April 20, 2022 • 34 mins
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'd like to tell people, it's like waking up one
day and you can write your name. It's easy, don't
have to think about it. You just write your name.
But if you woke up the next day and you
couldn't even hold the pen, you're not even close to
writing at that point. You can't hold the pen, you
physically cannot do it. For some reason, you go to
grab it and it just falls out of your hand.
That's Tyler Matzik, one of the best relief pitchers in
(00:23):
Major League Baseball, describing what it feels like when you
have the yips. Just a few years ago, Tyler's yips
had gotten so bad that he couldn't pitch anymore. A
one time first round draft pick at a high school,
Tyler was beginning to think about what life after baseball
might look like. He couldn't grow, and the teams had
stopped calling. Nobody wanted to pick him up. But Tyler
(00:47):
turned it around, and last year he had the performance
of a lifetime. Tyler Matsi enters this game runners at
second and third, nobody out of the seventh and Albert
poolholes at the play four two game. Though it was
Game six of the National League Championship Series, and Tyler's team,
(01:07):
the Atlanta Braves, were up against the powerful Los Angeles Dodgers.
In the seventh inning. The Braves were ahead, but momentum
was beginning to shift. The Dodgers had two runners on
and nobody out. Everything was on the line. If the
Braves held on then won the game, they'd make the
World Series. But if the Dodgers managed to score a
(01:28):
few runs, they could potentially force a Game seven. In baseball,
we call this a high leverage situation, or a series
of plays that will probably determine which team walks away
the winner and which team walks away the loser. In
other words, it's the turning point. But a high leverage
situation has an additional meaning high pressure. And in this inning,
(01:50):
Tyler Matsi wasn't just walking into a high leverage situation.
He was walking into the highest leverage situation and was
about to face a couple of the best hitters in baseball,
Albert Pools, steven SUSA, and Mookie Betts. Here he is
up against Mookie Betsy. A half dozen pictures you want
on the mountain that Mattick is on that list? What
(02:14):
a matchup. Here's the all too. Tyler struck out all
three batters. He only needed four pitches for Albert Pohols
and Steven Susa and Mookie Betts. He did it in three.
Not only did he bail the Braves out of the inning,
(02:35):
but his incredible performance was instrumental in taking his team
to the World Series, which they won by the way.
So Tyler Matzick not only beat the yips, he worked
his way back into baseball and won a World Series.
How did he do it? It's Tyler Matzick and the
mental performance coach who brought him back to life. Today
(02:56):
on Losing Control. I'm justin Sua and this is Losing Control,
a podcast about one of the strangest phenomenon in sports,
the yips, or when an athlete or elite performer suddenly
finds themselves unable to do the thing that they do
better than almost everyone else on the planet. If you're
(03:18):
listening for the first time, welcome, But if you want
the full experience, head back to episode one. Losing Control
is a podcast told through conversations with athletes, coaches, neuroscientists,
and more, and it's in order. Each episode features a
first hand perspective that contributes a piece to the puzzle,
that is the yips. Along the way, you'll learn about
(03:39):
some of the challenges that high performers face and the
mental work that enables them to do what they do.
Not only that, you'll hear how you can incorporate these tools, strategies,
and mindsets into your own life, because it's not just
about losing control, it's about getting it back. So let's
get started. I want to tell you a little bit
about what you're going to hear today. Last time on
(04:01):
Losing Control, you met Tyler mat Sick and Tyler talked
about when he first knew he had the yips, what
it felt like, and what the yips did to his life.
Tyler told us about how he had tried everything from
conventional medicine to realigning his chakras to beat the yips,
but nothing was working. Nothing that is until a former
(04:22):
teammate put him in touch with a guy named Jason Coon.
For Tyler, hearing Jason's story was the first piece of
the puzzle. So today we're going to start with Jason
and Jason's story. Later on, Jason and Tyler are going
to talk about some of the work they did together,
and finally, you're going to get a pitching clinic from
(04:43):
Tyler Matsik himself. This is a baseball episode, and although
Tyler and Jason have a unique set of experiences, these
experiences go way beyond baseball. As you're listening, think about
the perspectives they're offering, think about how they approach obstacles,
and consider the importance of the process, because no matter
(05:05):
what you do or you're going to here today may
help you confront the challenges that you're facing in your
own life, whether you've ever stepped foot on a baseball
field or not. Here's Jason Kuhne. My name is Jason Kune.
I'm the owner and operator of Stonewall Solutions, which is
a mental performance and leadership development company. I've been doing
that for the past seven years. Prior to that, I
(05:27):
was a Navy Seal, and prior to that, I played
baseball in college. Let's doom in on Jason's college career.
So I was. I was a college baseball player. I
played at Middle Tennessee State University, and I failed short
of my potential due to the yips. So at the time,
I had no I had never heard of the term yips.
I had no idea. What was going on. I just
(05:48):
completely lost my ability to throw a baseball. Before he
got the yips, Jason was thriving, and especially in the
kind of high leverage situation we talked about earlier. He
was a leaf pitcher and a closer, which simply means
he was the one that came in the pitch when
the team needed to seal the deal. Justin I was
pitching the best I ever had. There was a short
(06:10):
window there where I was dominating Division one baseball. I
was a closer and a relief pitcher, and I took
a lot of pride in my ability to throw strikes
and come in and high pressure situations. I thrived in
them with bases loaded, second, and third, you name it,
and loved it. You might have noticed something about the
yip stories you've heard so far. Nobody seems to see
(06:31):
it coming. At first. Jason noticed that something was a
little off. I lost the strike zone. I just could.
I was hitting the catcher, but I could not find
the strike zone. I walked the bases loaded, walked in
one or two runs. Coach said, Hey, let's just call
it for the day, and I went out into left
field to kind of be by myself, because that was
(06:51):
the first day where I realized, Hey, something's off, something's different.
This is something different than just struggling with the strike
zone and thechanical But but I had no idea what
was going on. The next day, I struggled to play catch.
About every four or five throws in I would just
sail one way over my buddy's head or almost hit
a guy ten feet away. And it wasn't every throw
(07:14):
it was, you know, like I said, it was every
about every fifth throw, and from there it's just snowball
the wrong direction. That snowballing in the wrong direction is
what tends to happen with the yips, and the harder
you fight it, the worst it gets. Jason's yips became
so debilitating that he could no longer play the game
that he loved, and he began to question whether or
(07:34):
not he was really that mentally to have person he
always thought he was. To lose baseball in such a
manner was really really difficult because I really prided my
mental toughness and ability to come in and high pressure situations,
and baseball was my outlet. It was everything to me,
and I loved playing it, so it was super frustrating
(07:55):
because I didn't think that I was a mentally weak person,
but I also didn't know what to attribute it to.
And I don't think that's the case. I don't think
that people that contract the yips or have it are
mentally weak. But mostly I felt helpless. I just didn't
know how to fight this. You know, I was a fighter,
and I didn't know how to attack it. And I
felt embarrassed, and I just felt really, really really sad.
