The yips do not seem to be a result of performance anxiety, although anxiety can worsen the problem—as it worsens many physiological problems, from diarrhea to dizziness. Some golfers, for instance, feel the yips when they play on a course but not when practicing on a putting green. I get the yips when playing tennis on forehand shots—my arm muscles jerk just before the racket hits the ball, and like that golfing coach, the only way I’ve found to avoid the yips is to glance away from the ball as I swing.

But weirdly, I don’t feel the yips when I’m warming up or hitting with a friend, only when we’re keeping score. Their situational nature has led some to argue that the yips can be cured by psychotherapy, specifically by processing traumatic events in one’s sporting life. I am a big fan of psychotherapy, and have benefited tremendously from it, but I do not have traumatic memories of tennis. I like tennis. I just can’t hit forehands while looking at the ball.

Of course, just as anxiety can cause physiological problems, physiological problems can also cause anxiety. For professional athletes, the yips are a threat not just to their livelihood but also to their identity. The answer to the question “Who is Ana Ivanovic?” was invariably, “Ana Ivanovic is a tennis player.” Rick Ankiel was a pitcher. Until the yips.

This complicated interplay between the so-called physical and the so-called psychological reminds us that the mind/body dichotomy isn’t overly simplistic; it’s complete bullshit. The body is always deciding what the brain will think about, and the brain is all the time deciding what the body will do and feel. Our brains are made out of meat, and our bodies experience thoughts.

When we talk about sports, we almost always talk about winning as the measure of success. Vince Lombardi famously said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” But I’m dubious of that worldview, in sports as well as outside of them. I think a lot of the pleasure in sports is found in performing well. At first, winning is a sign that you are getting better, and then as you age, winning becomes proof that you still have it—the it being control and competence. You can’t decide whether you get sick, or whether people you love die, or whether a tornado tears apart your house. But you can decide whether to throw a curveball or a fastball. You can at least decide that. Until you can’t.

But even after age or the yips steals away your control, you need not give up. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch defines courage by saying, “It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway.”

Ana Ivanovic never recovered the ability to toss the ball the way she did before the yips. But over time, she invented a new serve. It was less powerful, and more predictable, but she became a top-five player again, winning four tournaments in 2014. She retired a couple of years later, at the age of twenty-nine.