Flow

I've come across the concept of flow in many areas of my life, from sport to studies, and it was great to watch this talk by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian-American psychologist who established the principle of flow, "the highly focused mental state conducive to productivity". As a young man, Mihaly once stumbled into a UFO talk by none other than Carl Jung, and this accident was life-changing for directing him into his own groundbreaking research.

As a musician, I enjoyed the following excerpt from the talk:

You are in an ecstatic state to such a point that you feel as though you almost don't exist. I have experienced this time and again. My hand seems devoid of myself, and I have nothing to do with what is happening. I just sit there watching it in a state of awe and wonderment. And [the music] just flows out of itself.

The main example I have experienced in my life that I reflect on as anecdotal evidence for this concept is my time as an athlete on the rowing team during my undergraduate studies. From Monday to Saturday for nearly three months each fall we had practices that begin before dawn and lasted over two hours. My first year on the team was the most special because I was learning to love the sport with my fellow eight crew members – seven other rowers and our coxswain. There were practices and races where we were pushing as hard as we possibly could, yet it felt effortless as we completed some of the smoothest kilometers of our season. For our final regatta, as our crew captain, I gave a motivational speech to put us in the mindset of finding flow in our final race in saying "we are the boat of a million strokes" – putting into perspective all of the work we put in together throughout the season. 

Needless to say, this phenomenon applies to all activities we pursue. It not only applies to musicians, poets, athletes, and innovators; but to students and teachers as well. The challenge we face as teachers is to provide students with material that is challenging, but no so much so that it causes anxiety. We must also the skill level is appropriate such that it does not cause boredom. In this space, flow permits. In this space, we may engage students in the process of creating something new. I believe this beautiful sensation is possible at any age, and it is a matter of us as teachers to guide them down that path in our teaching.