I heard of flow for the first time in Florida in 1997. The concept was familiar to basketball talent scouts, as they selected players on their ability to enter a state of flow.
Hoop Summit was the event. Sandro Gamba – Hall of Fame- was the Head Coach of the Rest of the World team, he had to face the best of the under 20 American basketball players.
One year later, at the Goodwill Games in New York, the USA team made the world record in the 4×400 relay race. In the press room, I heard the reporters say that the four runners had performed in a state of Flow.
This started our research activity. We discovred that Jackson and Marsh, two researchers of the University of Queensland (Australia), developed a tool to assess flow: the Flow State Scale.
We came into contact, translated it and began to test it in our sport world.
There were multiple goals: evaluate its applicability in the Italian context, highlight any sport-related differences and its applicability in the professional environment.
The research starts from here.
Dirk Nowitzki at the Hoop Summit: the discovery of his talent