Concentration for Racers

Overview of Concentration

All racers know that concentration is a requirement for safety and success, but what exactly is concentration. The dictionary says “The action or power of focusing one’s attention.” However, for intuitive drivers, I think it’s a bit more involved than that. Fast/Intuitive drivers have always empirically learned the specialized concentration techniques that racing requires, and that works just fine; has since racing began. However, some (many) drivers don’t figure out concentration empirically, and since using incorrect concentration techniques can profoundly impact one’s ability to perform well, I hope to explain the what, why, and how of racing concentration here.

If you are a driver who has already mastered racing concentration, you still might want to read this because:

• It certainly can’t hurt to intellectually understand what you do empirically; figuring out how I was concentrating definitely helped me improve the quality and consistency of my concentration.
  .
• I believe that the ability to effectively use concentration techniques is one of the major factors that influences your ability to get into the Zone (and stay there) when racing. (For more information about the Zone, see Staying in the Zone.)

The attention that we are focusing is actually a continuum of attention that is intertwined with a corresponding continuum of consciousness.

The continuum of attention can be thought of as:

Comatose       > Aware                 > Alert                          > Focused

The corresponding continuum of consciousness can be thought of as:

Unconscious  >  Preconscious  >  Meditative State  >  Fully Conscious

These continuums of attention and consciousness are largely controlled by the Reticular Activating System.

What is the Reticular Activating System (RAS)?

The (RAS) is a mass of neurons that extends from the top of the spinal cord to near the top of the brain stem. All signals going to and coming from the brain pass through it. The RAS has both ascending and descending branches. The ascending branch connects it to higher-level brain structures: the cortex, the thalamus, and the hypothalamus. The descending branch connects to the cerebellum and to nerves responsible for the various senses. The RAS is responsible for a variety of functions including: control of sleep, walking, and autonomic functions relating to sex, eating, and elimination. However, for racers, the most important function of the RAS is that it can impact attention in three ways:

1. It’s involved in our ability to consciously focus attention on something.
   .
2. It can automatically draw our attention to sensory stimuli that we consider unusual, dangerous, or important to us.
   .
3. It can use habituation to filter/attenuate the attention drawing capacities of repeated stimuli.

For intuitive driving, all three of these capabilities are critical.

For #1: Using our intention, we direct our RAS to concentrate our attention; bringing it into focus upon a specific target.

For #2: Our RAS automatically focuses our attention on things that has value to us (either primal or self-directed). It essentially smacks us upside the head and says “Dude, pay attention to this”… and we do.

For #3: We can program how our RAS responds to certain sensory input. For example:

• For unimportant sensations, we can program our RAS to ignore them (not draw any of our attention to them)
  .
• For important, but non-critical sensations, we can program our RAS to just make us aware of them, without automatically focusing our attention on them.
  .
• For critical sensations, we can program our RAS to focus most, or all, of our attention on the thing/situation that is causing the sensations.

So, in a very Zen sort of way, #3 is the Yin to #1’s Yang. You won’t get far around the track if you can’t focus your attention on critical sensations, however you also will not get far around the track if you try to attend to all the sensory input you are experiencing.

NOTE: This information about the RAS (and really all of this concentration information) interacts with, and is likely critical to, the Spiral to Speed CORE skill #1 Reducing the Sensation of Speed, to the mental processing modes depicted in the Mental Processing Flow Charts, and to Confidence for Racers information.

Expanding the Definition of Concentration for Intuitive Driving

When racing, I think the term “concentration” is sort of misleading because it implies that if you are concentrating properly, you are forcing all of your attention in a sharply focused manner on driving. The problem with this idea of concentration is that attention can only be 100% focused on one thing at any given time, but intuitive driving requires you to attend to multiple sensory information streams (especially visual and vestibular) at the same time. I believe there are actually two types of focused attention (both of which are required for intuitive driving). They are described below.

