The Elephant in the Room: Feel and Its Role in the Nothing State of High Quality Performance

Abstract

“Nothing” is a frequent answer given by performers when asked what they were thinking when performing their best. To help performers get to their best, sport and performance psychology has primarily focused on targeting conscious thoughts, beliefs, and feelings with cognitive-oriented interventions. Via a conceptual overview of theory and research in sport/performance psychology, behavioral economics, and neuroscience, the first purpose of this article is to challenge this conventional wisdom. We suggest that cognitive-based approaches are limited in getting athletes to the nothing state (i.e., minimal thought disruption) of high quality performance because they begin with thoughts/beliefs/feelings (second-order or pseudo reality) rather than the lived experiences of the body (first-order presence). Our second purpose is to propose that feel, which is grounded in the body and its interaction with the environment, is the source of the nothing state of high quality performance in sports and the performing arts. Guided by research on the brain and mind, we introduce the dynamics of feel and why it has been subverted to the background of high quality sports performance; we also provide examples/stories of the significant role the felt sense plays in the lives of high quality performers as well as feel-based research conducted in diverse sport and physical activity contexts. We conclude with a Rider/Elephant metaphor and two mythical stories to elucidate our premise that the touch/feel of action is the essential element underlying the nothing state of high quality performance in sport and the performing arts.