As I noted a month ago, we have research out there that shows
a parallel between playing jazz and teaching a class, mostly related to the gazillion microdecisions that are made in the process. For the subset of teachers who both teach and play jazz, or basketball, or any number of similarly dense and intense activities, this was not exactly news-- we'd already sensed the connection.
We can particularly sense the connection when we are in the zone, what the grown-ups who study this kind of thing call "flow state." If you've been there, you know it--the Something just flows through you, and you are just a conduit functioning so well and so clearly that you feel pretty awesome all the way to your bones. You make those gazillion microdecisions instantly in what the
science folks call "effortless attention to a task."
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