(08:17):
I even went one day. I was like, I'm just
gonna throw until it comes back. I went and I
threw for six hours straight with a good bud, and
at the end of that six hours of throwing, I
could hardly move my arm anymore, and I was more
inaccurate at the end than I was when I started.
And that's when I just felt defeated, and I didn't
like the feeling of defeat, and I didn't know what
to do with it, and I didn't know how to
fight back. It got worse and worse and worse on
(08:40):
the field and off the field. Because there's typically no
immediate physical explanation for why the yips start, many of
the athletes who get it feel like it's their faults,
and the longer and harder they fight it, the more
hopeless it feels. There was a point in time where
I wanted base all to be over, and I felt
(09:01):
really guilty about that because I believed in myself and
I believed, you know, baseball was my path, and so
when I when I had feelings like, hey, I want
this to be over because it's so hard to go
to the field and battle this every day, was when
I felt really guilty. And there were some dark moments.
I woke up in my hallway one day, face down,
clothes still laund rule all over the floor. I couldn't
(09:22):
remember the last three days or so because I drank
them away, and I remembered thinking, like, hey man, this
thing happened to you. It is what it is. Is
it going to define who you're gonna be for the
rest of your life and what you do and what
you become. And I knew I needed to make a change.
So I fought the good fight. But you know, as
I was back and forth, the same thing was occurring.
But this night, instead of reaching for the bottle, I
(09:44):
just stopped and I prayed, And probably the first time
I ever really prayed, because I just tried to connect
to God, to our creator, whatever it was, and just
say and I just these words came out and said,
Jesus helped me. And when I said that, peace came
across my soul and I all at the peace that
passes all understanding because I had done nothing to create
(10:04):
it and I didn't deserve it. My life was held
because my decisions were bad, and my decisions were bad
because self loathing and helplessness were driving him. If I
stayed there bitter at everyone that I felt helped contribute
to this and whatever, I'm just not going to get
past it. So you know, I said those words Jesus
helped me. I had peace, and then I just said,
why did this happen? And all of a sudden, I
(10:24):
just felt these words I'm printed across my soul clear
as day. I said, just wait, something better is coming
for you. Jason's big existential moment led him to a
powerful realization. And when that happened, what I did was
I reframed the situation. You see, I thought baseball was
my purpose in life and that I was destined to
some lesser existence because I failed at it. But when
(10:47):
I stopped looking at the situation and circumstances as having
taken my purpose, and I started viewing him as having
purpose for me to be forged into a more capable person.
Is when everything changed. Author Wayne i Or is known
to have said, when you change the way you look
at things, the things you look at change. The fall
was September eleventh, two thousand one. So, searching for meaningful
(11:11):
purpose and redemption for my failure and the recent attacks
on the world trade centers, I joined the Navy with
the intention of becoming a Navy seal. Some guys tried
to set up tryouts for me to make a comeback,
but when I was honest with myself, my heart was
in another place. I wanted to go be a Navy seal.
I wanted to go to war for our country and
help provide justice for everyone who died on nine eleven.
(11:31):
And once I got there, I really never looked back.
Not only had Jason let go of baseball, he'd come
to understand himself in a new way. It wasn't what
he did that mattered. What mattered was who he was
on the inside. When I lost baseball, I say, um,
I think baseball defined me a little too much, meaning
(11:52):
I was dependent on the game, or being known as
as good at playing baseball for my sense of self worth.
Growing up, I always believed I was capable of accomplishing
something great and that I would, but I also battled
feelings of inadequacy. I felt like an underdog. I felt
like I was overlooked a lot because of my appearance
and demeanor. But baseball was my outlet and where I
(12:13):
gained respect, and I put so much value in that
that it almost became too much. And I realized when
I went into the seal teams, or when I was
going to that that same mentality, if I was dependent
on being a Navy seal for my sense of self worth.
You know, valuing it as your sense of self worth
is good, but dependency on it is bad. And so
I I learned in that moment, you know that what
(12:35):
I do doesn't define who I am. Who I am
should define what I do. Let's talk about Tyler Matzick.
How did you and Tyler Matzick meet dale. Tyler is
an awesome guy. I mean, he's just incredible. I met
him through Michael mckenry. Michael mckenry was one of his
(12:56):
catchers in the Rockies organization. Michael and I worked one
on one and then he started telling me. He's like,
hey man, Tyler, I got this guy. He knew my story.
He's like, do you think you can help him? And
when I heard Tyler's story, my heart broke for him,
and I wanted to meet him. I wanted to, you know,
if there's anything that I could do to help this
man not live the rest of his life wondering what
(13:16):
he had done wrong because he hadn't done anything wrong,
and to help get him back to Major League baseball.
I wanted to do it. Like I said, earlier, athletes
tend to blame themselves when they get the yips. You
weren't strong enough, you weren't tough enough. But here's the thing.
The yips have nothing to do with being strong or
being tough. Here's Tyler Matzick. Once I heard his story
(13:38):
and heard that he had the yips and that it
wasn't tied to mental toughness, it kind of opened me
up to like, Okay, like that's what I thought. I
didn't think I was a mentally weak person, but this
is proof that it has nothing to do with that.
It's just something neurologically going on. Something neurologically going on
doesn't exactly sound fixable. So where did they start? The
(14:00):
first thing we talked about was perspective and identity. You know,
I said, hey, you know, you're not a phenom, you're
not a failure. You're just Tyler Mattic. And when you
look back on this moment, whatever it is you decide
to do, whether it's within baseball or you decide to
go outside a baseball and do something else, you want
to be able to look back on this moment and
(14:22):
be proud of who you were and what you decided
to do. That's the number one thing. It's not what
you do that defines who you are, but who you
are that you define what you do. And after Jason
provided that perspective, he had a drill to go with it.
The drill was, we had a hill that was a kid,
you know, probably like a forty five degree maybe steeper angle.
(14:42):
There's a hill. It's really high and it's about forty
five degrees. It's awful to run up and down. And
I had done this before, but I told him was like,
take the medicine ball and put him in full body
arm and You're gonna throw the ball up the hill.
When it goes up the hill, it rolls back down.
So he had to run up there and he had
to get the ball and keep throwing it up the
hill until he got to the top. I had a
weight vest on of like thirty pounds, had a med
(15:04):
ball in front of me that was about thirty forty pounds.
You have to throw the ball up the hill and
then it hits and then it starts rolling back, so
you kind of throw it, run up and try and
stop it from rolling down. Uh. And it is an exhausting,
exhausting exercise to do. This hill is probably, I don't know,
fifty yards long, hundred yards long. While Tyler is struggling
to get the ball up the hill, his friend and
(15:26):
former teammate is suffering down below. Here's Jason con While
he was doing that, Michael mckenry had to stay in
the squat position and hold the medicine ball over his head,
so he had to suffer until Tyler had completed his task.
Tune is sitting there yelling at me. It's like, I
know you're in pain, but your teammate, your partner, your
buddy is in pain. Too, So whose pain matters more?
(15:47):
Your painter his? And I'm like, dude, you're right, Like,
who gives a crap that my pain is here? It's
gonna be here no matter what, so I might as
well get him out of pain as soon as possible.
