Flowing in Basketball

The concept that I thought was most relevant to me was the concept of "flow". Flow made me think back to my high school days when I was transitioning from the junior varsity team to the varsity team at my high school for basketball. I had been on the junior varsity basketball team as a captain for 2 years and when I finally made it to the varsity team I couldn't have been more excited. But at the same time I knew that there would be a lot more pressure. Sutton-Smith describes flow as the "merging of action and awareness" and also focusing our attention on a "limited stimulus field" (p.185). The biggest difference between playing for jv and varsity was that varsity games were attended by the entire school and had a big audience. For me to be able to focus on the game and not the audience I had to increase my flow in the game. If I didn't, I would be distracted by the audience and not be able to concentrate on what was going on in the court.