What is 'The Zone'?
'The Zone' is a phrase I use commonly when speaking my native language, playing piano or playing games. It is basically a phase you go into when doing these things where everything you do becomes second nature. Your fingers, or your mouth, or your feet have a mind of their own, but try and interrupt it, and you fall out of 'The Zone', normally losing focus and making a mistake of some kind.
Let's put this into some perspective. You are playing Modern Warfare 2 (or BFBC2 for those people saying 'haha! Why the hell would I play that shit!') and you see a guy. You shoot him and he dies. Did you think before pressing the R1/Right Trigger button? Did you aim? Did you think? 'The Zone' controls you here, like Soviet Russia would.
Who has 'The Zone'?
First off, that is what I want to find out. I know I get 'The Zone', but whether that is a good thing or not we will find out. My belief is that by practising, you gain your inner self, you inner Zone. And it is he, not you, who plays the game, or kicks the ball, or does the test.
When does 'The Zone' occur?
Again, it depends. If you play something non-stop, you'll eventually get into 'The Zone' whenever you play it. However, the first time you do something, chances are there won't be a 'Zone'. The 'Zone' has to establish a variety of things, such as:
- The boundaries, the rules
- The set thing you wish to do
- How you do it
Is 'The Zone' a good thing?
You'd think so, wouldn't you? I mean, having the ability to do something absent-mindedly helps your reaction time for the specific thing that 'The Zone' does. No need to think, you'll shoot and aim automatically.
However, there are a lot of problems with 'The Zone'. Probably the largest one is the fact that 'the Zone' isn't adaptable. The Zone will only work one way-like a robot. Let's say you make a robot run from A to B, where A to B is a straight line. Now, if a wall is suddenly formed between A and B, the robot, unless programmed, will not be able to get round the wall. And here is the problem with 'The Zone'.
Another problem? It is hard to alter a phase of 'The Zone'. Let's say you play the piano, and you play a song. After playing it for one year, you find out that one note is different. Everytime you play that song, you have to ensure that that note is correct. If you think about it too much, you will never reach the complete tranquility required to enter 'The Zone', but don't think about it at all and you'll just play the wrong note.
OH SHI...What do I do?
There are remedies to the problems of 'The Zone'. Whilst it is difficult to change things within 'The Zone', it is NOT difficult to add things in. Again, use the analogy of Modern Warfare 2. You shoot everybody and you run out of ammo. What do you do? The best thing you can do is get a gun from a fallen enemy or comrade. By doing this a number of times, it should become programmed into your 'Zone'. Essentially that is what Modern Warfare competitive battling is-the effeciency and strategy of your 'Zone'. Obviously everybody will have different Zones, either to counteract the faults of the weapon used like recoil (shooting less bullets in a row) or large reload time (find a place to hide).
So, basically, 'The Zone' is a very intriguing thing. Maybe you haven't thought about it before, maybe I'm just crazy or demented or enlightened with 'the Zone'. But to understand 'The Zone' is like understanding hitboxes in Street Fighter. It will help you with the basic background of your hobby to make you more effecient. To become a better SF player, you might want to know about hitboxes-the same way that you should find out your own Zone and make it a perfect cog within your engine.
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