Yips

Yips or the yips is the loss of fine motor skills in athletes. The condition occurs suddenly and without apparent explanation usually in mature athletes with years of experience. It is poorly understood and has no known treatment or therapy. Athletes affected by the yips sometimes recover their ability, which may require a change in technique. Many are forced to abandon their sport at the highest level.

The yips manifest themselves as twitches, staggers, jitters and jerks. The condition occurs most often in sports which athletes are required to perform a single precise and well-timed action such as golf and darts. The condition is also experienced by bowlers in cricket and pitchers in baseball.

In golf

In golf, the yips is a movement disorder known to interfere with putting. The term yips is said to have been popularized by Tommy Armour—a golf champion and later golf teacher—to explain the difficulties that led him to abandon tournament play.[1] In describing the yips, golfers have used terms such as twitches, staggers, jitters and jerks. The yips affects between one-quarter and one-half of all mature golfers.[2] Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that 33 percent to 48 percent of all serious golfers have experienced the yips. Golfers who have played for more than 25 years appear to be most prone to the condition.

Although the exact cause of the yips has yet to be determined, one possibility is that the condition may result from biochemical changes in the brain that accompany aging. Excessive use of the involved muscles and intense demands of coordination and concentration may make the problem worse. Giving up golf for a month may help. Focal dystonia is mentioned as another possibility for the real cause of yips.[3]

Professional golfers seriously afflicted by the yips include Pádraig Harrington, Bernhard Langer, Ben Hogan, Harry Vardon, Sam Snead, Ian Baker-Finch and Keegan Bradley, who missed a simple six-inch putt in the final round of the 2013 HP Byron Nelson Championship due to the condition (although he may also have been suffering from Strabismus). At the 2015 Waste Management Open, golf commentator Nick Faldo suggested that Tiger Woods is possibly suffering from the yips. Jay Yarow from Business Insider commented after the 2014 open that Woods has both the putting "yips", and the driver "yips".[4]

Interventions looking to treat the 'yips' have been few and far between. Most golfers have attempted trick strategies, either by changing their putter, their grip or even switching hands. However these strategies provide only temporary relief.

In cricket

In cricket, the yips applies mostly to bowlers and seems predominantly to affect left-arm spinners. The affliction seems to involve bowlers having trouble releasing the ball at the end of their action. A notable recent example of this was Keith Medlycott, who having reached the England squad was forced to abandon the sport. Another player, Gavin Hamilton, having played a Test as an all-rounder, largely abandoned his right-arm medium pace bowling, following the yips.[5] He did not make another Test appearance, but has enjoyed a One Day International career for Scotland, predominantly as a specialist batsman. Collins Obuya was one of the stars of Kenya's 2003 World Cup—he gained a contract with Warwickshire on the back of it—but soon afterward his game fell apart when he developed the yips.

As reported in a 2011 interview in the Wellcome Trust's educational magazine Big Picture,[6] England cricket team sports psychologist Dr Mark Bawden suffered from the yips himself as a teenager. He completed a PhD on the topic and has published a paper on the yips in the Journal of Sports Science.[7]

In baseball

In baseball, the yips usually manifests itself as a sudden inability to throw the baseball accurately. Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Steve Blass is the classic example: from 1964 to 1972, he was a dominant pitcher and All-Star. However, beginning in 1973, he suddenly lost his command, walking almost a batter an inning. He retired in 1974 due to continued loss of his pitching ability. "Steve Blass disease" has been attributed to talented players (such as New York Yankees second baseman Chuck Knoblauch or Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Steve Sax) who also inexplicably seemed to lose their ability to throw the ball accurately.[8] New York Mets catcher Mackey Sasser suffered the yips in 1990 after a collision at home plate with Atlanta's Jim Presley; Sasser couldn't throw the ball back to his pitcher without tapping his mitt as many as four times, and San Francisco Giants outfielder Brett Butler once stole third base during a Sasser yip.

Another, similar, case of the yips occurred with St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Rick Ankiel. Ankiel had early success as a pitcher until he suddenly lost his ability to throw strikes and began throwing an inordinate number of wild pitches. After several years in the minor leagues attempting to regain his control, he abandoned pitching altogether and became a position player. Ironically, much of his success as a position player has resulted from his strong, accurate throws from the outfield.

In other sports

The yips also affects players in other sports. Examples from other sports include Roy Hibbert, Chuck Hayes’ free throw shot[9] in basketball and Guillermo Coria and Elena Dementieva struggling with serving in tennis.[10] In darts, the yips are known as dartitis, with five-time world champion Eric Bristow as the best example. In the NFL, a normally reliable placekicker who starts struggling is also said to have the yips.

