Losing Control

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 with the athleticism of Olympians, and a captivating billionaire's playground. But while there’s never a dull moment in this sport, how do you even get started as a viewer?

Comedian Michael Kosta is here to do all of that heavy lifting for you. Each week, F1 expert-in-residence Lily Herman will take him — and you — on a different team’s journey, all in the hopes of figuring out who’s worthy of his — and your — support. From Sports Illustrated Studios and iHeart Media, this is Choosing Sides: F1.

New episodes of Choosing Sides: F1 drop every Tuesday beginning 6/28. Listen now on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts!

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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 like depression and anxiety, and on this episode of Losing Control, host Justin Su’a talks with Karen Swartz, a clinical psychiatrist who specializes in mood disorders and community education. Mood disorders destabilize confidence, shift the relationship with the things we care about the most, and impact how we see ourselves–just like the yips–and in the second half of the episode, retired Major Leaguer Rick Ankiel reflects on the yips, mental health, and how his experiences in baseball have shaped his relationship to sports, and to life.

• Rick Ankiel, a retired professional pitcher, outfielder, and author of “The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips, and the Pitch that Changed My Life”
• Karen Swartz, the director of clinical and educational programs at the Johns Hopkins Mood Disorders Center and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

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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. Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas study humor, and the power of a mindset of levity. Part of the yips story is about how we live our lives, and on this episode of Losing Control, host Justin Su’a shines a light on a practice and a quality that can have a profound impact on your performance, your work, and your life. 

• Jennifer Aaker, professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-author of “Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life” 
• Naomi Bagdonas, lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and co-author of “Humor, Seriously: Why Humor Is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life”  
• Dr. Amishi Jha, professor at the University of Miami and author of “Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day”

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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 battled and overcame the yips. And although only some athletes will experience the yips or the twisties, all athletes will confront life after sports. For a perspective on making the transition from a life-permeating identity to whatever comes next, host Justin Su’a talks with Adriana Duffy-Hörling, a former gymnast and current professor of law who competed for Puerto Rico on the world stage.  

• Adriana Duffy-Hörling, a former gymnast and present day professor of law at Santa Clara University School of Law
• Joel Stave, former quarterback for the Wisconsin Badgers

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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. But on this episode of Losing Control, host Justin Su’a talks with renowned mental performance coach Dr. Colleen Hacker about how to manage, repair, and sustain a critical component of elite performance that is outside of control: confidence. And for a perspective on how to achieve consistent high performance sustainably, bestselling author Brad Stulberg discusses the perils of heroic individualism and the possibilities of other models of success. The yips are one of the most extraordinary and unusual phenomena in sports, and far more common among elite athletes are battles with confidence–or lack thereof–and achieving success sustainably in environments that demand consistent high performance under pressure.    

• Dr. Colleen Hacker, a professor of kinesiology at Pacific Lutheran University, and co-author of “Catch Them Being Good: Everything You Need to Know to Successfully Coach Girls” and "Achieving Excellence: Mastering Mindset for Peak Performance in Sport and Life"  
• Brad Stulberg, author of “The Practice of Groundedness,” and co-author of “Peak Performance” 

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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, host Justin Su’a talks with a concert pianist who has not only performed on many of the world’s great stages, but who has battled–and learned to manage–performance anxiety. And for a perspective on battling severe, debilitating anxiety on the court, you’ll hear from none other than Mardy Fish, the former American number one and former world number seven, who faced severe anxiety at the height of his professional tennis career.

• Mardy Fish, a retired tennis pro and current U.S. Davis Cup Captain 
• Gwendolyn Mok, a concert pianist, recording artist, and professor of music who teaches at San Jose State University

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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 neurologist who has been treating people who suffer from movement disorders for decades. And for a broader exploration of how we move, you’ll also meet two neuroscientists whose cutting edge work focuses on the neural control of movement, or how the brain controls the body: Dr. Alaa Ahmed and Dr. Lena Ting.  

• Dr. Alaa Ahmed, professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder
• Dr. Steven Frucht, a neurologist and movement disorder clinician at NYU Langone Health
• Dr. Lena Ting, professor at Emory University and Georgia Tech
• Aaron, a musician who suffers from dystonia

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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 mental game of one of the world’s top archers, Paige Pearce, who has battled–and is currently managing–target panic. But it’s in golf that the term yips, used to describe an involuntary movement that interrupts a golfer’s putt, chip, or swing, is believed to have originated. Arguably, golf is also the sport in which the yips have been the most widely studied, and Justin talks it over with David Owen, who has been writing about golf for decades, and who has spent time with some of the top pros in the game, including none other than Tiger Woods.   

• Paige Pearce, a world champion, record-breaking professional archer and one of the top-ranked compound archers in the world 
• David Owen, a staff writer at The New Yorker, contributing editor at both Golf Digest and Popular Mechanics, and author of more than a dozen books, including four books about golf

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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 malady that led to Simone Biles stepping away from the 2020 Summer Olympics, and although she may be the best known athlete to have battled the twisties, Simone Biles is far from the only athlete who has experienced it. To better understand this strange and dangerous phenomenon, Justin sits down with Aimee Boorman, one of the top gymnastics coaches in the world and the former coach of Simone Biles herself. And for a look at how an athlete contends with the twisties–and triumphs in spite of it–you’ll hear from Gary Hunt, one of the best cliff divers in the world and the nine-time Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Champion. 

• Aimee Boorman, a veteran gymnastics coach who has worked with elite gymnasts for many years, and the former coach of Simone Biles
• Gary Hunt, an unrivaled cliff diver and nine-time Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Champion 

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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 everything he’d heard of to fix his throwing, and nothing was working–nothing, that is, until he met Jason Kuhn, a mental performance coach and fellow yips-sufferer. Matzek’s work with Kuhn would be the catalyst that initiated a remarkable comeback, and on this episode of “Losing Control” you’ll not only hear how Tyler Matzek got his pitching back, you’ll get a behind the scenes look at the process that keeps him at the top of his game.      

• Jason Kuhn, a mental performance coach and owner and operator of Stonewall Solutions
• Tyler Matzek, 2021 World Series Champion and current relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves 

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