How can we make something more difficult?

Ah yes. The yips.

That charming moment when your body decides to ignore your brain in public.

At their simplest, the yips are a sudden, involuntary loss of fine motor control in a well-learned skill. Most often seen in sports that rely on precision rather than brute force: golf, darts, snooker, archery, serving in tennis, throwing in cricket or baseball.

At it’s worst, it develops into an extreme fear reaction with phobia like responses to a particular situation or even equipment. A golfer may become to regard his putter as if it was a poisonous snake (or whatever your particular dislike is).

You know how to do the thing.

You’ve done it thousands of times.

And then one day… your hands file a formal complaint and refuse to cooperate.

What it looks like:

•           Twitching, freezing, jerking or flinching at the moment of execution

•           Overthinking movements that used to be automatic

•           A sense of “something is about to go wrong” just before it does

•           Increasing avoidance of the skill (or inventing creative new routines to hide it)

What’s actually going on:

•           The skill has slipped out of automatic processing and into conscious control

•           Anxiety, expectation and self-monitoring hijack the motor programme

•           The nervous system goes into threat mode and adds tension where precision is needed

•           The harder you try to “fix” it, the worse it tends to get (helpful, I know)

The important bit people miss:

The yips are not a lack of confidence, not weakness, and not you forgetting how to perform.

They’re a performance system error — not a character flaw.

Why they’re so stubborn:

•           Attention is focused internally (“Don’t mess this up”)

•           Fear of recurrence becomes the trigger

•           Each bad experience reinforces the loop

•           Practice often just rehearses the problem more efficiently

The good news:

They’re highly treatable when you stop fighting the symptom and start retraining the system: attention, expectation, physiology, and the meaning attached to the moment.

In short:

The yips are what happen when a skill meant to run quietly in the background gets dragged into the spotlight… and panics.

So why do elite performers get them more often than the rest of us?

Firstly, skill level is not always an indicator of how susceptible you are to the yips. I believe it is more about your emotional attachment to what you are doing and realising what your true performance levels are.

Anyway, back to the question.

Because elite performers are too good at what they do.

And they tend to be very good at what they do because they really care (have an emotional bond) about what they do.

Annoying, but true.

Here’s why the yips disproportionately pick on the highly skilled rather than us mere mortals.

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1. Their skills run deep on autopilot

Elite performance lives in the unconscious. Movements are refined, efficient, and automated through thousands of repetitions.

The problem?

Those systems don’t like being watched.

When pressure, scrutiny or consequence increase, attention drifts from outcome to mechanics. The brain drags an automatic skill into conscious control, where it was never designed to live. Precision collapses under inspection.

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2. They care… a lot

High standards are not a side effect — they’re the entry requirement.

Elite performers:

•           Notice tiny deviations

•           Attach meaning to small errors

•           Expect consistency as a baseline

That sensitivity is what made them great. It’s also what amplifies threat signals when something feels “off”. The nervous system responds accordingly: tension, timing disruption, micro-panic.

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3. Pressure means something to them

For elites, performance isn’t just “a go”.

It’s:

•           Identity

•           Reputation

•           Livelihood

•           Selection, contracts, rankings, legacy

When a moment carries consequence, the brain shifts from execution to self-protection. And self-protection is terrible at fine motor control.

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4. They’ve been taught to analyse… constantly

Coaching at high levels involves detail. Lots of it.

Technique, video review, metrics, marginal gains. All useful — until the brain decides mid-performance is a great time to apply them.

Analysis during learning = brilliant

Analysis during execution = yips fuel

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5. They have something to lose

Once you’ve performed at a high level, a dip isn’t neutral — it’s threatening.

The fear isn’t “I might miss.”

It’s “What if this is the start of something?”

That anticipation alone is enough to trigger the loop:

notice → worry → control → disrupt → confirm fear

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6. They try harder when it goes wrong

Logical? Yes.

Does it work? No.

Effort, force and control feel like the solution.

But precision requires allowing, not muscling.

The elite are brilliant problem-solvers — which makes them especially good at accidentally solving the wrong problem.

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The quiet irony

The yips don’t show up instead of skill.

They show up because of it.

They’re the price paid for:

•           Deep automation

•           High standards

•           Meaningful stakes

Which is why resolving them isn’t about confidence boosts or positive thinking — it’s about restoring trust in the system that already knows what to do.

Struggling with the yips?

You don’t need a new technique — you need the system back on your side.

If this sounds familiar, an online session at a time that suits you is often the simplest place to start

Get in touch now

Hello@focusmindset.co.uk

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