After a great performance , athletes have described a feeling of being “in the zone.” In this state, they feel invincible, the game in their eyes seems to have slowed down, the crowd noise fell silent and they achieved an incredible focus.
In cricket, you will have heard that commentators say that the ball must appear to be as big as a football to the batsman — that is being in the zone. That is when an athlete is able to ignore all the pressures, relax and let his or her body deliver the performance that has been learned so well.
“Most of the time [when I am batting] it’s my subconscious mind that is working,” Tendulkar has said in the past. “I don’t have time to complicate my mind, so I try to keep it empty. Being in ‘the zone’ is when you’re not thinking of anything, merely reacting.”
“I get 0.5 seconds to react to a ball, sometimes even less than that. I can’t be thinking of what XYZ has said about me. I need to surrender myself to my natural instincts. My subconscious mind knows exactly what to do. It is trained to react.”
Not many can do this consciously, not many even know there are in the zone but to all those watching it is pretty evident. But Virender Sehwag, as you would expect, has a different take on it.
I have asked Sachin Tendulkar many times what the zone is. He tells me that’s when ‘I see nothing except the ball’. I…
Posted by Virender Sehwag on Sunday, 29 November 2015