Everyone's experience is different, and what's right for Tyler might
not be right for a different athlete. But the yips
can make you feel like you're completely exposed, and it
(16:07):
becomes all about you. Why is this happening to me?
Why can't I pitch anymore? What did I do wrong?
But to get out of it. It isn't about figuring
yourself out. It's about looking beyond yourself, and that's what
this drill is about. Although they also worked on the
intricacies of throwing, what Jason Todd Tyler in this moment
(16:30):
had nothing to do with mechanics. It was not the how,
but the why. Here's Tyler. Human beings are emotional creatures,
were fueled by emotion. As much as we don't want
to be the sooner you accepted the better and then
understanding that love is the most most strong, amazing emotion
that we have, it becomes nitro fuel. So when you
(16:52):
can attach love to whatever you want to do. It
basically makes it impossible for you to note seed. Love
makes it impossible for you not to succeed. If there's
a burning house with nobody inside of it, you just
stand there and watch the burning house go down. But
if you have a loved one inside of that house,
you're going to find a way to get that loved
one out of that house. And you're gonna risk your injury,
(17:14):
You're gonna risk whatever it takes. You're gonna make it happen.
And the only thing that changes is the love of
that person. You know, if you're going in to save
your TV or PlayStation, you're probably not going to be
successful at it because you don't love it. You're just
gonna go it's hot, turn around and walk back. But
if someone's in there that you love and you have
an emotional connection with, you're gonna find a way to succeed.
(17:35):
We have a Navy seal and we have yourself. Who's
known if people watch you pitch, if this guy's a beast,
this guy is an animal. And the word that you
came up with was love, not passion, not fire. But
you said love, What do you say to someone who's like, wait,
isn't love soft? That's what you think. But again, and
(17:57):
people do amazing things and fueled by love, and so
understanding that that is your body's nitro fuel and just
if you can point it in the right direction, nothing
can stand in your way. And uh, when Coon taught
me that, and that was the very first drill he
had me do was Hey, you got a love and
a friend and a teammate down there who is in pain.
(18:21):
Get them out of pain. That that love, friendship fuel
pushed me to figure it out. This was a turning point.
The work wasn't over, not even close. But Tyler had
a new perspective, a new frame, a newfound understanding of himself.
And that is how Tyler mat Sick first turned the
(18:42):
corner on his yips. We'll be back after this. I'm
justin sewah and this is losing control. You've heard about perspective,
and you've heard about love. What you're about to hear
is Tyler talking through a system that deliberate and highly
calibrated mental and physical process that's enabled him to pitch again,
(19:06):
and not only that, but to pitch in the highest
leverage situations at the highest level. This podcast is called
Losing Control. Here's Tyler getting it back. I was always
a pretty aggressive person, but I kind of suppressed that
aggression because I didn't want to be angry or out
of control with my emotions and stuff like that. And
(19:27):
so what I understood came to understand was that the
YIPS was an overreaction to fear in our flight, fight,
and freeze mindsets. Okay, let's impack some of this. Tyler
is talking about how humans respond to danger or a
perceived threat. You may know it as the fight or
(19:47):
flight response. When faced with fear, how do you react?
We picked one of these three. We flight trying get
out of there, We fight whatever obstacles in front of us,
or we freeze like a deer in the headlights. In baseball,
the game's gonna happen no matter what. We can't flight,
we can't leave. You're on the field, You're there. That
one gets taken out, so it leaves it with two
(20:07):
options when't face with the fear, and my default setting
that was just neurologically put inside my brain was the freeze.
I just defaulted to the freeze setting, and I needed
to train my bind that whenever faced with fear, I
use that fear in a controlled, aggressive manner, and that
(20:29):
that was step one. There's a lot in step one.
When Tyler is facing what he calls the fear, he's
referring to the danger or perceived threat that activates his
fight or flight response, and in this case, the danger
is pitching. When he's on the mound facing a hitter,
his fight or flight response is activated, and since there's
(20:51):
no running off the pitcher's mound, fleeing is not an option.
Remember how Tyler said that he was always a pretty
aggressive person, but he suppressed that aggression. What I'm hearing
is Tyler came to understand that when his fight or
flight response was activated, he needed to train himself to
fight rather than freeze. And it wasn't about letting his
(21:14):
aggressiveness run wild, but utilizing it appropriately and under control.
So whenever I was playing catch, all I wanted to do,
by the way I judged my throw was my pre
throw thought process was a good aggressive throw process. So
it was something like I'm gonna drive this ball through
my partner's chest. That's an aggressive visualization and aggressive thought
(21:36):
process to this action. It's not oh no, don't throw
it away. Oh no, don't spike it. That's never gonna
be successful, so don't even do it. Think about that positive,
think about that aggressive. I'm gonna drive it through my
partner's chest before he throws the ball. Tyler focuses his
mind on a positive aggressive mantra, I'm going to drive
this ball through my partner's chest. It's not don't mess up,
(22:02):
don't hit the guy, don't throw it away. It's a
controlled aggressive response. Tyler's training himself to fight and he's
not even thinking don't freeze, and then I would go ahead.
And your mind wants to seek something to think about,
So let's give it something to think about that's constructive,
not destructive. So for me, it would be a three
(22:22):
cent I call my one two threes. My one two
threes is arm up, glove up, drive my elbow at
the target. And I just repeat that in my head
one two three, one to three, and I'm feeling that process,
and I'm filling my brain. My brains want and need
to think about something with something that's constructive and not destructive.
Tyler is outlining a process. Step one. When facing danger
(22:47):
or a perceived threat, Tyler shifted his freeze response to
a controlled fight response. Step two as several components. The
mind has what's often referred to as a negativity bias,
and that negative civity bias is what helped humans survive
in our early history, when paying attention to threats was
often a matter of life or death. Fortunately for us
(23:09):
that's no longer the case, but it does mean that
in situations that feel threatening or feel dangerous, your mind
often goes to the negative rather than the positive. So
the first piece of step two is about recognizing this
cognitive reality and focusing on a simple mechanical mind body process.
(23:30):
Tyler's one two threes are the basics of throwing a
baseball arm up, glove up, elbow to the target. So
when I did that my throwing process, would the step
one think about the positive mantra? Say it. Step two,
go ahead, you're one two threes. Step three is assess
(23:50):
what just happened. This is the hardest thing to do.
Assess whether you did one and two and then three
as a success. So if I had my mind, I
was fully convinced and felt it that I was going
to drive the ball through the guy. And then I
went through and had a full conviction in belief in
my one two threes, my throw was a success period.
(24:13):
I don't care where it went. I don't care if
it hit the guy in the chest. I don't care
if I threw it a hundred feet over his head.
As long as my one and two were success than
my three, the overall throw was a success, and that
was better after doing that throw for the next throw.
When you have the yips, you've lost control. In order
to get control back, Tyler started with his mind shifting
(24:35):
from a freeze response to an attack response and focusing
on a positive, aggressive mantra, I'm going to drive the
ball through the guy's chest. The second step is linking
mind in movement Tyler's one two threes arm up, glove up,
elbow to the targets. This serves several different purposes, one
(24:57):
of which is to distract Tyler himself to focus his
attention on the mechanics of his throw rather than the result.
