April 27, 2022 • 40 mins
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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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm justin Suah 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 listening for
the first time, welcome, But if you want the full experience,
(00:21):
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 some of the challenges
that high performers face and the mental work that enables
(00:41):
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 today
on losing control. We're talking about the twisties, which you
can think of as a variety of the yips that
(01:02):
aerial athletes experience. First up, you're going to hear from
one of the top gymnastics coaches in the world, Amy Boorman.
Amy and I talk about how she approaches coaching some
of the world's best chimneys, how she stays calm while
the world is watching, and how she works with her
athletes when they face about of the twisties. Later in
the show, you'll meet one of the best cliff divers
(01:24):
in the world, Gary Hunt. Gary and I talk about
what it feels like to die from heights of nearly
a hundred feet in the air, about the critical role
that visualization plays in this sport, and about how focusing
on being the world champion may have contributed to Gary
getting the twisties himself. What I love about this episode
(01:45):
is that although both Amy and Gary have been at
the top of their respective sports, they know how to
keep things in perspective, to have fun, and to hold
on to the joy that their work brings them even
as they're competing at the highest level. Here's Amy Borman.
My name is Amy Boorman. I am a professional gymnastics coach.
(02:07):
I was the head coach of the two thousand sixteen
US A Women's Gymnastics gold medal women's gymnastics team, also
UM four time USA Gymnastics Coach of the Year and
two thousand sixteen U s O PC Coach of the Year.
So that was really exciting because that was in an
Olympic year. Very very honored to have that. And I
(02:27):
was the personal coach of Simone Biles for twelve years.
That's great. How do you coach a superstar? So, I
think you don't treat them as a superstar. Simone was
not treated any differently than the rest of her teammates.
She was held to the same expectations of self discipline
and communication and work ethic as the rest of her team.
(02:49):
Her family also did not treat her as a superstar.
You know, they probably still don't treat her as a superstar.
She was held to the same expectations as the rest
of her family, you know, as her siblings. So I
think that that is key. The other part about coaching
somebody who's like uber talented is that you almost have
to pull back on the gas because you know they
(03:10):
can do stuff, but that doesn't mean they should. Just
because you can doesn't mean you should. And so you
have to be able to say, I don't need to
rush with this athlete. You know, we have time and
the more time we take to get there, the healthier
she's going to be, the happier she's probably going to be,
the more well adjusted she's probably going to be. It
(03:31):
doesn't mean every day is going to be perfect and
fun and joyful, but it's got to be fun most
of the time. And you know that was super important
for Simone. You know, she was just a little girl,
and if it wasn't fun, she would have quit. She'd
be a track star right now. She'd be a four
ft nine track star because she's still wicked fast. If
she didn't have fun in gymnastics, if it became too
(03:52):
hard or it became boring, uh, she just didn't like it,
she would have had no problem quitting, and her family
would have let her quit. So that was part of
the management and the coaching of a great athlete. You know,
just take your time. Success isn't built in a microwave,
but a slow cooker. Amy also understands that when it
(04:13):
comes to coaching superstars, communication is key. When we were
gearing up for the Rio Olympics, Simone had a lot
of skills. She was training in the gym and we
sat down one day and I said, okay, you have
all of these skills that you haven't shown yet in competition.
Do you want to compete them at the Olympics. Do
you want to prepare them to be competition ready for
(04:34):
the Olympics? Or do you want to stick with these
programs that you've been doing that you know you can
still win with and just be comfortable knowing that you
can do what you're doing. And she was the one
who ultimately made the decision, and she said, I just
want to go in and be confident with what I'm
doing because there's going to be so many other pressures
and stressors in my life that I don't want to
(04:56):
have to think about my gymnastics. So I left it
up to her. She was n teen, and I was like,
what do you want to do as a coach in
watching your athletes perform? The gymnasts perform a lot of
times we talked about the pressure of the athlete, the stress,
the anxiety to athletes going through. What's it like as
a coach watching the athlete? So watching the athlete, first,
(05:19):
let's talk about in practice, especially when you have a really,
you know, high level athlete, you have this expectation put
on you that you bring that athlete to the best
of their potential. You know, that's just a stress that's
put on you, especially when you're at the international level.
So that's the first thing. Then when an athlete looks
to you and says, am I fine, Am I ready
(05:40):
to do it? Like you know, your logical mind says, yes,
you put in the training, you're ready to do it.
But in the back of my mind, I go, oh, lord,
please don't let me be wrong. So there's that moment
of anxiety as a coach that you have to trust
yourself as well to tell the athlete. Now, there have
been times that I've said, no, don't do it. You're
(06:01):
not ready, You're not physically ready. I know you want
to do it, but let's keep training it. So that
is very very important. And then, um, I know that
people have said that, you know, it was easy for me.
My road to success was easy because I had Simone
as an athlete. But the fact of the matter is,
first of all, I've been coaching for thirty five years,
(06:23):
so I have had my trials and tribulations through the years.
But coaching somebody who is so talented like Simone is
really difficult. Like there's a lot to manage with that.
