How to Beat the Yips

According to Wikipedia, the yips are "an apparently baseless sudden loss of ability in one of a number of different sports." A number of famous golfers (like Sam Snead) have been stricken by the yips on their putting strokes. Baseball players (like Chuck Knoblauch) sometimes suffer from the throwing yips. One professional catcher (I forgot his name) was double-pumping his throws back to the pitcher a few years ago. A number of female tennis players (Anna Kournikova, Elena Dementieva) have suffered from the yips on their serves. Recently, Maria Sharapova served an incredible 21 double faults in her loss to Melanie Oudin at the 2009 U.S. Open - a sure sign of the yips.

I have discovered one way to beat the yips that might can be applied to a number of sports. First, a little background. I started playing tennis in the seventh grade, improving rapidly, so that by my junior year in high school I was the top player on the men's varsity team. However, just before the tennis season in my senior year, I developed a severe case of the yips on my forehand. I couldn't function at all. Sometimes I would hit it and the ball wouldn't even make it to the bottom of the net. I would swing the racket back, then just as I began to swing forward I would fell an incredible tensing up that ruined my stroke. It got to where I was running around my forehand to hit a backhand, and I was even charging the net at bad times just so I could play a volley (which did not suffer from the yips). Needless to say, I lost my top spot on the team. However, by that summer, I had recovered enough to win a youth tournament, and I have never suffered from the yips in tennis again. Since I suffered from the yips at such an early age, I do not agree with the theory that the condition may result from biochemical changes in the brain that accompany aging.

Before I describe what I did to solve the problem, I should also mention that later in life I briefly suffered from the yips pitching in slow-pitch softball, as well as serving underhand in volleyball (One time I actually swung and missed the ball on an underhand volleyball serve - this from a person with supposedly good coordination).

I believe the yips strike an individual when the individual is repeating a particular sports motion in exactly the same way. This is why golfers have putting yips - every putting stroke is the same, but other non-putting golf shots vary - good golfers intentionally alter their swing to hit a hook, fade, etc. In my case, I initially learned to hit a stiff-wristed topspin forehand. I tried to hit them all the same way. I never had yips on my backhand, since I commonly alternated between topspin and slice. I hit three serves: flat, side spin, and topspin, so I never have the yips there. There are certainly some days where the flat serve just won't go in, but I can always change to one of the others.

I needed to learn to hit several different forehands. I eventually switched to a wristy topspin forehand, but I occasionally employ a slice forehand or even a sort of sidespin slap. For me, being able to hit the ball several different ways eliminates the mental freeze that causes the yips.

This principle of learning to make a movement several different ways can be applied to other sports as well. In baseball, you can learn to throw both a curve ball and a fastball, or a regular throw along with a sidearm. You normally want to use a fastball motion for all non-pitching throws, but I believe if you learn to comfortably employ some different type of throw, you will not suffer from the yips. There is no reason a catcher cannot throw a sidearm back to the pitcher from time to time. I solved my softball pitching yips by alternating the pitch so that sometimes I lead with my hand forward rather than ball forward - a sort of backhand. Alas, it will be tough to apply this principle to golf and putting. In that case, you might need to visit a sports psychiatrist after all.