The final step, what Tyler describes as the most difficult,
is assessing what just happened and focusing not on the result,
but the process. Success is not where the ball goes.
(25:18):
Success is whether or not Tyler was fully committed to
his mantra and his one two threes. To regain control,
he had to let go of trying to control the
result and focus solely on the process. It starts out
so small, round to catch, where you have one or
two quote unquote good throws. You know what you're calling
good throws, but you're getting twenty or thirty good mental throws.
(25:43):
That is a building block that just propels you in
the right direction where you're getting out one and every
hundred or one and every thousand throws as opposed to
every other thrower or even every throw. If Tyler had
a good mental throw, if he focused on this process,
it didn't matter where the ball went, it's a good throw.
(26:04):
And that's where Tyler began to see real improvement. In sports,
we talk a lot about the process. Focus on the process,
but why Because an effective process creates consistency. Tyler's yips
led him the focus on the result, But to get
the results back, he had to refocus on the process,
(26:25):
and that's what his system accomplishes. Now, before we move on,
I always take it with a grain of salt when
players tell me things like this, But in Tyler's case,
we've seen the results and it's hard to argue with durable,
consistent results. That is what worked for me. Transitioning that
fear into aggression by those steps is what led me
(26:46):
to be to suppress the yips to a point where
I feel like they hardly affect me, if at all today.
I want to be very clear. It took Tyler years
of effortful, slow, incremental, arduous, hard fought progress to work
his way back to the major leagues. And Tyler didn't
only work with Jason kne He had access to some
(27:08):
of the best pitching coaches in the game, some of
the best cutting edge technology in baseball, as well as
sports psychologists, mental health professionals and more. And don't kid yourself,
that's what it takes to get back to performing at
the highest level. But getting the gifts under control, on
the other hand, is about going back to the basics.
It's about perspective, about knowing yourself and about the process.
(27:33):
And if there's something in your life that you've been
struggling with, I want you to think about this. Can
you put a process to it and let go of
the result. You might never have access to the resources
that Tyler has, but the critical work that enabled him
to turn things around isn't reserved for elite athletes only.
It's the kind of self work that we can all
(27:55):
do today right now. Remember that. Now you might wondering,
are Tyler's yips gone for good? I don't think they
ever went away. I still think I have them today,
and that's totally fine. I think that when you have them,
you always have them. I think everybody has them. Sometimes
they never come up and some people they just come
up in and it's a constant thing to keep them away. Yeah,
(28:19):
I'm I'm not afraid of them coming back because I
feel like I know how to combat them and what
way it works for me the best. It's not that
there's only one way to beat this, there's many. I mean,
as long as you keep trying things, something will work
for you. And I say that it kind of It
kind of dawned on me when I was with the
Diamondbacks because actually, Daniel Bard was our mental skills coach
(28:40):
while I was there. Daniel Bard is another major league
pitcher who got the yips, fell out of baseball, and
fought his way back. You know what's really remarkable about
the story. Yeah, his last appearance at the big leagues
was he was in two ball games in he was
in seventeen games, ten as a starter. The last time
(29:02):
he was a regular in the big leagues almost a
decade ago, two thousand and eleven. And I don't know
if you know Daniel's story, but he's now back to
pitching with the Call Rockies. He was a fantastic setup
guy with the Red Sox. He got the yips and
then kind of transition to that mental side, and he
was very heavy into the calming meditation, control your breathing,
(29:26):
bring yourself down, control that fear. And I tried it
and it helped. Don't get me wrong, it helped, but
it just it didn't work for me and that but
that opened my eyes to while it worked for him. Obviously,
he made it back to the big leagues and he
has a very similar story. It's great to see him
have success, but he's going about it in a different way.
And it opened my eyes to like, there's no one
true way to fix this stuff. This is the way
(29:48):
that I think it worked for me, and I totally
believe that it worked for Daniel. And he's out there
throwing a hundred miles an hour and getting guys out
and doing it in high pressure situations, so I love
to see it. We're all wired different and just gonna
find what works for you. Learn what you can from
Tyler's story, but remember everyone is different. So given everything
(30:11):
Tyler has been through, how does it feel to be
pitching again in the big leagues. The true like Ah
moment was it was before. It was when we were
playing again with that weird postseason and we were in
the NLCS and we were playing in Arlington, and on
the way to the field, we're driving from the hotel
to the field. We're driving by my old indie indie
(30:34):
ball field and I'm sitting there looking at the field
and going, Man, a year ago, or like you know,
a year and a half ago, I was in that
stadium with forty people watching in a point some point struggling,
And now I'm driving to a brand new giant stadium
that seats ninety thousand people whatever it is in Arlington
(30:56):
to go play the Dodgers, and everybody across some Erica
is watching this series because it's the NLCS, and it
was just amazing how fast it had happened. I would
have been pleased with Donna, just a cup of coffee
back in the Big Laies. I just wanted to prove
to myself that you can make it through and make
it back. I'm forever grateful to the people that were
around me that that helped me get to that position.
(31:16):
And I've been in a spot where I didn't know
where to turn, what to do. If there's someone out
there that is like me and is kind of going
through this, man, I was drowning at that point too.
You know, it's your whole new breath underwater. You come
up to the surface and you hit somebody who's you know,
sitting on a floaty up there, and you feel that
panic and that drowning. It's that seven And so if
(31:39):
I can go out and win a world series and
be in high pressure situations, I want to be a
beacon of hope for those people that are in that
dark spot. On the next episode of Losing Control, we're
taking a look at the Twisties with one of the
top gymnastics coaches in the world, Amy born Men and
(32:00):
one of the best cliff divers in the world, Gary Hunt.
A sincere thank you to our guests. Jason kom, a
former college pitcher, former Navy seal and present owner and
operator of Stone Wall Solutions, where he focuses on mental
performance and leadership developments. And Tyler Matsi, one World Series
(32:21):
champion and one of the top relief pitchers in Major
League Baseball where he pitches for the Atlanta Braves. Thank
you so much for listening and don't forget to rate
and subscribe. I'm Justin Suah, your host, and you can
find me on Instagram and Twitter at Justin Suah. That's
j U s t I N s u A. You
(32:43):
could also check me out on the Increase Your Impact podcast.
Losing Control is a podcast from Sports Illustrated Studios and
I Heart Radio. Original music by Jerem Sue. Michael McDowell
is our producer, editing and mixing by Will Stanton. This
episode was fact checked by Zoe Mullick at SI Studios,
(33:03):
Max Miller is supervising producer, and Matt Lipson is executive
producer at I Heart Radio. Sean ty Toone as our
executive producer. Special thanks to Ambrio crutch Field. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast
(33:24):
does not provide medical advice. And nothing you here on
this podcast is intended or implied to be a substitute
for professional medical consultation, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the
advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with
any questions you may have regarding your health. Never disregard
professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of
(33:47):
something you have heard on this podcast.