There's a lot of the expectations to manage with that,
and then going into competition, she's got to live up
to those expectations. And if she doesn't live up to
(06:44):
those expectations, the first person that people are going to
look at is her coach And did her coach do
a good enough job preparing her? Is she injured because
her coach did something irresponsible? Is she not doing the
difficulties she could because her coach was too afraid to
push her. You know, there's a delicate balance there. And
(07:05):
then on top of that, every time we would go
into competition, I would just say to myself, you know,
like just let it be safe, no injuries, Like I
never had a problem if somebody beat Simone in competition,
as long as Simone performed the best that she could
and she stayed healthy. Those were like the two most
important things to me. Appreciate you answering that, And yeah,
(07:27):
I could only imagine the pressure of of a coach
who's the coach of Simone and some of the best
gymnasts in the world. If there's somebody listening who is
a leader, who is a parent, who is feeling the
pressure of coaching the mantle of leadership, and they do
get nervous, they did get anxious, or they just wonder
if they can keep it together. And what are people
(07:49):
going to think if my organization or my team doesn't succeed,
orf my athlete doesn't succeed. What advice do you have
for that leader? What can they do to help kind
of relieve some of the pressure off themselves or to
cope with it. So those feelings are one normal. I
don't think I've ever met a coach that doesn't feel
(08:10):
that anxiety. It is really how you demonstrate that anxiety.
So for me, like in competition, I never really show
highs or lows. If I have an athlete who has
a disappointing performance, it's important that they don't see disappointment
in my face. And if I'm disappointed, my disappointment is
(08:30):
for them, not at them. So you know, like if
I know an athlete is better than they performed and
they didn't do very well, I feel badly for them
because I know that they have prepared themselves for that competition.
So that's number one. The other thing is that I
really feel like you have to keep in perspective that
it's just gymnastics. You know, these children and young women
(08:52):
are not going to be gymnasts their entire life, and
so what life lessons are they leaving the sport with?
And you, as a coach, you know, it's just gymnastics.
So is it worth getting so emotionally upset about a sport?
Like I identify as a coach, but that doesn't mean
(09:13):
that that is my entire life. It is what I do,
and I would like to say it's not who I am,
but just kind of my personality is one of a
coaching style personality, because even if I'm not in the gym,
I'm still coaching people on various things. But in general,
it's a job, and you know, you should be passionate
about it and you should be as educated as you
(09:35):
can about it, but really take a step back and
look at it from an outside perspective and just be like,
this is just gymnastics, This is just a sport. What
am I learning from this experience? What are the athletes
learning from this experience? And then you know, I had
kind of gotten a mantra before the Rio Olympics, and
it was you are exactly where you're supposed to be.
Just breathe. When we're back, we're digging into the twisties,
(09:59):
what it is, what it looks like, and how one
of the world's top gymnastics coaches works with athletes who
are experiencing it. After this welcome back, I'm justin Sewah
and this is losing control. I'm speaking with Amy Boorman,
a gymnastics coach with decades of experience. She's coached some
(10:21):
of the best elite gymnasts in the world, including Simone Biles. Earlier,
Amy shared with us her philosophy on coaching. Now we're
going to get into the twisties. Now, the twisties essentially
is when a gymnast is in the middle of the air,
twisting and spinning, when all of a sudden they lose
(10:41):
track of where they are. But we need to start
with something called appropriate reception, because in order to understand
the twist ees, you need to understand what appropriate exception
is and how it affects a gymnasts ability to perform
their craft. Can you please tell us what appropriate reception is.
Appropriate reception is your air awareness about how your body
(11:05):
is moving through space and time, and gymnasts will all
aerial athletes really have an amazing sense of this. I
actually used to call Simone an air sense savant because
it was amazing that she would always land on her feet.
She literally was like a cat. I think only a
couple of times while I was training her did I
(11:27):
see that she wasn't quite sure where she was in
the air before she landed, you know, not not related
to losing her sense, but more so like, oh yeah,
that wasn't where I thought it was going to be.
Even if she was going to land on her back,
she knew she was going to land on her back,
and she knew how to fall safely. So as a coach,
having an athlete that has that great appropriate reception, it
(11:50):
makes you much more confident. As a coach. You're not
as scared to watch your athlete try something new. You're
probably not surprised to hear that Simone bios is an
air sense savant. But appropriate reception or air awareness is
a sixth sense that we all have a sense of
where your body is in space, and for gymnasts, it's
a sense of where they are as a flip in
(12:10):
twist through the air, and appropriate reception is exactly what
the twisties affects, so the twisties are basically when that
appropriate reception just goes away for no known reason. It's
almost like an injury to the brain in a gymnast
because suddenly they have no idea where they are in
(12:33):
the air, and you know how fast their body is
spinning or twisting. It really does have a profound effect
on a gymnast. And it doesn't really matter what level
gymnasts you are, because I experienced the twist ease and
I was nowhere near an elite athlete. You know, I
love gymnastics and I competed in gymnastics for twelve years.
(12:55):
But sometimes that air awareness just goes away. And I believe,
I mean, I'm not a scientist, but I believe a
lot of it has to do with stress and how
the body is manifesting a stressful situation that you're feeling.
Suddenly you feel out of control. In your brain says yep,
you're out of control. Here you go, and it stops
(13:16):
you from having this sense that you know what you're doing.
I mean, if you were to think about twistings and
relate it to something else like Nascar, imagine a NASCAR
driver is on the track and they're they're going as
fast as they possibly can, and suddenly they lose their eyesight.
