In the Zone: A Player’s Introduction to Flow State
3 Minute read
By: Corey Cilia
44 points. That’s my career-high. You could call it my flu game. I was sick as a dog when I played. It was an AAU game during either Spring or Summer going into my junior year of high school. I was playing for my local grassroots program, Coastside Basketball, in the program's first year ever existing. I don’t remember too many details about the game, other than that it was on Court #3 at City College of San Francisco.
What I do vividly remember is how free I felt. On the court, I forgot about being sick. I forgot about everything. My mind turned off but my body kept going. It was like the 20 pound weights I’d been hauling around were suddenly off my back. I was in the zone - I tapped into what we know in psychology as a flow state.
A flow state is when someone is totally immersed in a task. This can be triggered when one’s skills are right at the cusp of the challenge at hand. It involves complete absorption into what you are doing, to the point where you’re so focused that nothing distracts you. In flow, time feels altered - like it’s either passing quickly or slowing down. Actions feel effortless, and it usually leads to a deep enjoyment in what you’re doing.
That day, basketball was effortless. I’ve only experienced it a handful of times in my basketball career, and they’ve all been completely unplanned. That’s something I’ve given a decent amount of thought since I began pursuing a Masters in Sport and Performance Psychology.
What were the conditions that allowed that? How do I get it back? Can I manually get myself into a flow state? These are the kinds of questions sports psychology aims to answer, and ones I hope I can provide some insight into as I further my education.
During my playing career, I wasn’t thinking about the psychological aspect - I was just living the experience and figuring out what to do on the fly. It takes pretty serious awareness to think about your thoughts. This wasn’t really something I was doing until I stepped into this program.
It’s been cathartic. I’ll be reading about a new concept and it will immediately throw me into a memory from my playing career - I’ve had too many “aha” moments to keep count. What is great is that this serves me well as a coach. One of the beauties of sport psychology and psychology in general is that it’s happening everyday, in every moment. Many of the challenges players face today are ones I faced in my career, but now I’m gaining a deeper understanding of what might be more productive ways to tackle it.
Most of you already know me as Coach Corey. I was introduced to sport psychology by a familiar face at UPB, Graham Betchart - the longtime Mental Skills Coach for Denver Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon. He came to work with my high school team for a short time (the same time AG was at Archbishop Mitty High School). Funny enough, Graham and I played for the same high school coach, so that coach asked Graham to spend some time with my team.
Years later, Graham and I reconnected when he came to work with my college team at UC Santa Cruz (Go Slugs). Coincidentally, Graham went to UC Santa Cruz too, like myself, where he also played college basketball. This rekindling would lead to me researching sport psychology programs, the beginnings of considering sport psychology as a career.
It wasn’t until years later that I realized the importance of consistently working on the mental game. Athletes often work on their skills and bodies, but seldom work on their minds - the centerpiece of it all. The challenge I realized is that mental skills coaches are not as easy to find as skills trainers or strength and conditioning coaches, nor is the topic of sport psychology talked about as much.
Through writing, I hope I might be able to change that narrative by making the sport psychology conversation more accessible and relatable for the next generation of hoopers.