I'd like to tell people, it's like waking up one
day and you can write your name. It's easy, don't
have to think about it. You just write your name.
But if you woke up the next day and you
couldn't even hold the pen, you're not even close to
writing at that point. You can't hold the pen, you
physically cannot do it. For some reason, you go to
grab it and it just falls out of your hand.
That's Tyler Matzik, one of the best relief pitchers in
(00:23):
Major League Baseball, describing what it feels like when you
have the yips. Just a few years ago, Tyler's yips
had gotten so bad that he couldn't pitch anymore. A
one time first round draft pick at a high school,
Tyler was beginning to think about what life after baseball
might look like. He couldn't grow, and the teams had
stopped calling. Nobody wanted to pick him up. But Tyler
(00:47):
turned it around, and last year he had the performance
of a lifetime. Tyler Matsi enters this game runners at
second and third, nobody out of the seventh and Albert
poolholes at the play four two game. Though it was
Game six of the National League Championship Series, and Tyler's team,
(01:07):
the Atlanta Braves, were up against the powerful Los Angeles Dodgers.
In the seventh inning. The Braves were ahead, but momentum
was beginning to shift. The Dodgers had two runners on
and nobody out. Everything was on the line. If the
Braves held on then won the game, they'd make the
World Series. But if the Dodgers managed to score a
(01:28):
few runs, they could potentially force a Game seven. In baseball,
we call this a high leverage situation, or a series
of plays that will probably determine which team walks away
the winner and which team walks away the loser. In
other words, it's the turning point. But a high leverage
situation has an additional meaning high pressure. And in this inning,
(01:50):
Tyler Matsi wasn't just walking into a high leverage situation.
He was walking into the highest leverage situation and was
about to face a couple of the best hitters in baseball,
Albert Pools, steven SUSA, and Mookie Betts. Here he is
up against Mookie Betsy. A half dozen pictures you want
on the mountain that Mattick is on that list? What
(02:14):
a matchup. Here's the all too. Tyler struck out all
three batters. He only needed four pitches for Albert Pohols
and Steven Susa and Mookie Betts. He did it in three.
Not only did he bail the Braves out of the inning,
(02:35):
but his incredible performance was instrumental in taking his team
to the World Series, which they won by the way.
So Tyler Matzick not only beat the yips, he worked
his way back into baseball and won a World Series.
How did he do it? It's Tyler Matzick and the
mental performance coach who brought him back to life. Today
(02:56):
on Losing Control. I'm justin Sua and this is Losing Control,
a podcast about one of the strangest phenomenon in sports,
the yips, or when an athlete or elite performer suddenly
finds themselves unable to do the thing that they do
better than almost everyone else on the planet. If you're
(03:18):
listening for the first time, welcome, But if you want
the full experience, head back to episode one. Losing Control
is a podcast told through conversations with athletes, coaches, neuroscientists,
and more, and it's in order. Each episode features a
first hand perspective that contributes a piece to the puzzle,
that is the yips. Along the way, you'll learn about
(03:39):
some of the challenges that high performers face and the
mental work that enables them to do what they do.
Not only that, you'll hear how you can incorporate these tools, strategies,
and mindsets into your own life, because it's not just
about losing control, it's about getting it back. So let's
get started. I want to tell you a little bit
about what you're going to hear today. Last time on
(04:01):
Losing Control, you met Tyler mat Sick and Tyler talked
about when he first knew he had the yips, what
it felt like, and what the yips did to his life.
Tyler told us about how he had tried everything from
conventional medicine to realigning his chakras to beat the yips,
but nothing was working. Nothing that is until a former
(04:22):
teammate put him in touch with a guy named Jason Coon.
For Tyler, hearing Jason's story was the first piece of
the puzzle. So today we're going to start with Jason
and Jason's story. Later on, Jason and Tyler are going
to talk about some of the work they did together,
and finally, you're going to get a pitching clinic from
(04:43):
Tyler Matsik himself. This is a baseball episode, and although
Tyler and Jason have a unique set of experiences, these
experiences go way beyond baseball. As you're listening, think about
the perspectives they're offering, think about how they approach obstacles,
and consider the importance of the process, because no matter
(05:05):
what you do or you're going to here today may
help you confront the challenges that you're facing in your
own life, whether you've ever stepped foot on a baseball
field or not. Here's Jason Kuhne. My name is Jason Kune.
I'm the owner and operator of Stonewall Solutions, which is
a mental performance and leadership development company. I've been doing
that for the past seven years. Prior to that, I
(05:27):
was a Navy Seal, and prior to that, I played
baseball in college. Let's doom in on Jason's college career.
So I was. I was a college baseball player. I
played at Middle Tennessee State University, and I failed short
of my potential due to the yips. So at the time,
I had no I had never heard of the term yips.
I had no idea. What was going on. I just
(05:48):
completely lost my ability to throw a baseball. Before he
got the yips, Jason was thriving, and especially in the
kind of high leverage situation we talked about earlier. He
was a leaf pitcher and a closer, which simply means
he was the one that came in the pitch when
the team needed to seal the deal. Justin I was
pitching the best I ever had. There was a short
(06:10):
window there where I was dominating Division one baseball. I
was a closer and a relief pitcher, and I took
a lot of pride in my ability to throw strikes
and come in and high pressure situations. I thrived in
them with bases loaded, second, and third, you name it,
and loved it. You might have noticed something about the
yip stories you've heard so far. Nobody seems to see
(06:31):
it coming. At first. Jason noticed that something was a
little off. I lost the strike zone. I just could.
I was hitting the catcher, but I could not find
the strike zone. I walked the bases loaded, walked in
one or two runs. Coach said, Hey, let's just call
it for the day, and I went out into left
field to kind of be by myself, because that was
(06:51):
the first day where I realized, Hey, something's off, something's different.
This is something different than just struggling with the strike
zone and thechanical But but I had no idea what
was going on. The next day, I struggled to play catch.
About every four or five throws in I would just
sail one way over my buddy's head or almost hit
a guy ten feet away. And it wasn't every throw
(07:14):
it was, you know, like I said, it was every
about every fifth throw, and from there it's just snowball
the wrong direction. That snowballing in the wrong direction is
what tends to happen with the yips, and the harder
you fight it, the worst it gets. Jason's yips became
so debilitating that he could no longer play the game
that he loved, and he began to question whether or
(07:34):
not he was really that mentally to have person he
always thought he was. To lose baseball in such a
manner was really really difficult because I really prided my
mental toughness and ability to come in and high pressure situations,
and baseball was my outlet. It was everything to me,
and I loved playing it, so it was super frustrating
(07:55):
because I didn't think that I was a mentally weak person,
but I also didn't know what to attribute it to.
And I don't think that's the case. I don't think
that people that contract the yips or have it are
mentally weak. But mostly I felt helpless. I just didn't
know how to fight this. You know, I was a fighter,
and I didn't know how to attack it. And I
felt embarrassed, and I just felt really, really really sad.