Stephen Hendry, seven times snooker World Champion, revealed after his loss to Mark Williams in the 2011 UK Championship that he had been suffering from the yips for ten years, and that the condition had affected his ability to cue through the ball, causing him great difficulty in regaining his old form.[11]

In popular culture

The song "Yipps (My Baby Got The)" by English Indie Rock band Half Man Half Biscuit, on McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt, 1991, discusses the symptoms of the yips ("She goes out in 32 but comes home in 54") and various golfing figures of the time. The Yips is the title of a 2012 book by English novelist Nicola Barker, which deals with an aging golfer. The Yips is the tenth episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother. In Nip/Tuck, Dr. Sean McNamara experiences the yips during the beginning of season 2. The character Dave Rose in Happy Endings (TV series) suffers from the yips in the tenth episode of season three called "KickBall 2: The Kickening". Chad Harbach's 2011 novel The Art of Fielding also centers on a fictional college baseball shortstop who loses the ability to successfully throw to first base.

In To the Beautiful You, a 2012 South Korean television drama series, a significant plot element hinges on whether the male lead, Kang Tae-joon (Choi Minho), has the Yips. How I Met Your Mother devoted an episode, "The Yips", to extrapolating the concept from one of sports performance into a general loss of ability due to failing confidence, in this case an inability to successfully attract women. In The Flash episode "Power Outage", the title character is referred to having the Yips when The Flash appears to lose his speed ability, but it is found to be psychological. In Psych, Season 4, "Shawn Gets the Yips", Shawn Spencer attributes his throwing errors to the Yips, relating his problem to that of New York Yankees second baseman Chuck Knoblauch. In Human Target, Christopher Chance (Mark Valley) Season 1, episode 9 "Corner Man", Chance allows MMA/ boxers to land blows on him. Their client tells him he's got the Yips. In the series The Prince of Tennis, the character Seiichi Yukimura has techniques that utilizes his aura to take away the senses from his opponents, inducing something similar to Yips.

In the anime series Diamond no Ace the protagonist Sawamura Eijun also got the Yips, by losing the ability to throw the ball to the inside part of the batter strike zone, been afraid of hitting the batter with the ball. In the series Major, the protagonist Goro Shigeno develops the yips after his defeat at the hands of his rival Joe Gibson Jr. at the World Cup, which results to him giving up walks to batters and losing control of his pitches, even hitting a batter in the head. In the video game Darkest Dungeon, one of the quirks that a character might get is "The Yips", which causes a reduction in accuracy. The NBC show Crowded mentions the yips, Season 1, episode 3. Mikes step brother who is a professional golfer suffers from the condition. The HBO show Curb Your Enthusiasm mention the yips, Season 5, episode 1. Larry's character observers his father's doctor shaking when putting, and has second thoughts about the doctor's upcoming operation on his father.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Barkow, A. and Barrett, D. (1997) Golf Legends of All Time. Publications International.
  2. ↑ Smith et al., 2000.
  3. ↑ Farias J. Intertwined. How to induce neuroplasticity. A new approach to rehabilitating dystonias. Galene Editions 2012.
  4. ↑ http://sports.yahoo.com/news/tiger-woods-era-over-145828661.html
  5. ↑ "Gavin Hamilton | Scotland Cricket | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo". Content-uk.cricinfo.com. Retrieved 2011-11-29.
  6. ↑ "'We very rarely talk about winning'". Big Picture. Wellcome Trust. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
  7. ↑ Bawden, M.; Maynard, I. (December 2001). "Towards an understanding of the personal experience of the 'yips' in cricketers". Journal of Sports Science. pp. 937–53.
  8. ↑ http://m.mlb.com/news/article/47124896/the-yips-difficult-to-understand-difficult-to-cure/
  9. ↑ bballvideos (2007-12-21). "Chuck Hayes Ugly Free Throws vs Denver 12/20". YouTube. Retrieved 2011-11-29.
  10. ↑ "Tom Perotta - The Yips". Tennisworld.typepad.com. Retrieved 2011-11-29.
  11. ↑ "BBC Sport - Snooker - Hendry reveals 10-year battle with the 'yips'". BBC News. 2010-12-08. Retrieved 2011-11-29.

11. Tiger yips out phoenix tournament jan 30, 2015- http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/gola-chip-yips-major-problem-tiger-article-1.2098606

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