Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

TSK writer and teacher, Steve Randall, has a new blog that may be of entry to members of this group.  In his most recent entry, What's the Zone of Peak Performance?, he examines a number of accounts of experiences of 'the Zone' to identify possible “core aspects of experience [that may] both carry inherent fulfillment and facilitate optimal productivity.”

Re: Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

This is interesting and i will read more.
One of the most “in the zone” experiences, I've had is almost completely a blank to me now. and even when i remember the experience, the details seem impossible.
When I was around twenty-some, I started taking dance classes with a group that specialized in contact improv and dance meditation. Most of the classes were basic dance, maintaining a connection to breath and gravity, as motivations. I took  the boring hadr classes as well as the touchy feely workshops, and one day  I showed up for a workshop with one other dancer. This was supposed to start off as a moving meditation on the floor, slowly rising up. Maybe a little like a square dance except the caller is saying, “now feel your breath filling your body lifting you up.” Later she would say, “Now find a partner and pretend you are the image in the mirror.” It was very interactive, but with just two students some things did not need to be said.
In the end, This youg woman and i sat down on the floor with the two musicians (guitar and tabla-dagga) and the instructor, (who also played a droning old analog synth,) and we just took off our masks or put them on, i guess we just had to come back to be whoever we were when we weren't doing that art. And it was art even if no one else was there to look.
My partner was a very talented and well trained ballet dancer. I think both of us were some how at the edge of our own physical and mental abilities. There were times we turned towards each other and times we turned away. I could say the say the same for the musicians who were in the middle of the dance floor.
I have been able to draw on this one experience in my life, but i rarely speak of it. There is nothing to say.
About a year later I was in a different world, and on the first day of my new job, the foreman passed me a joist and said “we're going Up There,” and the next thing I knew I was thirty feet off the ground, walking on a 2x4 carrying one end of a  roof truss. One slip and three men would fall.

So, I'm not a dancer now. And I don't build houses. Most recently I worked in an open jewelry studio casting precious metals. Ive worked a lot in Publishing (newspapers, phonebooks) and also in Public Exhibitions, (renaissance faires, children's museums).
The one thing that I understand is the flow. On that construction crew, we called it “being psychic” where each person knew what part of the job we were doing without having to talk about it.
I apologize for just jumping in here. I have not read Tulku's book. (TSK) I saw it in a store in 2006 when i first joined Gaia, and I didn't buy it because i didn't want to read too much outside what the Lamas in my own sangha were saying.
Anywasy, I can relate to the non ordinary aspects of 'flow'where time slows, space becomes something solid and objects seem transparent.
I hope thats what were talking about.

Re: Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

Thnx Bruce!  I really enjoyed reading this…

I loved and really related to what he said here…

“In the zone there can be a kind of merging or fusion or unity of what ‘normally’ feels separate or independent. Our ‘normal’ frame of reference–the sense of an observer or subject or perceiver separate and distinct from what’s observed or perceived or experienced–may be absent. There can be a multidimensional luminosity that accompanies knowing instead of preoccupation with particular content from a single ‘point of view’. There might be a sense of timelessness, or of time slowing down or stopping instead of the typical sense of time flowing at a constant and unchangeable rate. We might experience many memories simultaneously instead of one at a time. Things may seem effortless in the zone, rather than requiring the effort, strain, or struggle of other times. There can be an absence of felt distance, along with a lack of the sense of here contrasted with there. ‘Normal’ feelings related to size and ‘the world’ may not be present. Things may seem dreamlike or transparent rather than having their ‘normal’ sense of reality, thickness, density, or substantiality.”

being in the zone basically boils down to our perspective being unrestricted by all those things that have nothing to do with being in the zone…lol…

awesome!  always, star…

Re: Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

This is really cool But I guess I just don't understand.
Please delete my posts from this thread.
Good luck with TSK
sherab

Re: Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

Hi, Sherab, I had been planning to respond to you and have just been a bit busy this weekend.  I am not sure why you say you do not understand and you want your posts deleted?  Would you mind explaining?  I ask because if you are leaving the discussion because of the absence of a response to your post (so far), it wasn't because of a lack of interest or resonance, at least on my part.  I enjoyed your descriptions and agree that what TSK explores, at least in part, are just the sort of shifts in temporal and spatial experience you describe. 

TSK, per se, does not address the being “in the Zone,” at least not directly; but I think it is a good area to explore via the TSK approach, given, as Steve points out, the phenomenological dimensions of reported “Zone” experiences. 

I believe I've had a number of Zone-like experiences, with some of the strongest arising through playing music.  Entering a space where playing seems to happen almost magically, arising out of a timeless accord.

Re: Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

sherab, i don't know you, but i wont let that stop me…lol…Dance is an excellent way to reach peak or zone experiences…Rumi did it all the time…the very fact that these posts stirred that memory within you is a good sign that you could very well experience it again…

sounds like, you, like most of us, got 'caught up' in other worldly 'have to's' and our spiritual development had to take a back seat…

TSK might be an excellent way for you to address that now, I mean I say might, cuz just b/c I LOVE it, and I do, doesn't mean it resonates with everyone, but you might wanna give it a try…hope you will stick around…it might take Bruce a while but he eventually gets around to answering…if he ignores me too long I post emphatically on his grapevine…LOL…much joy, star…

Re: Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

OK, that was a hastily made request.
In the absence of any response i began to feel that the post might not have much to do with TSK, although it does describe a peak performance experience.
i recognized that I don't have enough experience with TSK methods or the language used to discuss it. I will have to do more reading.

Star, I should mention that the dance workshops were oriented towards cultivating peak experiences on several levels, interpersonal, group participation, and individual performance. it is actually because of that work and other pursuits, that spiritual development did not take a backseat through much of my life. I have been able to translate some of the experiences into other areas of life and adapt to the 'flow' of different work styles.
I will stick around, but it will take some time before i understand what makes TSK different and distinct from other 'methods'

Re: Steve Randall on TSK and Peak Performance

sherab, I am so glad you will be sticking around…what you experienced with your dancing, and continue to experience, IS a tsk experience, imo…

I find what makes TSK different, is that it is not religious at all (but does not intefer with one's religion), but it is very spiritual and very scientific, and the vision is an infinite opening up…there are no absolutes, just a continuous dance of being which is filled with joy and beauty and myriad possibilities.  Being the free spirit that I am I love that tsk is not dictated or 'closed down' by any rules or dogma.  While sometimes it might get lonely, due to the fact that there are very few tsk practitioners, I would not exchange the freedom that I feel for anything…the restrictions that I feel are the ones I continue to place upon myself…and if that is the case, then that means I can continue to open them and dance free in Time, Space, and Knowledge…

Integration is important; we are all on our own journey, and I find that tsk allows me to be where I am, and allows the same for others, allowing me to accept that as well…

welcome aboard tsk!  will look forward to dialoging with you!  always, *