Introducing - "Choosing Sides: F1"

What’s the deal with Formula 1 racing? Is it just a bunch of European adrenaline junkies with a death wish? And how does it differ from something like the American-based NASCAR or IndyCar series? In reality, there’s way more to it. F1 combines some of the world’s great engineering feats, drivers wi…

Episode 10: Mental Health and the Yips

From Simone Biles’ brush with the twisties to Rick Ankiel’s experience of the yips, the constellation of phenomena known as the yips–and the stories of the athletes who experience it–are some of the strangest in the world of sports. Far more common, but perhaps equally opaque, are mood disorders li…

Episode 9: Meditation and Humor

Losing Control is a podcast about the yips. But this episode isn’t about the yips. It’s about two of the tools athletes and elite performers utilize to maintain a healthy mind: meditation and humor. Dr. Amishi Jha studies meditation and its impact on our attention, stress levels, and performance. J…

Episode 8: The Yips and Life After Sports

Former starting quarterback Joel Stave led the Wisconsin Badgers for 31 wins between 2012 and 2015, and to this day, Stave remains the Badgers’ all-time winningest quarterback. But success isn’t only about the wins or the completed passes, and in one of the lows–and highs–of his life so far, Stave …

Episode 7: Confidence and Sustainable Success

Focus on what you can control. It’s a phrase you’ve heard more than once if you’ve been listening to this podcast, and it typically refers to reorienting your perspective or ideas of success from the external to the internal: from elements outside of your control, to elements within your control. B…

Episode 6: Performance Anxiety

Performance anxiety and the yips are not the same thing, and feeling unable to perform or compete before a big event is far more common than actually being unable to perform or compete due to the yips. But these ailments share more than a few similarities, and on this episode of Losing Control, hos…

Episode 5: Dystonia and the Neuroscience of the Yips

The yips has been described as a wiring problem in the brain. But what is a wiring problem in the brain? It may be dystonia, a neurological movement disorder that causes involuntary muscle spasms or jerks, and on this episode of Losing Control, host Justin Su’a talks with Dr. Steven Frucht, a neuro…

Episode 4: Target Panic in Archery and the Yips in Golf

The yips is not only present in a sport like gymnastics, which requires an almost unparalleled degree of athleticism, but also in sports like archery and golf, which demand extraordinary mental fitness. In archery, it’s known as target panic, and in this episode of Losing Control, we explore the me…

Episode 3: The Twisties

We’ve talked about the yips, but what about the twisties? The infamous variety of yips that afflicts aerial athletes, the twisties is a term which describes the experience of athletes who lose their sense of proprioception, or their awareness of where their bodies are in space. It was this unusual …

Episode 2: How Tyler Matzek Beat the Yips

Today the Atlanta Braves’ Tyler Matzek is a World Series Champion and one of the top relief pitchers in Major League Baseball. But just a few years ago, Tyler Matzek was ready to walk away from the game, and not because he was ready to retire, but due to a bad case of the yips. Matzek had tried eve…