(08:17):
I even went one day. I was like, I'm just
gonna throw until it comes back. I went and I
threw for six hours straight with a good bud, and
at the end of that six hours of throwing, I
could hardly move my arm anymore, and I was more
inaccurate at the end than I was when I started.
And that's when I just felt defeated, and I didn't
like the feeling of defeat, and I didn't know what
to do with it, and I didn't know how to
fight back. It got worse and worse and worse on
(08:40):
the field and off the field. Because there's typically no
immediate physical explanation for why the yips start, many of
the athletes who get it feel like it's their faults,
and the longer and harder they fight it, the more
hopeless it feels. There was a point in time where
I wanted base all to be over, and I felt
(09:01):
really guilty about that because I believed in myself and
I believed, you know, baseball was my path, and so
when I when I had feelings like, hey, I want
this to be over because it's so hard to go
to the field and battle this every day, was when
I felt really guilty. And there were some dark moments.
I woke up in my hallway one day, face down,
clothes still laund rule all over the floor. I couldn't
(09:22):
remember the last three days or so because I drank
them away, and I remembered thinking, like, hey man, this
thing happened to you. It is what it is. Is
it going to define who you're gonna be for the
rest of your life and what you do and what
you become. And I knew I needed to make a change.
So I fought the good fight. But you know, as
I was back and forth, the same thing was occurring.
But this night, instead of reaching for the bottle, I
(09:44):
just stopped and I prayed, And probably the first time
I ever really prayed, because I just tried to connect
to God, to our creator, whatever it was, and just
say and I just these words came out and said,
Jesus helped me. And when I said that, peace came
across my soul and I all at the peace that
passes all understanding because I had done nothing to create
(10:04):
it and I didn't deserve it. My life was held
because my decisions were bad, and my decisions were bad
because self loathing and helplessness were driving him. If I
stayed there bitter at everyone that I felt helped contribute
to this and whatever, I'm just not going to get
past it. So you know, I said those words Jesus
helped me. I had peace, and then I just said,
why did this happen? And all of a sudden, I
(10:24):
just felt these words I'm printed across my soul clear
as day. I said, just wait, something better is coming
for you. Jason's big existential moment led him to a
powerful realization. And when that happened, what I did was
I reframed the situation. You see, I thought baseball was
my purpose in life and that I was destined to
some lesser existence because I failed at it. But when
(10:47):
I stopped looking at the situation and circumstances as having
taken my purpose, and I started viewing him as having
purpose for me to be forged into a more capable person.
Is when everything changed. Author Wayne i Or is known
to have said, when you change the way you look
at things, the things you look at change. The fall
was September eleventh, two thousand one. So, searching for meaningful
(11:11):
purpose and redemption for my failure and the recent attacks
on the world trade centers, I joined the Navy with
the intention of becoming a Navy seal. Some guys tried
to set up tryouts for me to make a comeback,
but when I was honest with myself, my heart was
in another place. I wanted to go be a Navy seal.
I wanted to go to war for our country and
help provide justice for everyone who died on nine eleven.
(11:31):
And once I got there, I really never looked back.
Not only had Jason let go of baseball, he'd come
to understand himself in a new way. It wasn't what
he did that mattered. What mattered was who he was
on the inside. When I lost baseball, I say, um,
I think baseball defined me a little too much, meaning
(11:52):
I was dependent on the game, or being known as
as good at playing baseball for my sense of self worth.
Growing up, I always believed I was capable of accomplishing
something great and that I would, but I also battled
feelings of inadequacy. I felt like an underdog. I felt
like I was overlooked a lot because of my appearance
and demeanor. But baseball was my outlet and where I
(12:13):
gained respect, and I put so much value in that
that it almost became too much. And I realized when
I went into the seal teams, or when I was
going to that that same mentality, if I was dependent
on being a Navy seal for my sense of self worth.
You know, valuing it as your sense of self worth
is good, but dependency on it is bad. And so
I I learned in that moment, you know that what
(12:35):
I do doesn't define who I am. Who I am
should define what I do. Let's talk about Tyler Matzick.
How did you and Tyler Matzick meet dale. Tyler is
an awesome guy. I mean, he's just incredible. I met
him through Michael mckenry. Michael mckenry was one of his
(12:56):
catchers in the Rockies organization. Michael and I worked one
on one and then he started telling me. He's like,
hey man, Tyler, I got this guy. He knew my story.
He's like, do you think you can help him? And
when I heard Tyler's story, my heart broke for him,
and I wanted to meet him. I wanted to, you know,
if there's anything that I could do to help this
man not live the rest of his life wondering what
(13:16):
he had done wrong because he hadn't done anything wrong,
and to help get him back to Major League baseball.
I wanted to do it. Like I said, earlier, athletes
tend to blame themselves when they get the yips. You
weren't strong enough, you weren't tough enough. But here's the thing.
The yips have nothing to do with being strong or
being tough. Here's Tyler Matzick. Once I heard his story
(13:38):
and heard that he had the yips and that it
wasn't tied to mental toughness, it kind of opened me
up to like, Okay, like that's what I thought. I
didn't think I was a mentally weak person, but this
is proof that it has nothing to do with that.
It's just something neurologically going on. Something neurologically going on
doesn't exactly sound fixable. So where did they start? The
(14:00):
first thing we talked about was perspective and identity. You know,
I said, hey, you know, you're not a phenom, you're
not a failure. You're just Tyler Mattic. And when you
look back on this moment, whatever it is you decide
to do, whether it's within baseball or you decide to
go outside a baseball and do something else, you want
to be able to look back on this moment and
(14:22):
be proud of who you were and what you decided
to do. That's the number one thing. It's not what
you do that defines who you are, but who you
are that you define what you do. And after Jason
provided that perspective, he had a drill to go with it.
The drill was, we had a hill that was a kid,
you know, probably like a forty five degree maybe steeper angle.
(14:42):
There's a hill. It's really high and it's about forty
five degrees. It's awful to run up and down. And
I had done this before, but I told him was like,
take the medicine ball and put him in full body
arm and You're gonna throw the ball up the hill.
When it goes up the hill, it rolls back down.
So he had to run up there and he had
to get the ball and keep throwing it up the
hill until he got to the top. I had a
weight vest on of like thirty pounds, had a med
(15:04):
ball in front of me that was about thirty forty pounds.
You have to throw the ball up the hill and
then it hits and then it starts rolling back, so
you kind of throw it, run up and try and
stop it from rolling down. Uh. And it is an exhausting,
exhausting exercise to do. This hill is probably, I don't know,
fifty yards long, hundred yards long. While Tyler is struggling
to get the ball up the hill, his friend and
(15:26):
former teammate is suffering down below. Here's Jason con While
he was doing that, Michael mckenry had to stay in
the squat position and hold the medicine ball over his head,
so he had to suffer until Tyler had completed his task.
Tune is sitting there yelling at me. It's like, I
know you're in pain, but your teammate, your partner, your
buddy is in pain. Too, So whose pain matters more?
(15:47):
Your painter his? And I'm like, dude, you're right, Like,
who gives a crap that my pain is here? It's
gonna be here no matter what, so I might as
well get him out of pain as soon as possible.