One who sees inaction in action, and action in inaction, is intelligent among men.
— Bhagavad Gita (c. BC 400)

Focused Concentration

The first type of focused attention is what we normally think of when we hear the word concentration. I call this focused concentration. With this familiar concentration method, we focus all of our attention “Consciousness” on a single thing to the relative exclusion of everything else. To me, this type of concentration feels like I am sending my attention THROUGH my eyes so that I can focus it in super-fine detail on a single thing.

When you are racing, you must continuously be aware of both the current status and the trends for many things, such as where you are on the track, what forces are working on your car’s center of mass, how much traction is available, etc. Therefore, to drive with intellectual concentration requires that you quickly move your concentration around to sample your senses (visual, vestibular, and to a lesser degree, kinesthetic, auditory, and tactile). You then must take these samples and mentally combine them to create a “sensory model” of your status at your current location on the track.

Once you have your current status, then you must recall the appropriate chunk of your stored holistic track model (and its associated goals) so that you can compare your current status with the recalled information to determine if things are progressing OK, or if you need to make an adjustment to get back on target.

And on it goes as you drive around the track, with you repeating the whole process again-and-again as quickly as possible. Of course, this is a gross oversimplification. The process is not as segmented as I’ve described, and you don’t really ‘do’ all this; your brain does it for you automatically, but since intellectual concentration is a serial process, it is not instantaneous; each step does take a tiny sliver of time.

One important point that must be made here is that the quality (or depth) of your ‘current status’ sensory model depends on how much you focus on specific senses when constructing it. That said, your visual sense always takes priority if there is a processing ‘time crunch”. For example, a novice driver’s current status model would be overwhelmingly, if not completely, weighted toward visual sensory information because they are just trying to stay on the track and on the line. As a driver becomes more comfortable with the speed, and with their ability to stay on-line and on-track, they will introduce more vestibular sensory input into their current status model, which will provide the information they will need to evaluate things like loads, forces, and traction; instead of just location, direction, and speed.

Focused Concentration Advantages

One advantage of focused concentration is that you get very detailed information about whatever you are focused on, which means you can place yourself very accurately on the track, and it will be easier for you to pick out the particular items you are using as markers (breaking, turning, apex, etc.).

Focused concentration is also excellent when learning (a new track, or car, or technique) because of the evaluation element; the step of consciously comparing the current status to the stored model (and goals). The cycle of having a goal, performing, evaluating your performance, and adjusting for improvement that is inherent with focused concentration is the essence of learning. Also, with this process, your successes and adjustments get incorporated into your stored model (and you may end up adjusting your goals as well). At the same time, ‘muscle memories’ are being formed for the physical tasks needed to match reality to your stored model. Because of this, physical tasks become more-and-more automated and therefore, if you are using your brain properly, can get processed/performed at a lower-level – below full conscious awareness.

Focused Concentration Disadvantages

The problem with focused concentration is that all of the sampling, assembling, interpreting, and comparing to your stored holistic track model makes it very ‘processing’ intensive, and therefore not very time-efficient. Also, while the resolution of the information for each current-status created is very high, the quantity of sampled information is very low, so you have to do a lot of extrapolation to fill in the blanks… or just live with the blanks. Either way, it’s kind of like driving by looking at a map of the track instead of by actually looking at the track.

Another potential undesirable side effect of the high processing loads and corresponding time inefficiency of focused concentration is that it can cause an increase in your sensation of speed, and a corresponding increase in your stress level. Stress of this type can reduce your sensitivity to traction and forces, and it can keep you from getting into the Zone.

Finally, focused concentration is a lot of work; it takes a lot of mental effort to force your awareness into razor-sharp focus and keep it there for an extended period of time.

Holistic Concentration

I believe that Intuitive drivers spend a significant amount of their time (perhaps the majority of their time) using a different type of concentration that I have never heard described or explained elseware; I call it holistic concentration. Unlike focused concentration, which is a willful constriction of your attention to a sharp focal point, holistic concentration is achieved by focusing your attention on your awareness.

