that spatiotemporal asymmetry – our gross conscious state.

            This is not a bad thing, mind you. It’s quite natural. Gross consciousness is required for our growth and development into adulthood, and it is the conscious state that we work hard to develop over the years, and with its development comes the simultaneous development of our egoic self. Again, a natural aspect of our development as human beings, so it’s only natural that we take this gross conscious state into the games we play. In other words, we play our games in our gross conscious state, which means we also play our games connected to the immediate flowing past of the athletic environment. We play our games just slightly behind the flowing present, in the flowing past.

Makes you wonder how we get so good at our sports when we play them slightly in the past. But this is not a condemnation of our normal performance state; it is rather an acclamation of our peak performance state. We don’t have to settle for performance in the norm when there are emerging models for performance in the zone. These emerging models are not only transformative for your game, but also transformative for your “self.” A zone performance takes a transformation of consciousness; a transformation out of your normal state of gross consciousness and into your higher state of integral consciousness. Likewise playing in the zone is a transformation out of playing your game in the flowing past as your egoic self and into playing your game in the flowing present as your Authentic Self.

That’s some serious transformation going on as you shift out of the norm and into the zone:

1. Performance transformation.

2. Consciousness transformation.

3. Self-transformation.

All underpinned by a spatiotemporal transformation out of the past and into the present. And there’s one more transformation that cannot be overlooked. In psychological terms the transformation from playing in the norm to playing in the zone involves a transformation from heterotelic experience to autotelic experience. Heterotelic experiences are based on external motivations, i.e. playing to win or lose. Autotelic experiences are all about internal motivations, i.e. playing for the sheer sake of playing.

Watch little kids playing some time; doesn’t matter what they are playing. Just watch them play and you will see the joy of playing for no other reason than to play. That’s an autotelic experience. That’s playing in the zone.

Then go out and watch adults playing tennis in a competitive, USTA League match, for example. Compare the difference between little kids playing a game just because it’s fun to play versus adults playing a game to beat the crap out of their opponents. That’s the difference between an autotelic experience and a heterotelic experience. That’s the difference between playing our games in the norm and playing our games in the zone.

Would that we could play our adult games as if we were little kids playing our games for nothing more than the pure joy of playing. Would that we could trade in the heterotelic experience of playing in the norm for the autotelic experience of playing in the zone.

Guess what?

We can! But it takes a transformation in consciousness to make that wish come true. It takes a transformation in consciousness to make the potential of performance in the zone become the reality of an autotelic performance experience in which your Authentic Self is playing the game in the flowing present dimension.

THE PARALLEL MODE PROCESS

                      I. What is the Parallel Mode Process (PMP)?

The PMP is a process for creating, stabilizing, and developing the peak human experience known as “flow,” or “the zone.   Traditionally, flow is thought to be impossible to reproduce intentionally, occurring by chance, not by choice.  The PMP radically changes that thinking through a step-by-step process in which the athlete learns to intentionally create the flow state, then to stabilize that flow state in athletic competitions, life situations, and business relationships.

And the PMP works immediately.  There is no waiting period in which the athlete must go through a preparatory phase before flow can be experienced.  The first step of the PMP involves the immediate creation of the flow experience, so the process begins with flow itself.  The premise being: the only way to experience flow is through first-person experience, and the PMP shows you exactly how to create that first-person flow experience by choice, rather than waiting for it to happen by chance.

II. Who benefits from the PMP?

The PMP is a step-by-step process for intentionally creating flow, and because the flow experience is a human experience, it’s numerous benefits can be experienced by all humans, all ages, all genders, skill levels, cultural backgrounds, and stages of development.  Flow benefits all of humanity, and the PMP is a process for the intentional creation of flow, therefore, the PMP is of benefit to all humanity, most notably to athletes and coaches in any and all sports, to established businesses and entrepreneurial startups, and to those individuals simply seeking flow in their lives.

III. How does the PMP work?

Simply stated, the PMP works by directly connecting the sensorimotor operating system to the spatiotemporal dimension of the flowing present.  Thus the term “flow.”  The steps of the PMP are designed to teach the student or coach how to intentionally make this sensorimotor connection to the flowing present dimension, and then how to stabilize that connection – called a “parallel interface” – through a series of developmental practices that require the use of a parallel interface, thus training the sensorimotor operating system to maintain its connection to and interface with the flowing present dimension.

The intentional creation of a parallel interface between the sensorimotor operating system and the spatiotemporal dimension of flowing presence acts to directly connect the human operating system to the underlying spatiotemporal dimension of the flow experience – which is the spatiotemporal dimension of flowing presence.

In short, the PMP teaches you how to intentionally create flow.  By teaching you how to intentionally connect to its underlying spatiotemporal dimension – the dimension of flowing presence.  Flow and flowing presence are one and the same, and the experience of flow, cannot and will not occur without the creation of this parallel interface between operating system and flowing presence.

The PMP teaches you how to immediately and intentionally create this parallel interface, and, in so doing, to immediately and intentionally create the flow experience in your sport, in your business, and in your daily life.