The driving yips

[fasteddy8170]

I'm a high level Intermediate to mid level Advanced player--99% backhander. And sometimes right in the middle of a round, I'll get the feeling when I grip the disc that it's not going to leave my hand when I throw it. The feeling comes out of nowhere--never happens in practice. And it, of course, causes me to start spraying drives all the place.

The feeling can actually get so bad that I start to imagine my arm and wrist rolling over, and like grip locking the disc into the ground. Even after the round is over I still feel the effects. The only thing that makes it go away is to not throwing discs for a while. Maybe an hour or so.

I know it's irrational--because if you're throwing right the disc is going to rip out of your hand. But it does cause the rest of my body to not do what it's supposed to do. Even standstill throws can be affected.

Anybody ever felt anything like this?

 

[Quinntastic]

Try switching to forehand. I used to go almost all rhbh for a while and would just get a mental block or something and start sending them everywhere. Not exactly like you describe but still affected my play. I found one or two discs I could at least get an accurate flick out of and being able to switch to that for even a hole or two helped. Even as basic as getting it in play and moving forward.


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[riltim]

Disc down to fairways or mids and focus on working your way down the fairway instead of bombing or parking the hole. Alternatively if it's a shorter hole that you normally throw stable mid @ 90%, disc up to an understable fairway and throw it 70-80%.

Once you have a couple good shots you're confidence will be back to where it needs to be.

 

[thirtydirtybirds]

So this only happens during competitive play, when you are focused on your performance? Sounds like you are putting too much pressure on your self and developing a bit of throwing anxiety. You gotta get that pressure off yourself. I'm no shrink so I can't say how to do it, but recognizing it's all mental is a good start.

 

[aevew]

Can you pinpoint what triggers the feeling? Or what changes after you haven't thrown for an hour? I know you said the feeling comes out of nowhere, but something is triggering you to doubt yourself.

My mental game is something that I have been trying to work on a lot. Now if I find myself with a case of nerves at some point in my game, I take a step back and give myself a moment to pause and reset. I actively try to avoid thinking negative statements that contain the exact thing I don't want to do (ex. do not grip lock this throw) and replace them with positive action statements (ex. trust your shots and your discs). It sounds SUPER hokey and dumb, but it actually helps me.

I also make a point of practicing the things in a way that will reinforce success into my brain. So I'll practice 7' putts that I know I'll make, instead of 15' putts where I might have a 60% success rate. Or I'll practice short/controlled drives with the road/neighbours' houses on the right to prevent myself from grip lock or doing something to make the disc turn over. It's kind of a high stress situation because I don't want to explain why I've dinged their car with my disc, but it forces me to slow down and stay in control.

Hopefully you can find a way to beat your yips. They can definitely be frustrating, but overcoming them mid-round or mid-hole is a very satisfying feeling.

 

[fasteddy8170]

I'm sorry it's taken SO long to get back on to this thread. Frankly, the reason I haven't is because I didn't play much disc golf after June 2017. Lots of things going on. I bet I only picked up my discs 5 times between August and December--and I live in Florida where we can play year round. I kind of just put the discs down. Took a break.

Well, I picked them back up in January. And I was practicing pretty well. Then I played in a tourney in February and the yips came right back. During that time that I wasn't playing I did learn that what I've acquired is very much like what Steve Sax or Charlie Knoblacuh or Steve Blass got in baseball. Sax overcame them--the other two did not. And it seems in every sport out there that pro athletes have had this condition--once again some recovering, and others not. In non-sports, I think it's very much like public speaking--a person can deliver a presentation in an empty room with no problem. You put the person in front of 100 people and the words don't come out.

As I described in my original post, it feels like the disc isn't going to leave my hand. Like as soon as I touch the disc, the hand feels glued to the plastic. In addition, when I try to visualize the shot I want to throw, my mind imagines my wrist turning over as if I'm trying to throw some short little cut roller or something. And for the life of me I CANNOT get my mind to imagine the disc coming out correctly--flat and straight.

None of this happens in practice. In fact, the only thing that keeps me loving disc golf is that I enjoy going out to the field and throwing--working on my upshots, etc. And none of these yips happen when I practice--I lace everything. But as soon as I'm around a group to play and the strokes matter, the nerves come back--but not all the time. I've had some nice rounds in club play recently. But then this past Sunday the discs were going all over the place. The rest of my group was like, "Dude, what are you doing?"

Maybe another important point: My putting is NEVER affected by this. I can be spraying shots all over the place but my putting continues to be solid--MUCH better than the average Advanced player.

