Have you ever wondered where the term “being in the zone” originated?
While there is general consensus that the zone describes a highly desirable and much sought-after state in sports performance, there is little agreement as to the origin of the term. Legendary Baseball player Ted Williams and the former Wimbledon Champion Arthur Ashe are both credited with coining the phrase “in the zone”, and it is now a term used by athletes, artists, musicians and even computer gamers to denote an optimal or heightened state of consciousness which can include “transcendence” and “peak experiences”.
However, although the zone is a relatively new concept in Western sports, it has long been associated with Eastern arts and culture.
You only have to watch movies like “The Karate Kid” or conjure up images of slow moving Tai Chi practitioners, the famous Korean horseback archers or the skill of Samurai swordsmen to determine that the benchmark of the zone experience actually lies in the state of mindfulness akin to the Eastern meditative and martial arts.
In fact, research now proves that the brainwaves of someone practicing deep meditation and a golfer (or other athlete) performing in the zone both access the alpha-state which is the coveted experience of relaxed concentration.