Everyone's experience is different, and what's right for Tyler might
not be right for a different athlete. But the yips
can make you feel like you're completely exposed, and it
(16:07):
becomes all about you. Why is this happening to me?
Why can't I pitch anymore? What did I do wrong?
But to get out of it. It isn't about figuring
yourself out. It's about looking beyond yourself, and that's what
this drill is about. Although they also worked on the
intricacies of throwing, what Jason Todd Tyler in this moment
(16:30):
had nothing to do with mechanics. It was not the how,
but the why. Here's Tyler. Human beings are emotional creatures,
were fueled by emotion. As much as we don't want
to be the sooner you accepted the better and then
understanding that love is the most most strong, amazing emotion
that we have, it becomes nitro fuel. So when you
(16:52):
can attach love to whatever you want to do. It
basically makes it impossible for you to note seed. Love
makes it impossible for you not to succeed. If there's
a burning house with nobody inside of it, you just
stand there and watch the burning house go down. But
if you have a loved one inside of that house,
you're going to find a way to get that loved
one out of that house. And you're gonna risk your injury,
(17:14):
You're gonna risk whatever it takes. You're gonna make it happen.
And the only thing that changes is the love of
that person. You know, if you're going in to save
your TV or PlayStation, you're probably not going to be
successful at it because you don't love it. You're just
gonna go it's hot, turn around and walk back. But
if someone's in there that you love and you have
an emotional connection with, you're gonna find a way to succeed.
(17:35):
We have a Navy seal and we have yourself. Who's
known if people watch you pitch, if this guy's a beast,
this guy is an animal. And the word that you
came up with was love, not passion, not fire. But
you said love, What do you say to someone who's like, wait,
isn't love soft? That's what you think. But again, and
(17:57):
people do amazing things and fueled by love, and so
understanding that that is your body's nitro fuel and just
if you can point it in the right direction, nothing
can stand in your way. And uh, when Coon taught
me that, and that was the very first drill he
had me do was Hey, you got a love and
a friend and a teammate down there who is in pain.
(18:21):
Get them out of pain. That that love, friendship fuel
pushed me to figure it out. This was a turning point.
The work wasn't over, not even close. But Tyler had
a new perspective, a new frame, a newfound understanding of himself.
And that is how Tyler mat Sick first turned the
(18:42):
corner on his yips. We'll be back after this. I'm
justin sewah and this is losing control. You've heard about perspective,
and you've heard about love. What you're about to hear
is Tyler talking through a system that deliberate and highly
calibrated mental and physical process that's enabled him to pitch again,
(19:06):
and not only that, but to pitch in the highest
leverage situations at the highest level. This podcast is called
Losing Control. Here's Tyler getting it back. I was always
a pretty aggressive person, but I kind of suppressed that
aggression because I didn't want to be angry or out
of control with my emotions and stuff like that. And
(19:27):
so what I understood came to understand was that the
YIPS was an overreaction to fear in our flight, fight,
and freeze mindsets. Okay, let's impack some of this. Tyler
is talking about how humans respond to danger or a
perceived threat. You may know it as the fight or
(19:47):
flight response. When faced with fear, how do you react?
We picked one of these three. We flight trying get
out of there, We fight whatever obstacles in front of us,
or we freeze like a deer in the headlights. In baseball,
the game's gonna happen no matter what. We can't flight,
we can't leave. You're on the field, You're there. That
one gets taken out, so it leaves it with two
(20:07):
options when't face with the fear, and my default setting
that was just neurologically put inside my brain was the freeze.
I just defaulted to the freeze setting, and I needed
to train my bind that whenever faced with fear, I
use that fear in a controlled, aggressive manner, and that
(20:29):
that was step one. There's a lot in step one.
When Tyler is facing what he calls the fear, he's
referring to the danger or perceived threat that activates his
fight or flight response, and in this case, the danger
is pitching. When he's on the mound facing a hitter,
his fight or flight response is activated, and since there's
(20:51):
no running off the pitcher's mound, fleeing is not an option.
Remember how Tyler said that he was always a pretty
aggressive person, but he suppressed that aggression. What I'm hearing
is Tyler came to understand that when his fight or
flight response was activated, he needed to train himself to
fight rather than freeze. And it wasn't about letting his
(21:14):
aggressiveness run wild, but utilizing it appropriately and under control.
So whenever I was playing catch, all I wanted to do,
by the way I judged my throw was my pre
throw thought process was a good aggressive throw process. So
it was something like I'm gonna drive this ball through
my partner's chest. That's an aggressive visualization and aggressive thought
(21:36):
process to this action. It's not oh no, don't throw
it away. Oh no, don't spike it. That's never gonna
be successful, so don't even do it. Think about that positive,
think about that aggressive. I'm gonna drive it through my
partner's chest before he throws the ball. Tyler focuses his
mind on a positive aggressive mantra, I'm going to drive
this ball through my partner's chest. It's not don't mess up,
(22:02):
don't hit the guy, don't throw it away. It's a
controlled aggressive response. Tyler's training himself to fight and he's
not even thinking don't freeze, and then I would go ahead.
And your mind wants to seek something to think about,
So let's give it something to think about that's constructive,
not destructive. So for me, it would be a three
(22:22):
cent I call my one two threes. My one two
threes is arm up, glove up, drive my elbow at
the target. And I just repeat that in my head
one two three, one to three, and I'm feeling that process,
and I'm filling my brain. My brains want and need
to think about something with something that's constructive and not destructive.
Tyler is outlining a process. Step one. When facing danger
(22:47):
or a perceived threat, Tyler shifted his freeze response to
a controlled fight response. Step two as several components. The
mind has what's often referred to as a negativity bias,
and that negative civity bias is what helped humans survive
in our early history, when paying attention to threats was
often a matter of life or death. Fortunately for us
(23:09):
that's no longer the case, but it does mean that
in situations that feel threatening or feel dangerous, your mind
often goes to the negative rather than the positive. So
the first piece of step two is about recognizing this
cognitive reality and focusing on a simple mechanical mind body process.
(23:30):
Tyler's one two threes are the basics of throwing a
baseball arm up, glove up, elbow to the target. So
when I did that my throwing process, would the step
one think about the positive mantra? Say it. Step two,
go ahead, you're one two threes. Step three is assess
(23:50):
what just happened. This is the hardest thing to do.
Assess whether you did one and two and then three
as a success. So if I had my mind, I
was fully convinced and felt it that I was going
to drive the ball through the guy. And then I
went through and had a full conviction in belief in
my one two threes, my throw was a success period.
(24:13):
I don't care where it went. I don't care if
it hit the guy in the chest. I don't care
if I threw it a hundred feet over his head.
As long as my one and two were success than
my three, the overall throw was a success, and that
was better after doing that throw for the next throw.
When you have the yips, you've lost control. In order
to get control back, Tyler started with his mind shifting
(24:35):
from a freeze response to an attack response and focusing
on a positive, aggressive mantra, I'm going to drive the
ball through the guy's chest. The second step is linking
mind in movement Tyler's one two threes arm up, glove up,
elbow to the targets. This serves several different purposes, one
(24:57):
of which is to distract Tyler himself to focus his
attention on the mechanics of his throw rather than the result.