Another thing I've noticed now that I played in a tournament again, the nervousness I get before playing now manifests itself differently than what it did a few years ago when I was playing well all the time. Back then, I would get a nervous stomach about a half hour before. Just before tee-off I would take a #2 in the bathroom and the nerves would pretty much go away.

Now, I NEVER get the nervous stomach. Nothing. Instead, those nerves have moved from my midsection to my arm and grip--of course based in my mind. They've collected in a different part of my body. That is a MAJOR difference from a few years ago and I didn't notice that until last month. Why the change? No idea.

The question is this: How do I generate stress in my practicing that can replicate what I feel in tourneys so that I can figure out a way to fight through my nerves? I know, rationally, that there is NO WAY my grip is strong enough to hang on to a disc. But that feeling dominates my thought process during a tourney. How do I generate the grip feeling in practice so I can teach myself to overcome it?

I think if I can feel that horrible feeling in practice all the time, that I can overcome it and eventually make it go away.

 

[slowplastic]

I get that putting sometimes where my thought is "don't pull it right" or "don't donk the cage". I have to stop and then step away, reset to the mini, and then thing about hitting the putt. Like a mental reset button. I've learned from snowboarding that if I have that thought before hitting a jump/rail/drop that it's going to be BAD news. Same thing in disc golf but with less physical consequences...but obviously if you think about the failure you will fail.

Do you think you can step off the back of the tee, clear your head for a second, and then step back on and see the gap you want to hit?

It's obviously all mental, everyone has different tricks. It's worse if you're really feeling it through the arm/hand instead of just a subtle mind thing too. But a quick reset is the best option when it works...if that can be done in this situation. The other thing you can do is if you have a driver in your hand and you "know" you're going to yank it...can you put a mid or putter in your hand and then think "Ok, smooth hyzer flip 70% power and just hit the tunnel"? Changing your intended shot entirely from a "have to hit this hard" mentality to a "this is an easy shot, smooth and straight" can sometimes help. Then after a few successes you can maybe disc up again?

 

[fasteddy8170]

I should've added that my miss when I'm feeling like this is a grip lock like nobody has ever seen. If straight ahead is 12 oclock, my miss is at like 10 o'clock (I'm left handed). A complete torquing over anny grip lock that will fly a LONG way. I think the reason this happens, although I have nothing on video, is because I don't come forward with the elbow when I'm feeling like yips. So, I essentially get the disc to the back, then it comes forward in this HUGE arc with a straight arm with my wrist rolling over.

I know . . . I know . . . just making sure your elbow is coming forward. Well, it's not that easy. The last thing I want to do is think about what I'm doing and put more "BRAIN" into the throw.

And when I try to make up for the miss left, the disc starts coming out way early and I go 45 degrees to the right. Oh, it's really ugly.

 

[slowplastic]

I should've added that my miss when I'm feeling like this is a grip lock like nobody has ever seen. If straight ahead is 12 oclock, my miss is at like 10 o'clock (I'm left handed). A complete torquing over anny grip lock that will fly a LONG way. I think the reason this happens, although I have nothing on video, is because I don't come forward with the elbow when I'm feeling like yips. So, I essentially get the disc to the back, then it comes forward in this HUGE arc with a straight arm with my wrist rolling over.

I know . . . I know . . . just making sure your elbow is coming forward. Well, it's not that easy. The last thing I want to do is think about what I'm doing and put more "BRAIN" into the throw.

And when I try to make up for the miss left, the disc starts coming out way early and I go 45 degrees to the right. Oh, it's really ugly.

Video might help as you said. You may be planting straight ahead in line rather than offset/closed and be prone to opening the foot/hip too. I know that the cleaner my form has got, it has resulted in lower % of griplocks and early releases every single iteration. And the ones I get aren't as bad as they used to be. I realize this doesn't help the mental side of it immediately, but the more you trust your body the less you start worrying about something happening.

I completely agree that the more you think about it when throwing the worse it gets.

 

[fasteddy8170]

Thanks for the comment. I think the main issue is these yips don't show up in practice. I NEVER grip lock anything in practice. Yes once in a while when I'm playing a casual round by myself I may have a couple crazy throws but it's not due to a mental issue.

If I could create the conditions in practice I know I could learn to deal with them. Like when they make you shoot free throws at basketball practice and if you miss, the whole team has to run lines. Or, a kicker having to kick a fg in practice and if he misses, the team has to run sprints. Stuff like that.

But this grippy feeling never pops up until I'm on the course and it means something.

 

[fasteddy8170]

What is also hard to figure out is that it's not like my competitiveness has gotten stronger in the last couple years. I've ALWAYS wanted to win. But up until about mid-2015 I never had any issues like this. And I was playing well. Then, boom, all of a sudden, discs are going all over the place.

