A11. The yips

TOC

The yips is a phenomenon in which tension or anxiety builds up during play, causing the limbs and trunk to move involuntarily without the player's intention to do so ( involuntary movement ) , resulting in an inability to perform normally or to move smoothly . This phenomenon is said to occur in a variety of athletes, including golfers, baseball players, basketball players, and speed skaters.

One day, I couldn't make a simple putt, my wrist was a little stiff and awkward. When I tried to hit the ball after imagining the putt going in, the image of missing came over me. I threw the ball in a different place than I intended, but I put too much force in the wrong place. When I tried to do a triple 1/2 rotation in figure skating, my body stiffened and I could only do half a rotation. I practiced hard to fix it, and thought I was fine because I could do it well during practice, but that strange habit came out again at the important moment. I sat in meditation, thinking it might be mental. I walked around the ancient capital to broaden my horizons. But the yips still didn't go away. I couldn't escape the feeling of defeat. Maybe this sport isn't for me, maybe I don't have the qualities to be an athlete. It's been my dream since I was a child, but I'm going to give up.

The yips impair performance , and some athletes may drop out of the sport due to a decline in their grades or feel embarrassed about the yips, which has a significant impact on athletes' mental health and quality of life (Smith et al. 2003).

It has been reported that 35% of professional golfers in Japan experience the yips (Revankar et al. 2021). According to online information (Shiraken), many professional golfers seem to be suffering from the yips, such as Ai Miyazato with putter yips, Shigeki Maruyama with tee shot yips, Nobumitsu Yuhara with putting yips, and overseas, Tom Watson with putter yips. Furthermore, in baseball, Seiichi Uchikawa, Kazuo Matsui, and Takeshi Taguchi all reportedly suffered from the yips, although it seems that their condition improved when they were converted from infield to outfield. Recently, DeNA's Souma Tokuyama has come out and said that he has overcome the yips.

So how does this yips come about?

It is said that the function of the motor pathways connecting the brain to the limbs etc. is impaired under high stress , but the exact mechanism of the condition is not known. It is thought that it arises from a combination of neurological disorders such as focal dystonia (a condition in which unintended muscle contractions cause unexpected movements) (Lenka et al. 2021) and psychological disorders such as choking (Smith et al. 2003; Ioannou CI, et al. 2018).

A survey of elite Japanese golfers found that about 57% of golfers with yips believed that their symptoms were psychological. It was reported that the way to deal with the condition was to increase or decrease the amount of practice, change the grip, use a different putter, or use self-taught improvement methods or mental skill training. It has also been reported that while these methods have been shown to improve approach yips, they have little effect on putter yips (Revankar et al. 2021).

As treatment, cognitive behavioral therapy and other treatments such as pharmacological treatments (Adler et al. 2020), botulinum therapy (Revankar et al. 2021), and stereotactic neurosurgery (Shukla et al. 2018) have also been proposed.