Performance anxiety and "The Yips"
How this simple thing plagues your pitchers and costs them games.
Over the years, a lot of dudes have hit me up asking questions about Yips/Performance anxiety.
There are a few things I think almost everyone can benefit from, yipped or not.
Most of the time, these things stem from a lack of perspective.
First things first, it’s usually early in your college career. You dove in the deep end and are now competing at a way higher level than you ever have before, you think you’ve gotta be perfect.
Ya don’t.
Competing at a high level really comes down to 2 things.
1- Do you throw ball over plate?
2- Do you have good stuff?
If you do both, you’d literally pitch anywhere.
It’s simple, and no matter how bad you are you still have time to improve gradually.
Yips in pitchers really stems from this:
Thinking you have to be perfect, now.
The singular best thing you can do is this:
Take a step back.
You’re probably 18-20, (or even younger) and if you commit to making small steps in the right direction every day, the truth is you can probably be better than you’ve ever been in 6 months to a year.
“Dude I hit 2 dudes and walked 3 in my last outing, got rolled before I got an out.”
Okay, and if you improve 1 walk every other outing, you’ll be having solid outings by the end of the fall.
And the early spring is still open.
(That’s where they make decisions anyway)
There is one simple thing you need to do:
Embrace a growth mindset.
No you’re not good, you’re 18. Most of you aren’t.
Get 1% better every day, and by the time 2-3 years go by you won’t recognize the player you are.
And here’s the thing.
Being good fixes just about everything. It really takes an elite 6 month period to put yourself on the map.
Being good fixes everything, everything.
And if you really build the base and become good, you’re going to get a chance.
Some things you have to go in and just try to survive.
That’s it.
Deep breaths the entire way through and commit to giving 100% every single pitch until you’re done.
You should prolly do this every outing anyway.
Some other tangible items:
- seek out embarrassment.
Throw PFP’s into the outfield, get yelled at. Get back up and make the play.
- throw live to hitters
Idk maybe hit one of them. Realize the world doesn’t end.
If you want more, hit me up.
There’s a ton more here I can’t share because it’s not my information to give publicly.
Don’t let overly high expectations and insecurity take the game you love away.
There’s a lot of different factors that go into this kind of stuff, but understanding and having an awareness of where it stems from and how to get rid of it/limit how much it affects you is what you need to know when it comes to getting back on track and being the player you can be.
If you are a coach, you probably lose 1-3 pitchers **every single year** to this condition in varying degrees. Imagine getting1 of those pitchers back and being able to add 1 impact arm to your pitching staff every season.
The difference between the good teams and bad pitching staffs are often super small margins, and being able to add 1 solid arm to your bullpen or rotation can certainly be the difference in winning or losing multiple games over the course of a 50-60 game season.
And
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