The final step, what Tyler describes as the most difficult,
is assessing what just happened and focusing not on the result,
but the process. Success is not where the ball goes.
(25:18):
Success is whether or not Tyler was fully committed to
his mantra and his one two threes. To regain control,
he had to let go of trying to control the
result and focus solely on the process. It starts out
so small, round to catch, where you have one or
two quote unquote good throws. You know what you're calling
good throws, but you're getting twenty or thirty good mental throws.
(25:43):
That is a building block that just propels you in
the right direction where you're getting out one and every
hundred or one and every thousand throws as opposed to
every other thrower or even every throw. If Tyler had
a good mental throw, if he focused on this process,
it didn't matter where the ball went, it's a good throw.
(26:04):
And that's where Tyler began to see real improvement. In sports,
we talk a lot about the process. Focus on the process,
but why Because an effective process creates consistency. Tyler's yips
led him the focus on the result, But to get
the results back, he had to refocus on the process,
(26:25):
and that's what his system accomplishes. Now, before we move on,
I always take it with a grain of salt when
players tell me things like this, But in Tyler's case,
we've seen the results and it's hard to argue with durable,
consistent results. That is what worked for me. Transitioning that
fear into aggression by those steps is what led me
(26:46):
to be to suppress the yips to a point where
I feel like they hardly affect me, if at all today.
I want to be very clear. It took Tyler years
of effortful, slow, incremental, arduous, hard fought progress to work
his way back to the major leagues. And Tyler didn't
only work with Jason kne He had access to some
(27:08):
of the best pitching coaches in the game, some of
the best cutting edge technology in baseball, as well as
sports psychologists, mental health professionals and more. And don't kid yourself,
that's what it takes to get back to performing at
the highest level. But getting the gifts under control, on
the other hand, is about going back to the basics.
It's about perspective, about knowing yourself and about the process.
(27:33):
And if there's something in your life that you've been
struggling with, I want you to think about this. Can
you put a process to it and let go of
the result. You might never have access to the resources
that Tyler has, but the critical work that enabled him
to turn things around isn't reserved for elite athletes only.
It's the kind of self work that we can all
(27:55):
do today right now. Remember that. Now you might wondering,
are Tyler's yips gone for good? I don't think they
ever went away. I still think I have them today,
and that's totally fine. I think that when you have them,
you always have them. I think everybody has them. Sometimes
they never come up and some people they just come
up in and it's a constant thing to keep them away. Yeah,
(28:19):
I'm I'm not afraid of them coming back because I
feel like I know how to combat them and what
way it works for me the best. It's not that
there's only one way to beat this, there's many. I mean,
as long as you keep trying things, something will work
for you. And I say that it kind of It
kind of dawned on me when I was with the
Diamondbacks because actually, Daniel Bard was our mental skills coach
(28:40):
while I was there. Daniel Bard is another major league
pitcher who got the yips, fell out of baseball, and
fought his way back. You know what's really remarkable about
the story. Yeah, his last appearance at the big leagues
was he was in two ball games in he was
in seventeen games, ten as a starter. The last time
(29:02):
he was a regular in the big leagues almost a
decade ago, two thousand and eleven. And I don't know
if you know Daniel's story, but he's now back to
pitching with the Call Rockies. He was a fantastic setup
guy with the Red Sox. He got the yips and
then kind of transition to that mental side, and he
was very heavy into the calming meditation, control your breathing,
(29:26):
bring yourself down, control that fear. And I tried it
and it helped. Don't get me wrong, it helped, but
it just it didn't work for me and that but
that opened my eyes to while it worked for him. Obviously,
he made it back to the big leagues and he
has a very similar story. It's great to see him
have success, but he's going about it in a different way.
And it opened my eyes to like, there's no one
true way to fix this stuff. This is the way
(29:48):
that I think it worked for me, and I totally
believe that it worked for Daniel. And he's out there
throwing a hundred miles an hour and getting guys out
and doing it in high pressure situations, so I love
to see it. We're all wired different and just gonna
find what works for you. Learn what you can from
Tyler's story, but remember everyone is different. So given everything
(30:11):
Tyler has been through, how does it feel to be
pitching again in the big leagues. The true like Ah
moment was it was before. It was when we were
playing again with that weird postseason and we were in
the NLCS and we were playing in Arlington, and on
the way to the field, we're driving from the hotel
to the field. We're driving by my old indie indie
(30:34):
ball field and I'm sitting there looking at the field
and going, Man, a year ago, or like you know,
a year and a half ago, I was in that
stadium with forty people watching in a point some point struggling,
And now I'm driving to a brand new giant stadium
that seats ninety thousand people whatever it is in Arlington
(30:56):
to go play the Dodgers, and everybody across some Erica
is watching this series because it's the NLCS, and it
was just amazing how fast it had happened. I would
have been pleased with Donna, just a cup of coffee
back in the Big Laies. I just wanted to prove
to myself that you can make it through and make
it back. I'm forever grateful to the people that were
around me that that helped me get to that position.
(31:16):
And I've been in a spot where I didn't know
where to turn, what to do. If there's someone out
there that is like me and is kind of going
through this, man, I was drowning at that point too.
You know, it's your whole new breath underwater. You come
up to the surface and you hit somebody who's you know,
sitting on a floaty up there, and you feel that
panic and that drowning. It's that seven And so if
(31:39):
I can go out and win a world series and
be in high pressure situations, I want to be a
beacon of hope for those people that are in that
dark spot. On the next episode of Losing Control, we're
taking a look at the Twisties with one of the
top gymnastics coaches in the world, Amy born Men and
(32:00):
one of the best cliff divers in the world, Gary Hunt.
A sincere thank you to our guests. Jason kom, a
former college pitcher, former Navy seal and present owner and
operator of Stone Wall Solutions, where he focuses on mental
performance and leadership developments. And Tyler Matsi, one World Series
(32:21):
champion and one of the top relief pitchers in Major
League Baseball where he pitches for the Atlanta Braves. Thank
you so much for listening and don't forget to rate
and subscribe. I'm Justin Suah, your host, and you can
find me on Instagram and Twitter at Justin Suah. That's
j U s t I N s u A. You
(32:43):
could also check me out on the Increase Your Impact podcast.
Losing Control is a podcast from Sports Illustrated Studios and
I Heart Radio. Original music by Jerem Sue. Michael McDowell
is our producer, editing and mixing by Will Stanton. This
episode was fact checked by Zoe Mullick at SI Studios,
(33:03):
Max Miller is supervising producer, and Matt Lipson is executive
producer at I Heart Radio. Sean ty Toone as our
executive producer. Special thanks to Ambrio crutch Field. For more
podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast
(33:24):
does not provide medical advice. And nothing you here on
this podcast is intended or implied to be a substitute
for professional medical consultation, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the
advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with
any questions you may have regarding your health. Never disregard
professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of
(33:47):
something you have heard on this podcast.
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