{"id":2330,"date":"2023-01-30T09:39:47","date_gmt":"2023-01-30T14:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2330"},"modified":"2023-01-30T09:40:23","modified_gmt":"2023-01-30T14:40:23","slug":"the-yips","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/30\/the-yips\/","title":{"rendered":"The Yips"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To listen to this reflection as a podcast, <\/em>click here<\/a>.
 
Fans of professional tennis let out a collective cheer two days ago. 
 
On the other side of the world, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus won the Australian Open women\u2019s singles championship, the first Grand Slam of her stellar career.
 
It also represented a victory over \u201cthe yips,\u201d one of the most debilitating frailties in the world of sports.  Beginning three years ago, Sabalenka, who has one of the biggest serves on the women\u2019s tour, suddenly couldn\u2019t get the ball over the net.  Last year alone she committed 400 double faults, far more than any of her competitors. 
 
The yips is a catch-all term for the sudden, unexplained inability to execute a basic skill \u2013 an activity of one kind or another that a highly trained athlete has performed with ease literally a million times before.
 
Seemingly out of the blue, a golf champion like David Duval can\u2019t sink a six-inch putt.  Or the first player selected overall in the 2017 NBA draft, Markelle Fultz, can\u2019t hit a free throw. 
 
Steve Blass, an All-Star pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1964 to 1972, suddenly lost his ability to throw strikes.  Within two years he was out of the league.  Observers called his struggles Steve Blass Disease.  In the late 1990s, Chuck Knoblauch, the Yankees\u2019 Gold Glove second baseman, had no trouble fielding ground balls.  But for no discernible reason he lost the ability to consistently do something he had done all his life \u2013 throw the ball to first base.  Sometimes things went well.  Other times the ball missed his teammate\u2019s glove by 20 feet, or sailed over his head into the stands.
 
Fans of Simone Biles \u2013 widely recognized as the greatest female gymnast of all time \u2013 were stunned when a bad case of the \u201ctwisties\u201d compelled her to drop out of her signature events at the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021.  The twisties are a version of the yips where a gymnast suddenly feels disoriented and may \u201cforget,\u201d in the moment, how to execute a safe landing. 
 
Fans of the Dallas Cowboys stared incredulously at their screens the past two weekends as Brett Maher, their outstanding placekicker, missed five consecutive extra points.  During the regular season he had converted 50 of 53 attempts \u2013 and two of those had been blocked.  How could one of the best kickers in the world suddenly implode?
 
The yips \u2013 also known as freezing, the jerks, the staggers, and the waggles \u2013 are a mystery.
 
Neurologists point to the phenomenon of focal dystonia<\/em>, involuntary spasms that affect just one part of the body \u2013 perhaps a part that experiences repetitive movement (like a kicker\u2019s leg or a tennis player\u2019s arm).  Athletes, coaches, and psychologists agree that performance anxiety in the big moment (popularly known as \u201cchoking\u201d) is also likely to be in the mix.  If fear of failure in front of one\u2019s peers and a national TV audience isn\u2019t actually caused by the yips, such fear undoubtedly makes the yips worse. 
 
In the face of such public embarrassment, highly trained athletes may lose their composure.  Then their confidence.  Then their careers. 
 
Aryna Sabalenka faced all of that.  When she doubled-faulted on her very first opportunity to serve last Saturday (something that might have filled her with self-doubt in the past) she calmly refocused.  When she finally won the match, she burst into tears \u2013 no doubt a combination of joy, relief, and the peculiar anxiety that comes from finally standing at the top of the mountain – knowing she will have to do it all over again in the next tournament.   
 
The yips also affect non-athletes.
 
Musicians may suddenly find it impossible to play a Beethoven sonata or a Chopin nocturne.  Keyboardists may lose the simple \u201cmuscle memory\u201d required to type a sentence.  People who rely on handwriting may discover, to their horror, that they cannot hold a pen. 
 
And then there\u2019s what we might call the spiritual yips \u2013 the sudden, unexpected, and disheartening inability to trust God. 
 
Out the blue, I cannot seem to pray.  Or sense God\u2019s presence.  Or believe that my out-of-control life is going to turn out OK. 
 
It\u2019s like a spiritual panic attack.
 
Perhaps it comes after experiencing a personal setback.  Or losing a loved one.  Or reading a book that calls into question everything I ever thought I knew about God.
 
Worst of all, who can I tell?  In a community of people who believe, it\u2019s tough being the person struggling with faith.  If I\u2019m a pastor, teacher, small group leader, or parent \u2013 knowing there are people who are counting on me to help steer them through life\u2019s minefields \u2013 how can I ever admit that I have serious doubts of my own? 
 
The answer is that God is merciful to those experiencing the spiritual yips. 
 
In the middle of the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is confronted by a frantic father.  His son is afflicted by a demon.  \u201cIf you can do anything,\u201d the father implores, \u201ctake pity on us and help us.\u201d 
 
\u201c\u2019If you can\u2019?\u201d says Jesus.  \u201cEverything is possible for one who believes.\u201d  The father immediately replies, \u201cI do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!\u201d  (Mark 9:22-24).  Whereupon Jesus heals the boy.
 
This is an extraordinary text.  It should demolish forever any basis for the so-called Name It and Claim It theology advocated by certain preachers \u2013 that all we need to bring to a perfect God is a perfect faith, after which God will be perfectly willing to shower us with the health, wealth, and wholeness we seek. 
 
What does the father bring to Jesus?  All he can offer is a mixed bag of doubt, trust, and sheer desperation.  I want to believe.  I cannot believe.  Please help me believe<\/em>. 
 
But that is enough. 
 
Our ability to perform spiritually is not the point.  Our inability<\/em> to perform spiritually is not the point.  God\u2019s gracious willingness to provide everything we need is the real point. 
 
\u201cThe eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms\u201d (Deuteronomy 33:27).  
 
Even if we should lose, for a time, the ability to do the simplest things \u2013 trust, pray, and persevere \u2013 we can never fall so far that God cannot catch us.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast, click here. Fans of professional tennis let out a collective cheer two days ago.  On the other side of the world, Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus won the Australian Open women\u2019s singles championship, the first Grand Slam of her stellar career. It also represented a victory over \u201cthe yips,\u201d one of the most debilitating frailties in the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[560],"class_list":["post-2330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-struggles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2330"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2333,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2330\/revisions\/2333"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}