 

[krooster]

Just saw this, not sure if it will give you any ideas but figured I'd share it:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/...ead.html?referer=http://feedly.com/index.html

Maybe try thinking about something specific when you get that feeling to get it out of your head?

 

[UhhNegative]

There are some techniques out there to help you overcome this. First, there are a multiple of sports psychology books out there that could be of some help. I don't know enough about them to recommend one though. Secondly, meditation could be a huge help for you. Disc golf, or golf in general, is best played when you are only in the present moment. It's the flow state, but it's very hard to reach in an activity where you are only "performing" for a few seconds at a time. It's easier to reach a flow state, when, for example, you are playing a high paced FPS shooter or something like that, it's impossible to disengage when the pace of the action is so quick. But that doesn't mean you can't also achieve a flow state or a state of mindfulness while playing disc golf, it just takes a lot of practice and work.

Ken Climo was famously quoted by Dave Feldberg saying that he only thinks about disc golf when he is up to his shot to throw, the rest of the time he's thinking about anything else.

So my personal recommendations are: practice mindfulness, if you don't know where to start I can point you in some directions. Second, playing more tournaments will get you used to playing in them, hopefully. The less "novel" tournaments become, the more it feels just another Saturday throwing discs in the park.

At the end of the day what you need is confidence in your shot, and you need to get to that point however you can, even if its false confidence it will beat out doubt on the course any day of the week.

Let everything go, breathe, and throw well.

 

[fasteddy8170]

At Doubles League last night I felt WAY better. I wouldn't say I played great. But, my doubles partner was the same and we used 6 of my drives instead of 1 of them like last week. And really in another 3 occasions she and I landed in about the same place. So, we could've used up to 9 of my drives.

In practice I've really just been trying to slow it down, specifically the part of the motion where my front foot goes out and the disc goes back to the launch position. In addition, I'm making sure my front foot doesn't come down early which throws off the timing--it almost keeps me from throwing left. But I had no nerves yesterday. Still had some wild drives but I felt like they were immediately fixable on the next tee.

 

[Hoeschel]

To me it sounds like you get nervous, tense and are caught in a feedback loop where you need to loosen up, but recognizing this, focus even more on your body, leading to even more tension. If that is the case then you want to make sure to start in a good physical and mental state and have tools to break the cycle if it starts.

With that in mind, here are some suggestions:

1. Do a light work out before the round, maybe take a run. Just enough to relax and ease the tension.
2. Eat enough! Maybe even during the round. This can make a big difference.
3. Listen to music if you start to feel nervous. Maybe something relaxing, maybe death metal. Whatever helps you take your mind off.
4. Try to stand on one foot, or the ball of the foot and keep balance. Or do something else physical other than disc golf that requires your full attention.
5. Bite into a lemon.

 

[fasteddy8170]

Hoeschel, thank you for the comment.

Well, today, I had the breakthrough. I played in a one day tournament. Don't get wrong: I got my butt kicked in Advanced--I think I finished next to last in a field of 14 players. But . . . the disc was going where I wanted. I was nervous but I kept relying on the form I've been working on and concentrated on that. And it worked. I was really trying to slow it down--particularly as my front foot goes out and the disc is in the reachback. I wasn't hurrying that at all. Plus, with my practicing, I know the feeling of the front leg going out the right distance to time with the arm. And it went really well. No weird feelings in my hand or fingers.

Granted, I wasn't throwing far . . . and that's something I'll talk about in a second. The real reason I didn't score better was the discs were either 30ft left or 30ft right or 30ft short--the birdies were hard to come by. I kept a stat in the second round . . . of the 20 holes, I outdistanced the other three guys on my card on 10 of them. But . . . two of the guys scored 5 shots better than I did. It was like . . . when I outdistanced them, I couldn't get a birdie. When they outdistanced, they got birdies. Yeah, exasperating.

As for the distance, despite the accuracy today, it's obvious that practice distance and pre-round distance aren't translating into competition distance on many throws. On the other hand, on a couple holes I had the best drives I've ever had on those holes--but that was rare. I'm not saying it's 100ft. difference, of course. But it's more like 10%. Before the round, I'll park a 300ft. hole. In competition, the same disc on the same line will fall 30ft. short. Pretty consistently.

So I feel that is something I still have to work out. I actually believe it has something to do with my off-arm. I think in practice I'm keeping it close so I can spin fast. But in competition, I think it's flailing around or that side of my body is getting a little tense. Now that I had a good round of driving, I did feel like there was a "drag" on my throw. Like a parachute was behind the disc.

But hey, I can't complain. Best I've felt in a tournament in a long time.