To be clear, there is a difference between ‘being aware’ and being ‘focused on awareness’. You can be aware but not focused, like when you are daydreaming; you’re aware of your surroundings, but are absorbed in your thoughts. When you focus your attention on awareness (instead of focusing on a single item or a single sense), you are concentrating on everything simultaneously, like a parallel processor. I know that this sounds paradoxical, but holistic concentration instantaneously creates a holistic scene involving all of your senses; like a complete slice of time. To me, this type of concentration feels like I am focusing my attention on the back of my eyes (instead of through them), which means I am simultaneously ‘concentrating’ on everything in my visual field, plus all of my other senses.

Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
— Chuang Tzu (c.B.C. 369-c.286)

Holistic Concentration Advantages

The advantages of using holistic concentration when racing are:

• Sensory information is serial processed at a deeper ‘intuitive’ level, which does not result in as much mental ‘load’ as serial processed focused/intellectual concentration.
  .
• Focusing on awareness provides a deep, full-sensory (visual, vestibular, kinesthetic, auditory, etc.) ‘understanding’ (and/or feel) for your current situation, without intellectually piecing together individually sampled bits of information to create a mental construct of the situation.
  .
• The information generated from holistic concentration does not require Intellectual processing to create a mental model of your situation because the information is already in a holistic form. That is, it contains all of the information you need to simultaneously determine where you are on the track, the forces that are working on your car’s center of mass, the traction available, etc.
  .
• You can perform essentially a real-time full-sensory pattern matching operation between the continuous flow of sensory information and your holistic model of the track, which serves as your pattern recognition template.

Because the sensory information stream that is produced when using holistic concentration is already in a holistic form, no Intellectual processing power is needed to create a mental model of your current situation. Put another way, if you think of driving around the track as a 4D video, then with focused concentration, you must assemble each frame of the video by sampling bits of sensory information. However, that process takes time, so only the most critical sensory information will make it into the frame (typically visual information) before time pressures force your brain to move on and begin sampling/assembling the next frame.

With holistic concentration, the flow of sensory information is already essentially in native 4D video format; each moment in time (location on the track) is already a complete ‘frame’ that includes input from all of your senses; no assembly required, and no data is sacrificed to ‘time pressures.’

NOTE: Another term for the Zone is ‘Flow’ or ‘being in the Flow’. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

I believe your brain stores your previous experience as a holistic full-sensory model of the track (a 4D Video recording if you will). See Memory for Racers for more information about this. So when you are driving, you essentially have two 4D videos playing simultaneously; one is a real-time video stream that represents the reality you are experiencing, and the other is being played back from memory. If these two ‘videos’ are synchronized, then I believe that your RAS can very easily do a real-time, low-level (pre-conscious or sub-conscious), pattern-recognition comparison between your current experience (reality) and your ‘template’ (the holistic model of the track stored in your memory).

NOTE: The Zone is sometimes described as a subconscious state, for example ‘He’s playing out of his mind.’ Again, I doubt this is a coincidence.

If the sensory information matches the pattern-recognition template, then your RAS does not need to draw your attention to the sensory information, so your intellectual resources remain free to handle other activities such as critiquing your driving, evaluating your cars performance, race-craft, etc. I believe that the efficiency of holistic concentration, and its corresponding reduction in load on your intellectual resources, is what produces a reduced sensation of speed, and makes it easier to drive in the Zone.

If the sensory information does not match the pattern-recognition template, then your RAS draws some of your intellectual attention to the mismatch. Your intellectual resources are needed so you can evaluate the mismatch and determine what to do to adjust for it. The amount of intellectual attention that is drawn to the mismatch depends on the amount of mismatch and the perceived danger that the mismatch represents. (For more detailed information about this, see “Staying in the ZONE“.)

Another very important benefit of holistic concentration is that it takes less mental effort than focused concentration because it does not require you to force your attention into a razor sharp focus and then hold it there.