That's what it's like when a gymnast loses their air
awareness during a skill. How often do you see it? Well,
(13:37):
I've been coaching for thirty five years, so I've seen
it a lot. But really, you know, the what you
do when that happens. As a coach, the responsible thing
to do is just step back, because again, this is
just something happening in the brain. It's not something physical
that you can fix right away. You have to completely
(13:57):
step back from it and say, Okay, we're just not
going to do that skill that's giving you the twisties.
We're just gonna lay off of it. You're not going
to forget how to do it. Something is stopping you
from doing it right now, but I know physically you
can do it. And then we might talk about what's
stressing you out right now, and it might not have
anything to do with gymnastics. It might have to do
(14:17):
with school, it might have to do with boyfriends, it
might you know, there's something that the gymnast is feeling
like they don't have control in their life, and so
they they're not even cognizant of the fact that that's
what's causing the twisties. What are certain things you taken
in consideration as a coach to help an athlete through
the twisties. The thing about the twisties is it's generally
(14:39):
not on every skill. I can use Simone as an
example of you know one time that this happened when
she was younger, This was pre the Rio Olympics, and
suddenly she couldn't twist on floor or on bars or
on bault, but she could twist off of beam no problem.
So it was like the same skill on the other events,
but she getting lost in the year, except when she
(15:01):
did the skill off balance being so there isn't any
rhyme or reason to why. You just have to step
back and be like, all right, it doesn't matter why,
we're just not going to do it, or if you
feel like trying it today, we'll try it, but if
you don't, that's fine, We're gonna move on. You have
to show as a coach that the athletes safety and
well being is more important than maybe competing that weekend.
(15:24):
You know, maybe the success of what they're trying to do,
like it just comes down to their well being. And
I think if you've got that good relationship and you
have that communication already in place, they're going to believe
what you say. If that communication isn't already there, you
don't have that bond already. You might be telling the
athlete it's fine, don't worry about it, but they don't
believe you. What Amy is saying here is so true.
(15:47):
It's a common phrase. But people don't care how much
you know until they know how much you care. In
order to truly make an impact is about focusing on
what's best for the athlete, for the person I love.
What Amy is about to say next, If you're a
young coach and you feel pressured to move a talented
(16:09):
young athlete quickly, and you just it doesn't feel right
in your gut, it's not right, you know, take your
time with them. Don't feel pressured by coaches that you
may admire if they tell you that you need to
push them harder, or that you're too nice. Because I
was told I was too nice and that I would
never be successful because I was too nice, I made
(16:31):
the conscious decision that I don't care if I'm never successful.
I'd rather be nice than successful. And the fact is
is that you can be nice and successful. You know,
if you can create a happy, healthy athlete, you will
create a successful athlete. Now, I am not naive to
(16:52):
believe that we don't live in a result oriented world.
Results do matter, However, none of the beense of development.
The best coaches, the best organizations, the best training programs
are after longevity. If you push a young talented athlete
too hard and too fast, someone who has the potential
(17:12):
to be the next Simon Biles might bring out before
they even get started. Of all the sports recovering on
this podcast, elite gymnastics might seem like the one that,
unless you're a gymnast, is the furthest away from your life.
But as a mental performance coach, I know that you
don't have to be an elite gymnast to apply the
same mental skills they use to your own life. What's
(17:36):
one mental practice that elite gymnasts do that would benefit
the rest of us that we could apply to our
own lives. I don't think I've ever met a gymnast,
especially a higher level gymnast, who doesn't do some kind
of mental choreography. You know you'll see gymnasts if you're
(17:56):
the cameras always are pointed at the gymnasts on the side,
you know, but for they compete, you'll see them mentally
running their routines. You know, they'll be doing small movements
and but you can tell that they're just going through
their routine in their head. And I think that that
is important for everybody. I mean, in reality, even if
you're in a spelling bee, that's something that would be
good for you. You know, like just sitting there and
(18:18):
just going through the minutia and you know that visualization
of like the crowd is there for you, the judges
are there for you. You believe in yourself and and
seeing yourself having that success in your brain over and
over and over again. You know, it's easier to make
it a reality if you can see it in your mind.
(18:38):
Although it may sound complicated and it can be, visualization
is simply your ability to see yourself executing a task
in your mind before you actually go out there and
do it. Most, if not all, elite athletes are doing
some form of visualization. And that's because these athletes understanding
(19:00):
leverage the power of their mind. And it doesn't matter
what profession you have, it's incredibly beneficial to pause and
to visualize yourself being successful before you go out and
do it. After the break, we'll be back with a
unique story an elite cliff diver, one of the best
in the world, who confronted the twist ease when diving
(19:21):
from heights of nearly a hundred feet. After this, I'm
justin Suwa and this is losing control. I want you
to close your eyes and imagine you're standing on a
small platform, nt in the air. You feel the wind
blowing in your hair, and down below, way down below,
(19:41):
is a pull of water. In a couple of seconds,
you're going to jump, and not only jump, you're going
to flip and twist in the air and land in
the water with only a small splash. The sport I'm
describing as cliff diving or high diving. Gary Hunt is
the nine time Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Champion. Now,
(20:03):
if you've never heard of Gary or you've never seen
him dive, I would highly recommend you go look up
some of his videos. It's really out of this world.
Unless you've seen it, I can promise you you've never
seen anything like it. I actually asked him that question
to kick off our conversation on how people respond to
him when he tells them what he does for a living.
(20:24):
It's always fun to have that initial conversation. Everyone is
very surprised that I my my living, My my way
of making a career for myself is by jumping off
cliffs and buildings and cranes and things like that. Gary
Hunt is absolutely unstoppable. I do not think he is
(20:45):
a human being. The jump that twist, everything's in line.
