On Flow

Flow - the new buzzword in martial arts and fitness alike.  "Find your flow," "flow with your attacker."  All very profound and New Age-y.

But what does it actually mean?  And how can you use it to benefit you in your endeavours?  Is it even beneficial?

To quote from Csíkszentmihályi, flow is "the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity." [1]

This state is characterised by some ten factors, not all of which have to be present for flow to be experienced [2, 3]:

1. Clear goals (expectations and rules are discernible and goals are attainable and align appropriately with one's skill set and abilities). Moreover, the challenge level and skill level should both be high.
2. Concentrating, a high degree of concentration on a limited field of attention (a person engaged in the activity will have the opportunity to focus and to delve deeply into it).
3. A loss of the feeling of self-consciousness, the merging of action and awareness.
4. Distorted sense of time, one's subjective experience of time is altered.
5. Direct and immediate feedback (successes and failures in the course of the activity are apparent, so that behavior can be adjusted as needed).
6. Balance between ability level and challenge (the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult).
7. A sense of personal control over the situation or activity.
8. The activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action.
9. A lack of awareness of bodily needs (to the extent that one can reach a point of great hunger or fatigue without realizing it)
10. Absorption into the activity, narrowing of the focus of awareness down to the activity itself, action awareness merging.

So, there we go.  According to the father of modern flow research, flow is a psychological state.  It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with this:





Or this:




...both of which illustrate the physical state of movement that most people seem to think must necessarily accompany flow.  Note that I'm not ripping on any of the performers in either video in any way - I am simply drawing attention to common preconceived notions regarding flow.

For the sake of clarity, I will refer to Csikzentmihaily's definition of flow as endogenous flow, that is, flow that occurs purely as an internal event, completely independant of interaction with others and any specific movement pattern.  Flow as the graceful biomechanical dance demonstrated above, which is what most people casually familiar with the term seem to expect, I will refer to as exogenous flow, flow which is dependant on interaction with an external system of forces to take place and define its movement patterns.

For the record, I will state that a prolonged state of exogenous flow will never take place in any arena of combat with hostile intent and absolutely no cooperation between parties.  Ever.  Those of you inclined to disagree need only watch this video and then have a good, long think about how you yourself would fare under these circumstances:




The whole point of flow training for combat application is ultimately psychological - to enable the trainee to bypass the adrenaline dump of the fight-or-flight response and fully access their skills and cycle situational observation and analysis uncluttered by the signal noise of chemically triggered primal instincts.  Exactly what shape those skills take is irrelevant, so long as they are the best possible response to the situation at hand.

Good examples of flow applied in unrestricted combat:









Note the common thread in each of the successful performances - in spite of the chaos of the situation, each of the performers had more or less full access to their skills and observational/analytical abilities and applied them in the manner most appropriate to controlling the situation with a view to ending it as swiftly and cleanly as possible.  Note especially the swift and incredibly precise placement of fight-ending shots by the turkish and russian boxers, and the very effective applications of multi-level combat and well-oiled teamwork of the russian mall guards.  These individuals, whether or not they knew it, had entered endogenous flow and, at transient key moments throughout each combat, applied instantaneous and transient exogenous flow where appropriate.

More than half the time, this came down to punching someone in the jaw just as they were moving closer - a simple but incredibly effective way of blending two biomechanical systems in order to maximise the impact of a given action.

Which brings me to my next point.  Flow drills as demonstrated in the earlier videos have their time and place - I'm not deriding them as useless.  It is important, however, to discern their true purpose.  Drills such as those are not weaponised drills - that is, they do not train skills that can be directly applied, ad exercitum, in combat.  Their purpose is to build familiarity with the state of exogenous flow and teach the practitioner to apply their endogenous flow to prolong that exogenous flow as much as possible, with the aid of a cooperative partner who feeds force and intent in a controlled fashion to facilitate the drill.

In an actual encounter, you can expect an attacker to do neither, and your weaponised drills must reflect this to a significant degree.  Transient moments of exogenous flow that you achieve under such circumstances are and should be incidental and purely the means to an end (decisively ending the encounter in your favour), not an end in themselves.

In conclusion, the state of true flow is ultimately internal, above and beyond external considerations.  Master this state and learn to hold on to it in the midst of chaos, and physical, externally observable flow will manifest spontaneously as and when it is appropriate.  Obssess over the latter, and you will gain neither.

Till next time, train well and stay safe.



References


[1]  Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990), Flow: The psychology of optimal experience


[2] Csikszentmihalyi, M. & Rathunde, K. (1993). "The measurement of flow in everyday life: Towards a theory of emergent motivation"


[3] Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1975), Beyond Boredom and Anxiety