Holistic Concentration Disadvantages

While holistic concentration has many benefits for racers when compared to focused concentration, it also has two big weaknesses:

1. It does not provide the razor-sharp clarity that some driving activities, and many learning activities, require.
   .
2. It operates in the moment, and is not very good with, organization, structure, or timing.

Integrating Focused and Holistic Concentration

It’s clear that neither concentration type satisfies all of a racer’s needs, so like everything in racing, there is a balance that must be achieved to gain maximum performance. I believe that expert drivers have learned instinctively to continuously shift back and forth between Intuitive and Intellectual concentration, which might go something like this:

1. They drive down a straight toward a turn using holistic concentration; taking in the whole scene.
   .
2. As they approach their braking point, they need more precision to position the car on the track and to precisely time when braking must begin, so they switch to focused concentration.
   .
3. Once braking begins, they switch back to holistic concentration so that they can simultaneously handle the visual and vestibular sensations coming in while their RAS compares current braking forces to their stored template.
   .
4. Then a brief switch to focused concentration to time the turn-in.
   .
5. And immediately back to holistic concentration again so that focused concentration does not interfere with the fine motor movements needed to turn the car into the corner, and so that they can feel the cornering forces build. While in the background, pattern matching is being done between their stored template and their current position on the track, the energy movement, loads, traction, forces, and the trends for all of these.
   .
6. The driver may cycle back and forth again between Intellectual and holistic concentration at the apex, and again at the exit. However, expert and master level drivers may stay in holistic concentration mode all the way through the apex and exit because they know that if the braking and turn-in go as expected (match the template), then the apex and exit will take care of themselves. They also know that if an issue (significant mismatch) comes up, their RAS will automatically switch them partially or fully into focused concentration mode so they can deal with the problem.

Caveats

Above, I’ve described the process of ‘switching’ concentration types as being a very digital (all/nothing) thing, but only because that’s the easiest way to describe it. In practice, since consciousness and concentration are continuums, the reality is more like a fluid shifting towards focused concentration and then back towards holistic concentration

NOTE: Drivers will also switch toward focused concentration if there is anything that requires precise attention, such as if another car is next to them, or if they sense a problem with the car, etc.

Experiencing the differences between Focused and Holistic Concentration

To get an idea of what Intuitive concentration feels like, go to a mirror and concentrate on one of your eyes. Look so closely that you can see the small veins in the white of your eye. Then, focus 100% of your attention on a single vein. Notice that while you are concentrating on the vein, you are not able to pay attention to the pupil of your eye, much less your other eye, your nose, mouth, or anything else in the room. Also feel how much mental effort it takes to keep all of your attention focus on the vein in your eye. If you shift your focus to something other than the vein, then the new item that your attention is focused on becomes clear, but you can no longer see the original vein with precision; or perhaps at all.

If you lose concentration (perhaps your mind begins to wander, or you start thinking about how stupid this exercise is) then your ‘attention’ will defocus into unfocused awareness, and you will lose the razor sharp clarity that intellectual concentration provides.

Next, try holistic concentration by relaxing your eyes and simultaneously looking at your entire face. (Try to focus your attention on the back of your eyes – on your entire field of view – instead of sending it through your eyes to be focused on a particular point on your face.) When your attention is focused on your awareness, you will not be able to see any particular part of your field of view with razor sharp precision like you can with focused concentration; things will be just slightly out of focus. But, when racing – especially in between critical ‘action’ points – you do not need razor sharp visual focus at the exclusion of your other senses. You need to be able to simultaneously ‘concentrate’ on all of the things in your field of vision (plus your other senses) without your mind wandering. In other words, it’s not a crystal clear picture of any particular thing, but it is a complete/holistic representation of the entire 4D scene. Also notice that it takes much less effort to keep your attention focused on your awareness than it does to focus your attention on a single thing.

Finally, while concentrating on your awareness, notice that you can be simultaneously aware of your other senses. Also note that this simultaneous awareness does not require any more effort and does not diminish the amount of information you are receiving from your visual sense.