Damasio - Feelings vs Emotions

In chapter 7 of Descartes' Error, Damasio discusses the distinction between feelings and emotions.  Damasio further divides feelings into three varieties: feelings of basic universal emotions, feelings of subtle universal emotions, and background feelings.  The discussion of background feelings is particularly interesting to me; Damasio rather eloquently describes it as "not the Verdi of grand emotion, nor the Stravinsky of intellectualized emotion but rather a minimalist in tone and beat, the feeling of life itself, the sense of being" (Damasio 150).  Damasio argues that these background feelings, which corresponds to "the body state prevailing between emotions" (Damasio 150), are so important that without them "the very core of your representation of self would be broken" (Damasio 151).  Drawing from this view, Damasio proposes that the reason anosognosics have irrational responses and inappropriate emotions and feelings is due to a lack of ability to sense the current body state, which is is connected with background feeling.

What I began to think about was the connection between this background feeling and instincts, but of a slightly different kind than the animalistic instincts Damasio discusses earlier in the book.  Rather, I wonder how this applies to instincts in activities like sports or music, perhaps what Aristotle would have called knacks.  Is there a difference in a person having a good feel for a sport and performing the right move or play, and in the ability of a person to respond appropriately to a situation? Or to ask a different question, would a pro athlete be able to continue his/her high level of play after suffering an injury like Phineas Gage's?  I guess it would be unlikely, but how does this explain the gifts of so-called autistic savants?