big name in "flow"

Mihaly Csiksczentmihalyi says:

Commencement of learning something is a flow situation – everything is new and flow absorption is present as one struggles to master the skill. As one progresses, either boredom will ensue because there is no more challenge (the skill has been learned at that level) or anxiety occurs because a bigger challenge than we can cope with presents itself. Either way, one wants to get back to flow, either by overcoming the anxiety challenge by becoming more skilled, or taking on a challenge that will overcome the boredom, thus getting back into flow at a more complex level.

This seems to fit nicely alongside Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development. On the other hand, stopping to reflect on a problem (sometimes caused by hitting a brick wall) often helps a person examine their understanding, and perhaps help "internalize" (another Vygotskian term) the learning. How much of what we know/understand comes from "just doing it" and how much comes from reflection? Clearly both aspects are involved in knowing, but maybe this points to a distinction between "knowing" (e.g. mulitplication tables) and "understanding" (e.g. mathematical concepts that undergird multiplication tables). Or is meaning (like many other things) a continuum?