He didn't lose his phone. He's up and down. Unreal.
How high are you generally diving from in meters and
in feet? Please? We jump in from twenty seven ms
around ninety ft, which is the equivalent to around a
(21:06):
nine story building. Talk to me about standing on a platform,
a crane, a cliff that is ninety ft above wide.
What does that feel like? I was a lot more
scared in the past. Now I've been doing it for
twelve thirteen years, and even for the first six seven
(21:28):
years I would be very scared. My my legs sometimes
would be shaking on the end of the board. I
still remember that. The first time I did a show dive,
which is in a into a very small tank of water.
Um I think only only three meters deep. And eight
nine ms wide and a very small platform just the
(21:49):
size of your feet basically, And this was a big
jump for me, a big, big challenge, and I was
asking myself, why am I doing this on every step
of the every rung of the ladder on on my
way up to twenty But yes, step by step you
get used to it. And so now I've been up
there so many times that I mean that that's my office.
(22:12):
That's that's where I'm almost the most relaxed in some sense.
I know what to do from the from the seven board.
I love what you just said, that's where you almost
feel most relaxed because that's your environment. That's what you do,
that's what you love, This's what you enjoy, This what
you train for. What does it feel like as you're
(22:32):
in the air twisting and turning in the air. You're
you're kind of on autopilots, so there's no time to
to think to yourself, to think about your feelings, to
think about what you're the sensations are. You're just all
of your brain and your body is so connected on
on doing the actions that you have to do because
(22:54):
that's that's what you need to do to survive. On
simpler dives, you do feel more like the air rushing
through your hair, and you feel the sensation of flying
and falling from from a very high height. But once
you start doing somersaults and twists, those kind of sensations
(23:16):
you don't have time to think about. Really. There's maybe
two seconds or one and a half seconds of just
action where it's just very busy, very almost like you're
in a in a washing machine, with every muscle in
your body working until the point where you can see
the water towards the last part of the dive, and
(23:37):
then once you see the water, your brain can make
those calculations about how to maneuver your body into the
best way to get into the water without a painful impact.
When he says painful impact, he's underselling cliff diving just
a little bit. Gary is diving from ninety feet and
there's a tremendous amount of physicality, athleticism and mental wherewithal
(24:01):
that makes this possible. Can you share with us the
physical work and also the mental work that enable you
to do what you do. Cliff diving is one of
the rare sports where we can't really train all year round.
We don't have somewhere to to to practice. We're still
not at the stage where we can do seven ter
(24:24):
dives all year round. So everyone who's training finds a
place with at least a ten m platform, And so
the big dives, you can't do everything from tend ter,
so you have to split the dive up into two
sometimes three parts. Gary might not be able to physically
(24:44):
practice a full dive until he actually competes, but that
doesn't mean that Gary isn't practicing at all. He's practicing
in his mind. If I'm planning a new dive, I
often lose sleep because when I'm trying to get to sleep,
my brain just imagines myself up on that platform doing
(25:05):
the new dive, which can be can be a pain,
that's for sure, but it all helps. It's um. It
just gives you that confidence to to make you feel
like you know what you're going to do. As I said, you,
you're kind of going on autopilot when you're when you're
up there and you're finally doing the dive. So if
(25:25):
you've done hundreds and hundreds of those repetitions in your
in your brain, you don't really need to think and
react in real time. You're just doing it. You don't
lose time thinking about every action you have to do.
It's just drilled into your muscle memory and you just
do it without thinking. You're probably noticing a theme here.
(25:46):
Gary is discussing something that Amy spoke about earlier, the
power of visualization, the importance of not just physical but
mental reps. Visualization is simply practicing in your mind. It's
key component of preparation and drilling a skill to the
point where it's automized, or in other words, something you
(26:07):
do without thinking. When you get to to high level,
elite level in in anything, the basics are so mundane.
You don't think about the the the action of throwing
a ball anymore. You focus on different things as as
you you train, your hours and hours, tens of thousands
of hours, you start to need to focus on things
(26:31):
so minuscule. I'm no longer thinking about what actions my
my arms are doing or anything like that, but I'm
thinking more about my breathing. I'm thinking more about getting
myself into a state of mind where I'm relaxed, and
the basic movements and the simple things to do the
(26:53):
dive you don't think about anymore. Now, let's take driving
some of you have been driving for along that you
don't even have to think about when it pressed the gas,
when it hit the brake, how hard you need to
turn the steering wheel to the left or the right.
You just do it because you've done it for so long.
That's what Gary is describing. Now, imagine you're focusing on
(27:17):
a lot of highly specific aspects of driving, trying to
refine small, intricate elements of the motor skills involved, and
then all of a sudden you forget how to steer.
Here's Gary. At some point, you can get so tied
up into the tiny bits that you need to improve
to be world champion that the basic things get lost
(27:41):
and and you can no longer do them without thinking
about them. So that's what happened with me. I needed
to to think about the actions that I would do
to create a twist and things like that, and and
so then when you're when you're doing these big dives
and you're having to think about the basics, it's easy
to just overthink and get lost. It's like you've created
(28:05):
a foundation of actions to build a dive, and then
the foundation has been taken away, and so now you
need to think about reconstructing the base again, meaning the
moves that he was doing effortlessly, the moves that he
wasn't even thinking about doing before. Now he had to
(28:26):
think about them. Now he had to execute them deliberately
rather than by default. At first, Gary thought it was
a mental block which he developed because he was trying
to perform dives that were just too difficult. Not too
difficult physically, but too difficult mentally. Why it started to happen,
(28:47):
it's very difficult to pinpoint. From a young age, I
was somebody who wanted to learn to to twist and
turn in every direction. And I started to play around
with a dive where I would be twisting at the
start of the dive, stopped twisting, and then start twisting again.
