"the zone" and getting there
Oct. 8th, 2007 08:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anotheranonOne of the (many) things I love about fencing is the place of perfect concentration that I find while on the strip. It's hard to describe but I imagine familiar to anyone who participates in a sport (or any activity) with intensity: all of my focus is on the moment at hand.
I do my best fencing when I'm in that moment - if I let other things sneak in (like pain, anger, hunger, etc.) I notice instantly that my game suffers, so I do my best to just set it aside and Be There.
It's not a talent, it's the result of hours on the strip and after ~6 years the physical "cues" of taking a quick exhale and going on guard is starting to hammer into my mind that when I'm posed like that it's time to get down to business. I've been reading a borrowed copy of One Touch At A Time and a lot of what the author describes (even if he's using far more words/italics than necessary) is familiar to me - I've just been reinventing a very old wheel, it seems.
I just wish I could translate that "in the moment"-ness to other activities at work and home. Maybe it's just because I multitask too much or ineffectively but I find it hard to even read a book without stray thoughts about what I need to do next or what I need to remember for tomorrow etc. intruding. In that sense, fencing is also a mental break from the relentless "go go go" in my head, simultaneously highly keyed yet excluding absolutely everything else.
It's good, real good - I just wish I could repeat it!
I do my best fencing when I'm in that moment - if I let other things sneak in (like pain, anger, hunger, etc.) I notice instantly that my game suffers, so I do my best to just set it aside and Be There.
It's not a talent, it's the result of hours on the strip and after ~6 years the physical "cues" of taking a quick exhale and going on guard is starting to hammer into my mind that when I'm posed like that it's time to get down to business. I've been reading a borrowed copy of One Touch At A Time and a lot of what the author describes (even if he's using far more words/italics than necessary) is familiar to me - I've just been reinventing a very old wheel, it seems.
I just wish I could translate that "in the moment"-ness to other activities at work and home. Maybe it's just because I multitask too much or ineffectively but I find it hard to even read a book without stray thoughts about what I need to do next or what I need to remember for tomorrow etc. intruding. In that sense, fencing is also a mental break from the relentless "go go go" in my head, simultaneously highly keyed yet excluding absolutely everything else.
It's good, real good - I just wish I could repeat it!
