Lining Flashcards
The one law of cause and effect.
Is
By choice not by chance
It’s all about visual shift feeling shift and attentional shift
The contact sequence
There is always 3
All three make up a complete unit of experience.
Movement -> countermovement -> contact
you can see, each Contact Sequence has its own parts (the many), and those parts come together at contact to make a whole (the one), and at contact, something new is always created (creativity). The ultimate notions necessary for the creative advance into novelty are all right there in this simple map of athletic experience. What makes it even more interesting is that every Contact Sequence has both an absolute nature as well as a relative nature .
The 1 → 2 → 3 sequence of MVT → CMV → CNT is always the same. It is always already there in its absolute nature, and that absolute nature never changes. But in its relative nature, every Contact Sequence is always changing. No two Contact Sequences are ever the same, and the fact that every sport involving contact has its own look, its own rules and tools, only adds to the relative nature of the Contact Sequence.
Here’s the Contact Sequence structure again:
MVT → CMVT → CNT
1 → 2 → 3
BALL → YOU → CONTACT
Here’s the interior logic: as the system of countermovement in every Contact Sequence, you, the athlete, are always occupying your present space . Physically, you are always “in the present.” MVT → CMVT → CNT
( Present )
Relative to you in the present, the movement occurred first, before countermovement, before the present , “in the past.” So, relative to you , movement occurs in the past.
MVT → CMVT → CNT
(Past) → ( Present )
However, relative to both the movement of the ball and your countermovement to intercept the ball, contact occurs last, after the past and present , “in the future.” So, relative to movement and countermovement , contact occurs in the future. MVT → CMVT → CNT
(Past) → ( Present ) → (Future)
First there is movement, Then there is countermovement, Finally contact. Here’s how every Contact Sequence looks in time :
MVT → CMVT → CNT
1 → 2 → 3
Ball → You → Contact
Past → Present → Future But notice the difference in how every Contact Sequence looks in space :
MVT → CNT ← CMVT
1 → 3 ← 2
Ball → Contact ← You
Past → Future ← Present
I realized that when I focused on the ball, I was focusing on the past relative to me in the present. So while my body was physically in the present , my mind was focused on the past . Granted, it was the very near past, but the past nonetheless. The logical conclusion was that when I was playing in my normal performance state, focusing on the ball, on form, on the objects of the material dimension of the Contact Sequence, I was playing “in the past.” The human peak- performance state is definitely not about playing in the past. One of the major characteristics of flow reported by athletes from around the world is the sense of being “in the present.” Anyone who has ever been in the zone knows the feeling of total presence, the sense of being one with the game, one with everything, one with the flow of the action.
What I realized was that while I was visualizing this imaginary window in front of me, I was no longer focusing on the ball, no longer focusing on the past. Instead, I was focusing on my Contact Zone, focusing on the future depth of contact while, at the same time, I was observing the past movement of the ball . In other words, I was focused on the future while still seeing the past , which meant that I was aware of the past and the future equally and simultaneously. My eyes were inputting parallel streams of visual information to my brain about the past and future of the arising Contact Sequence. Those parallel streams of past and future combined to co- create the spatiotemporal dimension of the present . With that realization, I had a major awakening. Everything about playing in the zone started to make sense— right then and there. The underlying spatiotemporal dimension of flow is the dimension of the present, and by inputting parallel streams of visual information about the past and the future equally and simultaneously, the human operating system actively creates a parallel interface with the past and future dimensions of its arising Contact Sequence moment. A parallel interface in which the past and the future are no longer separate dimensions. The past and the future are no longer two, but rather they combine to co- create the unified spatiotemporal reality of the present dimension. When you co- create the present dimension you are co- creating the underlying spatiotemporal dimension of flow. The end result is that you get in the zone by co- creating the present.
This simple map of the Contact Sequence turned out to be a map of much more than just swatting tennis balls or hitting a baseball; more than a map of kicking soccer balls or spiking volleyballs. It is a map of the spatial structure and temporal logic of a single athletic moment, a droplet of athletic experience in space and time, a moment in which the parts come together to create a unified whole. This simple little diagram is a map of a unified temporal and spatial relativity field .
Just as my ability to get into and maintain the zone has evolved, so, too, has my understanding of this map of reality. It is no longer just a map of a single Contact Sequence. It is a map of a single Relativity Field . I call them R- Fields for short. Every time your countermovements come together with the movement of any object in your athletic environment, you create a contact event that turns this R- field into a unified whole, and at that very moment of conclusion comes the creation of a new and different R- field. Or, as Whitehead put it: “The many become one and are increased by one.”
That’s what it means to play your sport in the zone. It means to play your sport in the unified reality of the flowing present dimension. And, in order to do that you must stop focusing on the ball (past) and start focusing on the empty space of your contact zone (future), understanding that as you fix your focus on your contact zone you will still be seeing the ball, it will just be out of focus – but not out of sight.
The first big-deal insight that comes from such an exercise is that computers and cells are programmable. The second corollary insight is that the programmer lies outside the computer/cell. Biological behavior and gene activity are dynamically linked to information from the environment, which is downloaded into the cell.”
No one no body no thing no feeling no thought no space no time no energy no motion
No experience