It was a front triple with four and a half twist,
(29:08):
and I decided to do two twists in the first
summersault and then two twists in the second summersault, And
so that led me to doing some very complicated dives
and twists, and I think, yeah, it just it just
got to a point where it was a bit too complicated,
and when I was tired, it was just, yeah, it
(29:28):
was just too too much for my brain to to
concentrate on. And it only took that one one mistake
that happened a little bit more often and more often,
and obviously when it happened to me on them, that's
when it's all snowball gary headed twist ease. It's um
something that I had heard about in diving when I
(29:51):
was younger, and UM lots of divers. It's it's been
the end of their careers and and something that's made
them freeze on the end of the platform because there
they're too much in their head and they just create
a mental block because of these problems. And I was
seeing that from the outside for many, many years and
(30:14):
just didn't really understand what they were going through. For me,
it was doing an extra twist. I would try to
to do two twists, and I would be feeling each twist,
but there would be something like a block in my
head where I would just go past the point where
I would need to to open my arms out to
(30:34):
stop the twist, and I would realize I would be
aware that I had gone past that point, and so
I would stay in until the next moment that I
could come out, because if you come out half a
twist too late, you'll be in the wrong direction and
it can really cause a crash. So I was aware
enough to to keep going until the next exit, but
(30:59):
it just got worse and worse. For me. I thought
it was just something that would happen in training, and
if I would be focused on the seven, it wouldn't
ever happen. But it did happen on my very last
dive of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series in
two thousand and seventeen. Gary thought he would never experience
the twist he's in a competition until he did. Cliff
(31:21):
diving is extremely dangerous, and many people in gary situation
might have said, well, I had a great career, but
I guess this means it's time to retire. Not Gary.
I'd heard stories of people that that was the end
of their career. They started getting lost in their dives
and and and then that was it. And I didn't
(31:42):
want that to be my story. So I just had
to go back to basics and doing dives with just
one twist and doing them over and over and over
again to stop thinking about it. Basically, for me, the
problem was was overthinking. Once there was a problem, then
I would only be thinking about what could go wrong,
(32:03):
and this was just reinforcing the bad way of thinking.
And so the only way that I imagined I could
get over it was just drilling many, many, many times
these simple dives so that I would I could do
it without thinking. Again, if there is someone out there
listening to this and they're experiencing the twist ees, what
(32:26):
advice do you have for that person? What helped was
definitely positive thinking and yeah, just just drilling the basics,
finding where you're having problems and breaking it down, going
back a few steps, and only going forward when you're
absolutely confident of the step beforehand. I often found I
(32:51):
would have problems towards the end of the week as well.
I would be fine during the start of the week
Monday to Wednesday, and then when I'd be a little
bit more tired Thursday Friday, there would be a lot
more chance of a problem. So I would say, don't
don't work on that the whole time. If you're just
focusing on your problem of the time, you're you're going
(33:12):
to burn out. So you have to mix up your
training with obviously focusing on on on these problems your
mental block, but more often in the start of the week,
and mixing up with something that you're confident with, something
that you you enjoy doing, so that you just don't
get too far down dug in a in a hole
(33:32):
and you can Yeah, you can amuse yourself and and
and still enjoy what you do. Sometimes we will try
to tighten up our weaknesses to the point to where
it consumes us. What I love about Gary's words is
he's like, don't drill the problem to the point to
where it pushes you into despair. Whatever you're working on,
(33:54):
whatever you're trying to get better at, be mindful and
identify a signal that you're pushing too hard. You're not
finding joy in what you do. You're starting to feel
like you have to do it instead of remembering that
you get to do it. Chances are you're seeing a
connection between what Gary is saying and what Amy said
(34:16):
earlier on. Both Gary and Amy would believe that a
happy athlete is a high performing athlete. It's not every
day that you get to talk to one of the
best cliff divers in the world. And I had a
few more questions for Gary. Can you tell us what
you've learned over the course of your career about fear,
managing fear and leaning into it. What have you learned
(34:38):
about about it? That would be difficult to to describe
in words what I've learned about fear. Um, I mean,
I'm my sports is is definitely one of the sports
where you're you're confronted with your fears every time you
take part, every time you jump. So I've just learned
(34:59):
the you can use your fear to benefit you. Every
time that I'm under pressure and I'm worried about a
new dive, those are my proudest moments when I've overcome that,
when I've when I've done something, when I've set my
mind to a new dive and I'm worried about it,
and finally I go from going through the dive hundred
(35:22):
times in my head and thousands of times in my
head to to finally realizing the dive and and doing it.
It's it's just such a wonderful feeling of achievement and
it kind of rolls over into my into my daily life.
The things that I'm worried about, I push myself to
do them more than I feel like I want to,
(35:42):
because I know that that's pushing that barrier is gonna
in the end benefit me, It's gonna be worth it.
