I subsequently read your follow on posts. They make a point about trading and it's varied possibilities. If there is a heirarchy of possibilites and it is ranked in order of potential optimum efficiencies, you might want to place yourself in that continuum. Notice that you are not at an extreme place in the continuum. It may be possible that you are not aware of all the components of the spectrum either; I certainly am not. You have chosen a trading approach that is not among the highest potential for extracting capital. Lack of knowledge may be a factor it looks like. People make choices, as you do too; You choose to trade mechanically and, on weekends, you choose to explore stuff that you will not do to make money. Your strong adverse emotional state regarding these items demonstrates that it is very risky stuff for you. At this point your level of risk is to be a mechanic (watch and do as you are told). By having this deep and abiding fear of personal risk whose source is a requirement to make decisions based upon info, you get to be "bored". This boredom, you say, detracts from your mechanical efforts. You make about 20 points an hour on NQ (I don't trade it for many reasons, it's potential rewards being the greatest issue, for me). Maybe, there is room for improvement by considering other alternatives to the method you have perfected. Some people who gravitate to mechanical approaches,sometimes do so to avoid other factors. Some of those factors can even relate to the person's views and beliefs about himself. Everyone who posts tells us where he is and where he comes from. Typically, people become who they are and what they are capable of by "growth". Denise, an investor since 1994, has discovered that a person's make up and constitution is important for making money most effectively. She is focussed on "feelings" during trades. This is unfortunate in the sense of her use of time. A person's ability to make money most effectively does come down to the persons abilities to connect to what the given potential of the market is at any given time. Effective behavior follows from many things and they are not complex. The most demanding process is to get to "empty" to be able to build a comprehensive basis for continuous effective behavior. It all turns out to be a simultaneous process of emptying and refilling, usually on a one-for-one basis. Priortizing the trade off system is best done by what appears on the table "now". What to you have at present? What do you want instead? Decide to accept what you want and see it replace what you have now. The feeling that is involved at any time is only one feeling. People feel serially. The hold up for almost all difficulties is not knowing what is desirable. The problem stems primarily from what you are allowed to choose. All of the beliefs that are causal re behavior have to be stated as positives. If they are not, then they will not precipitate effective behavior. Fear is the set of beliefs that do not precipitate effective behavior. To clean house to get ready to make money, dump all the beliefs based on fears. My fav example: Don't fall down on the ice. You have to change this to: Walk carefully on the ice. Every day, every time a "feeling" comes up that isn't what you want, recognize it, determine what you want (not what is wrong or a negative statement), accept it as your future orientation and move on. After a 1000 or so of these appear in your journal and logs, you will notice that things are a lot different. Writing a paper to make a list of stuff like this is different and good for getting a grade somwhere. By doing it a 1000 times, on the other hand, you complete a process. It is not learning or things like that. what it is is getting "empty" of stuff that you have acquired already. You often didn't want it either. You got it by failing. You can make time lines and go backto see where you created the current dramas you have running. You made all that stuff up as you went along back then. Now you can intentionally replace every little peice of the mess. As I read the posts people make I visualize how they got to where they aren't but where they want to be. The crash artists are really great lessons for us all.
Marketsurfer because you asked the answer is yes. I spoke with his son about it and I remember being at one of his semiar where at least on of the persons that was part of his team was big on clearing and was actually working with a very well known trading organization. Presumably clearing them. I believe I heard Van say that he thought it had been good for him and reccommended it. I think it was part of his "program" for traders. But since I like him and do not want to slander him I checked his website. I see there have been some changes. If Robert were to say that it was part of say Brian Junes program and not Van's I would stand corrected. As far as how the zone feels. That is a very complicated question becasue I do not think you are really in it once you you recognize it. "Hey I must be in the zone." Now I have recognized it and still performed at the edge of my abilities but I am not sure I was still in the zone once I became aware of my zoning.
To continue with your analogy, you might note that chewing is just the first step in digestion, whether it's prechewed baby food or rock-hard slice of bread doesn't matter, your GUT still have to decide whether it's good for you or it's just (bull)SHIT, obscure to all of us ,our stomach does a lot of thinking too.. As a matter of fact, "prechewed"baby food, not unlike its mental counterpart, science, is very nutrinous and easily digesible... Yum...
Jem, I'm not sure if you know how profound your observation is, at least to me, in defining post zone transition. IMO the zone is self realization without self awareness.
This thinking about zoning leaves me a little frustrated. I am going to prioritize my activties and create much more time for zone opportunities. Pabst could elaborate on self realization. Is it when you feel transcendant, when you get lost in the moment. When you feel closer to the infinite (God in my book).
"...Flow is a state of universal qualities that is experienced by people in a wide range of contexts. Elderly German gardeners describe the feeling of intense involvement they experience when tending their roses with similar words as Japanese teenagers use to describe how it feels to race their motorcycles. Navajo sheperds following their flocks on horseback also mention similar experiences, which sound much like those reported by Hindu mystics-or by dedicated athletes all over the world." "...a first requisite for flow is striking a positive balance between these two elements: the challenges you think you face and the skills you think you have." "...One point to remember here is that it is your subjective perception that predicts flow. This means that it is not so much what the objective challenges or skills are in a situation that determines the quality of experience, but what a person thinks of the available opportunities and her capacity to act. So whether you are in flow in sport or whether you suffer from anxiety or boredom depends to a large extent on your perception." "...Both challenges and skills can be progressively developed in clearly defined stages of increasing complexity. The further one moves up the skill dimension in sport, the more difficult the challenges become." from Flow in Sports Susan Jackson / Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Great post. Reading through you post reminds me what one of my elder friend taught me about business... You don't "make" money, you "earn" money
dark, nice post too The Japanese teenage motorcyclist part reminds me of a book I read about their flow or zoning (They call it beyond the limit of speed). Also, another swordsman (aka samurai) wrote something about it and the Olympic Gold medalist for Ice skating called Shimizu (I think he still races) mentioned something on TV about this. They all experience some trigger that suddenly makes them flow into a whole new zone. They first experience a sense of separation viewing themselves in third person who's sensing all sensations of action very clearly. They feel very calm and sudden silenceness, and everything becomes slow motion. They also mention about reflecting and critisizing on whatever they are doing in third person. Somewhat melancholy state... They feel and flow themselves doing it but they are not thinking... just doing. They are in pure state of sensuality. When the race or what ever they do is over... they suddenly get back into the normal state, and feel a great deal of "high" and "clarity". The iceskater says he still races hoping to get into that flow again, to get that "high" and "clarity". A lot of athletes experience this and get a "flow" addict. Funny shit. I wonder if B-Endorphine is distributed in the brain when you are flowing... Or maybe B-Endorphine is distributed due to excessive amount of adrenaline.... or seratonine level drops... any psycho-biology people in here?
I just remebered I got motorcycle zone once. I was riding a road bike through a set of switchback kind of turns at about 35 miles an hour. It was a road I took fequently. I never hit the zone on them again even though I tried many times. I never set up just right or had my weight shift from side to side effortlessly. I believe that the zone is better when there is a sense of reacting to the unknown or dangerous or very dynamic. I imagine a motorcycle racer hits the zone frequently. I wonder if a racer has ever crashed while in the zone or coming out.
"them cats in the band look like they be hypnotizzzzzed......" zone and flow appear to be some type of self induced hyponotic trance where the actor is accessing the subconcious directly. going deep into the mind where all is remembered. the perfect state for day trading. best, surfer