Every athlete has her own personal choke factor. Choke is a concept I hate to consider; but unfortunately everyone seems to know exactly what I mean when I say “choke factor.” Choking is a routine mistake an athlete makes at a crucial time in her competition. The reptilian or limbic part of the athlete’s brain gets triggered, forcing the athlete react to it as if it is a life-or-death moment….because it really does feel like that! Much like a person’s tense response to a scary movie, an athlete performs with the same tension supplied to her from the activated limbic system of the brain. Everyone intellectually knows it is “just a movie.” But why does the person sitting in the theatre seat still get frightened, sometimes really scared? Similarly, why does a tennis player sometimes have the same tense response at a crucial moment in the match? The brain triggers that “fight,” “flight” or “freeze like a possum for protection” response. This is the same response that informs animals what to do in the face of danger to their lives. Unfortunately; the limbic system cannot distinguish between actual life-or-death situations and a scary movie or a competitive game situation. Both the person in the theater seat and the tennis player are having a whole body experience, commonly known as anxiety, but is also referred to as the “startle response.” Physical elements such as taking in a breath and (often) holding it, opening the eyes wide, fixating on the threat, pulling the energy up into the abdomen and eyes, reducing circulation to the organs and pulling energy into the limbs so that the person can save herself are some of the core elements of the startle response. In working with these unconscious responses the athlete can turn a potential “choke” moment into a routine moment of competition.
I am pleased to report having developed a technique for an athlete to recognize clues that, left unresolved, can lead up to the choke point. Relying on my own experiences as a professional tennis player, elite ski instructor and USPTA-certified tennis instructor, I am certain these skills, if well developed, will lead an athlete to avoid the pitfalls of the choke factor.
For the last 20 years I have been actively developing a program for an athlete to realize her greatest potential. I have been cataloging the developmental process of an athlete who has “lost her edge” at a crucial time in her sport. I call it the ICES technique, which is an acronym for the four components that lead the athlete into consciousness for recognizing her own personal choke factor: 1) images, 2) cognitions (thoughts), 3) emotions and 4) sensations.
The first indication of a potential problem in ICES is images. A golfer standing over her upcoming tee shot remembers missing it to the right on the previous day instead of the imaging the exact location she wants the ball to land—this is a clue that the athlete is heading toward her choke factor.
The second cue in my technique is cognitions, another word for thoughts. This refers to the golfer who is beginning to think negatively. For example, “I have never scored this well before” or “I am afraid I can’t do this” is a cognition that produces negativity and can lead to the athlete’s personal choke paradigm.
The third cue of my technique is emotions. The golfer may notice she is not having fun anymore, the zip in her step is gone, and she may be feeling anxious, doubtful, frustrated, impatient, fearful or even depressed. All of these emotions negatively impact her and carry implications that she is engaged with the limbic part of her brain.
The fourth element of ICES is sensations. Sensations in the body indicate she is nervous. They include experiencing a queasy stomach, heavy legs or immovable elbows and arms. Body sensations can be understood as an integral component by dissecting the golfer’s grip on the club. Is it so tight that her arm and shoulder are also tense and unmovable? If her grip were loose, she would have access to her arm and shoulder, producing a better opportunity for a fluid swing. Other body sensations that indicate an athlete is in her “startle response” are elbows that feel tingly or breathing that has quickened. Sometimes pain is a cue, but often in a fast-moving sport, it will be hidden by an athlete’s adrenaline. In a slower-moving sport, such as golf, a back pain might be a cue for a putter to back away, find some “let go” time and then visualize the line of the putt.
After determining the personal cue(s), I propose engaging in some physical movements that will allow freedom from the detrimental effect the negativity can have on an athlete’s performance. Often with the startle response, the ribs get “frozen.” One important element for preventing the choke factor from interfering with an athletic performance is to ensure that the ribs move. “Replacing movement where freeze exists” takes the athlete out of “frozen” feeling or feeling of anxiety. With practice, chest moving activities might take as little as two or three seconds. This may be all the athlete needs to give herself support to prevent choking in the game or competition. The movements consist of relaxing or letting go of tightness in the chest. Deep breathing is the genesis of moving the chest.
Additional body support includes giving attention to the places that the athlete has identified as problem areas. For example, the athlete who is able to notice the specific places in her body that react during the startle response is also the athlete who can become aware of and move toward providing specific support to herself. Examples of providing specific support to identified places include feeling the bones in a foot that feels heavy, numb or “funny” by gently moving or rocking the leg or feeling the weight of the toes. This movement can also be used for providing similar to support to the athlete whose problem areas are the hands or arms. The athlete will have to individually determine the places in her body that get negatively engaged and find various movements that help her let go of the freeze from the startle response.
Finding movement in areas where movement has stopped during competition is a physical description of supplying a roadblock to the vehicle of anxiety! When an athlete is anxious, thoughts, feelings, sensing, intuition and imagination often get taken over by the old fearful “reptilian” or limbic part of our brain. After doing the movements suggested above, the athlete reduces her muscular tension to her “normal” competitive experience. She can then participate as she usually would in that challenging moment instead of engaging her startle response. The athlete is often able to look back at a situation and realize she forgot to do something simple. For example, she might realize she forgot to do her regular routine before the important moment. It is often reported that “I couldn’t think well.” Most likely, the athlete could not do other things well either because the muscular tension she had created from “trying hard” had tightened up her muscles to the point of “freezing” in an attempt to perform well. This causes her to lose access to her best competitive self. I propose that she literally move these stuck places with some tension reducing movements and turn a potential choke moment into another routine moment of a challenging competition.
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