It's I don't want to just sit back and try
and find the easiest, easiest way through life. I want
to push myself. I want to tell myself and be
proud of what I've done in the end. What's your perspective,
(36:05):
I'm failure. I think it's it's great to just get
used to failing when you're when you're at a young age,
and then it's not such a big deal when you're
when you're older. For me, I was I I landed
flat so many times when I was When I was young,
I didn't have the best spatial awareness, and I was
(36:28):
I was a crier as well. When I when I
used to hurt myself, I would cry, and my coach
would would yell at me and and things like that.
But after a while, I I just got used to
it and I would I learned to laugh at myself.
I learned to laugh at it with everyone else, and
and so that just kind of made it a lot
(36:49):
easier to live with making these mistakes. And obviously you
you do learn a lot more when you when you fail.
One person we spoke to told us that she had
experiences like the twisties was the most relatable thing about athletes. Yeah,
so relatable to not just other sports, but life in general.
(37:09):
People are taking things for granted and suddenly not being
able to do what they've done for for a long time.
My psychologists was saying that she'd worked with the pole
vaulters who just at the last second, when they they
want to they need to plant the pole, something will happen.
They'll click on the bail the last minute. Just when
you think you've heard about every variety of the yips,
(37:32):
you can make so many connections with this this phenomenon.
So yeah, I'll be following along. Thanks Gary, and for
all of you listening. If you want to follow Gary
and see some truly incredible cliff diving, keep an eye
out for the upcoming Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series,
which you can find on Instagram at red Bull cliff Diving.
(37:54):
Next time, on Losing Control, we're teed up to talk
about the yips in golf as well as here from
a world champion archer who has battled and beaten target panic.
Next up on Losing Control, a sincere thank you to
our guests. Amy Borman, one of the most talented coaches
in gymnastics and a longtime coach of none other than
(38:17):
Simone Biles. Follow Amy on Instagram and Facebook at Salto
Coach or on Twitter at Salto Underscore Coach. And Gary Hunt,
the nine time Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Champion
and one of the best cliff divers in the world.
Follow Gary at Gary Diver on Instagram. Thank you so
(38:39):
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 could also
check me out on the Increase Your Impact podcast. Losing
Control is a podcast from Sports Illustrated Studios and I
(39:01):
Heart Radio. Original music by Jerrem Suah. Michael McDowell is
our producer, editing and mixing by Will Stanton. This episode
was fact checked by Zoe Mullock at SI Studios. Max
Miller is supervising producer, and Matt Lipson is executive producer
At I heart Radio. Sean ty toone as our executive producer.
(39:22):
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast 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
(39:42):
seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health
provider with any questions you may have regard in your health.
Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it
because of something you have heard on this podcast. Bong
Bong
I'm justin Suah 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 listening for
the first time, welcome, But if you want the full experience,
(00:21):
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 some of the challenges
that high performers face and the mental work that enables
(00:41):
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 today
on losing control. We're talking about the twisties, which you
can think of as a variety of the yips that
(01:02):
aerial athletes experience. First up, you're going to hear from
one of the top gymnastics coaches in the world, Amy Boorman.
Amy and I talk about how she approaches coaching some
of the world's best chimneys, how she stays calm while
the world is watching, and how she works with her
athletes when they face about of the twisties. Later in
the show, you'll meet one of the best cliff divers
(01:24):
in the world, Gary Hunt. Gary and I talk about
what it feels like to die from heights of nearly
a hundred feet in the air, about the critical role
that visualization plays in this sport, and about how focusing
on being the world champion may have contributed to Gary
getting the twisties himself. What I love about this episode
(01:45):
is that although both Amy and Gary have been at
the top of their respective sports, they know how to
keep things in perspective, to have fun, and to hold
on to the joy that their work brings them even
as they're competing at the highest level. Here's Amy Borman.
My name is Amy Boorman. I am a professional gymnastics coach.
(02:07):
I was the head coach of the two thousand sixteen
US A Women's Gymnastics gold medal women's gymnastics team, also
UM four time USA Gymnastics Coach of the Year and
two thousand sixteen U s O PC Coach of the Year.
So that was really exciting because that was in an
Olympic year. Very very honored to have that. And I
(02:27):
was the personal coach of Simone Biles for twelve years.
That's great. How do you coach a superstar? So, I
think you don't treat them as a superstar. Simone was
not treated any differently than the rest of her teammates.
She was held to the same expectations of self discipline
and communication and work ethic as the rest of her team.
(02:49):
Her family also did not treat her as a superstar.
You know, they probably still don't treat her as a superstar.
She was held to the same expectations as the rest
of her family, you know, as her siblings. So I
think that that is key. The other part about coaching
somebody who's like uber talented is that you almost have
to pull back on the gas because you know they
(03:10):
can do stuff, but that doesn't mean they should. Just
because you can doesn't mean you should. And so you
have to be able to say, I don't need to
rush with this athlete. You know, we have time and
the more time we take to get there, the healthier
she's going to be, the happier she's probably going to be,
the more well adjusted she's probably going to be. It
(03:31):
doesn't mean every day is going to be perfect and
fun and joyful, but it's got to be fun most
of the time. And you know that was super important
for Simone. You know, she was just a little girl,
and if it wasn't fun, she would have quit. She'd
be a track star right now. She'd be a four
ft nine track star because she's still wicked fast. If
she didn't have fun in gymnastics, if it became too
(03:52):
hard or it became boring, uh, she just didn't like it,
she would have had no problem quitting, and her family
would have let her quit. So that was part of
the management and the coaching of a great athlete. You know,
just take your time. Success isn't built in a microwave,
but a slow cooker. Amy also understands that when it
(04:13):
comes to coaching superstars, communication is key. When we were
gearing up for the Rio Olympics, Simone had a lot
of skills. She was training in the gym and we
sat down one day and I said, okay, you have
all of these skills that you haven't shown yet in competition.
Do you want to compete them at the Olympics. Do
you want to prepare them to be competition ready for
(04:34):
the Olympics? Or do you want to stick with these
programs that you've been doing that you know you can
still win with and just be comfortable knowing that you
can do what you're doing. And she was the one
who ultimately made the decision, and she said, I just
want to go in and be confident with what I'm
doing because there's going to be so many other pressures
and stressors in my life that I don't want to
(04:56):
have to think about my gymnastics. So I left it
up to her. She was n teen, and I was like,
what do you want to do as a coach in
watching your athletes perform? The gymnasts perform a lot of
times we talked about the pressure of the athlete, the stress,
the anxiety to athletes going through. What's it like as
a coach watching the athlete? So watching the athlete, first,
(05:19):
let's talk about in practice, especially when you have a really,
you know, high level athlete, you have this expectation put
on you that you bring that athlete to the best
of their potential. You know, that's just a stress that's
put on you, especially when you're at the international level.
So that's the first thing. Then when an athlete looks
to you and says, am I fine, Am I ready
(05:40):
to do it? Like you know, your logical mind says, yes,
you put in the training, you're ready to do it.
But in the back of my mind, I go, oh, lord,
please don't let me be wrong. So there's that moment
of anxiety as a coach that you have to trust
yourself as well to tell the athlete. Now, there have
been times that I've said, no, don't do it. You're
(06:01):
not ready, You're not physically ready. I know you want
to do it, but let's keep training it. So that
is very very important. And then, um, I know that
people have said that, you know, it was easy for me.
My road to success was easy because I had Simone
as an athlete. But the fact of the matter is,
first of all, I've been coaching for thirty five years,
(06:23):
so I have had my trials and tribulations through the years.
But coaching somebody who is so talented like Simone is
really difficult. Like there's a lot to manage with that.
There's a lot of the expectations to manage with that,
and then going into competition, she's got to live up
to those expectations. And if she doesn't live up to
(06:44):
those expectations, the first person that people are going to
look at is her coach And did her coach do
a good enough job preparing her? Is she injured because
her coach did something irresponsible? Is she not doing the
difficulties she could because her coach was too afraid to
push her. You know, there's a delicate balance there. And
(07:05):
then on top of that, every time we would go
into competition, I would just say to myself, you know,
like just let it be safe, no injuries, Like I
never had a problem if somebody beat Simone in competition,
as long as Simone performed the best that she could
and she stayed healthy. Those were like the two most
important things to me. Appreciate you answering that, And yeah,
(07:27):
I could only imagine the pressure of of a coach
who's the coach of Simone and some of the best
gymnasts in the world. If there's somebody listening who is
a leader, who is a parent, who is feeling the
pressure of coaching the mantle of leadership, and they do
get nervous, they did get anxious, or they just wonder
if they can keep it together. And what are people
(07:49):
going to think if my organization or my team doesn't succeed,
orf my athlete doesn't succeed. What advice do you have
for that leader? What can they do to help kind
of relieve some of the pressure off themselves or to
cope with it. So those feelings are one normal. I
don't think I've ever met a coach that doesn't feel
(08:10):
that anxiety. It is really how you demonstrate that anxiety.
So for me, like in competition, I never really show
highs or lows. If I have an athlete who has
a disappointing performance, it's important that they don't see disappointment
in my face. And if I'm disappointed, my disappointment is
(08:30):
for them, not at them. So you know, like if
I know an athlete is better than they performed and
they didn't do very well, I feel badly for them
because I know that they have prepared themselves for that competition.
So that's number one. The other thing is that I
really feel like you have to keep in perspective that
it's just gymnastics. You know, these children and young women
(08:52):
are not going to be gymnasts their entire life, and
so what life lessons are they leaving the sport with?
And you, as a coach, you know, it's just gymnastics.
So is it worth getting so emotionally upset about a sport?
Like I identify as a coach, but that doesn't mean
(09:13):
that that is my entire life. It is what I do,
and I would like to say it's not who I am,
but just kind of my personality is one of a
coaching style personality, because even if I'm not in the gym,
I'm still coaching people on various things. But in general,
it's a job, and you know, you should be passionate
about it and you should be as educated as you
(09:35):
can about it, but really take a step back and
look at it from an outside perspective and just be like,
this is just gymnastics, This is just a sport. What
am I learning from this experience? What are the athletes
learning from this experience? And then you know, I had
kind of gotten a mantra before the Rio Olympics, and
it was you are exactly where you're supposed to be.
Just breathe. When we're back, we're digging into the twisties,
(09:59):
what it is, what it looks like, and how one
of the world's top gymnastics coaches works with athletes who
are experiencing it. After this welcome back, I'm justin Sewah
and this is losing control. I'm speaking with Amy Boorman,
a gymnastics coach with decades of experience. She's coached some
(10:21):
of the best elite gymnasts in the world, including Simone Biles. Earlier,
Amy shared with us her philosophy on coaching. Now we're
going to get into the twisties. Now, the twisties essentially
is when a gymnast is in the middle of the air,
twisting and spinning, when all of a sudden they lose
(10:41):
track of where they are. But we need to start
with something called appropriate reception, because in order to understand
the twist ees, you need to understand what appropriate exception
is and how it affects a gymnasts ability to perform
their craft. Can you please tell us what appropriate reception is.
Appropriate reception is your air awareness about how your body
(11:05):
is moving through space and time, and gymnasts will all
aerial athletes really have an amazing sense of this. I
actually used to call Simone an air sense savant because
it was amazing that she would always land on her feet.
She literally was like a cat. I think only a
couple of times while I was training her did I
(11:27):
see that she wasn't quite sure where she was in
the air before she landed, you know, not not related
to losing her sense, but more so like, oh yeah,
that wasn't where I thought it was going to be.
Even if she was going to land on her back,
she knew she was going to land on her back,
and she knew how to fall safely. So as a coach,
having an athlete that has that great appropriate reception, it
(11:50):
makes you much more confident. As a coach. You're not
as scared to watch your athlete try something new. You're
probably not surprised to hear that Simone bios is an
air sense savant. But appropriate reception or air awareness is
a sixth sense that we all have a sense of
where your body is in space, and for gymnasts, it's
a sense of where they are as a flip in
(12:10):
twist through the air, and appropriate reception is exactly what
the twisties affects, so the twisties are basically when that
appropriate reception just goes away for no known reason. It's
almost like an injury to the brain in a gymnast
because suddenly they have no idea where they are in
(12:33):
the air, and you know how fast their body is
spinning or twisting. It really does have a profound effect
on a gymnast. And it doesn't really matter what level
gymnasts you are, because I experienced the twist ease and
I was nowhere near an elite athlete. You know, I
love gymnastics and I competed in gymnastics for twelve years.
(12:55):
But sometimes that air awareness just goes away. And I believe,
I mean, I'm not a scientist, but I believe a
lot of it has to do with stress and how
the body is manifesting a stressful situation that you're feeling.
Suddenly you feel out of control. In your brain says yep,
you're out of control. Here you go, and it stops
(13:16):
you from having this sense that you know what you're doing.
I mean, if you were to think about twistings and
relate it to something else like Nascar, imagine a NASCAR
driver is on the track and they're they're going as
fast as they possibly can, and suddenly they lose their eyesight.
That's what it's like when a gymnast loses their air
awareness during a skill. How often do you see it? Well,
(13:37):
I've been coaching for thirty five years, so I've seen
it a lot. But really, you know, the what you
do when that happens. As a coach, the responsible thing
to do is just step back, because again, this is
just something happening in the brain. It's not something physical
that you can fix right away. You have to completely
(13:57):
step back from it and say, Okay, we're just not
going to do that skill that's giving you the twisties.
We're just gonna lay off of it. You're not going
to forget how to do it. Something is stopping you
from doing it right now, but I know physically you
can do it. And then we might talk about what's
stressing you out right now, and it might not have
anything to do with gymnastics. It might have to do
(14:17):
with school, it might have to do with boyfriends, it
might you know, there's something that the gymnast is feeling
like they don't have control in their life, and so
they they're not even cognizant of the fact that that's
what's causing the twisties. What are certain things you taken
in consideration as a coach to help an athlete through
the twisties. The thing about the twisties is it's generally
(14:39):
not on every skill. I can use Simone as an
example of you know one time that this happened when
she was younger, This was pre the Rio Olympics, and
suddenly she couldn't twist on floor or on bars or
on bault, but she could twist off of beam no problem.
So it was like the same skill on the other events,
but she getting lost in the year, except when she
(15:01):
did the skill off balance being so there isn't any
rhyme or reason to why. You just have to step
back and be like, all right, it doesn't matter why,
we're just not going to do it, or if you
feel like trying it today, we'll try it, but if
you don't, that's fine, We're gonna move on. You have
to show as a coach that the athletes safety and
well being is more important than maybe competing that weekend.
(15:24):
You know, maybe the success of what they're trying to do,
like it just comes down to their well being. And
I think if you've got that good relationship and you
have that communication already in place, they're going to believe
what you say. If that communication isn't already there, you
don't have that bond already. You might be telling the
athlete it's fine, don't worry about it, but they don't
believe you. What Amy is saying here is so true.
(15:47):
It's a common phrase. But people don't care how much
you know until they know how much you care. In
order to truly make an impact is about focusing on
what's best for the athlete, for the person I love.
What Amy is about to say next, If you're a
young coach and you feel pressured to move a talented
(16:09):
young athlete quickly, and you just it doesn't feel right
in your gut, it's not right, you know, take your
time with them. Don't feel pressured by coaches that you
may admire if they tell you that you need to
push them harder, or that you're too nice. Because I
was told I was too nice and that I would
never be successful because I was too nice, I made
(16:31):
the conscious decision that I don't care if I'm never successful.
I'd rather be nice than successful. And the fact is
is that you can be nice and successful. You know,
if you can create a happy, healthy athlete, you will
create a successful athlete. Now, I am not naive to
(16:52):
believe that we don't live in a result oriented world.
Results do matter, However, none of the beense of development.
The best coaches, the best organizations, the best training programs
are after longevity. If you push a young talented athlete
too hard and too fast, someone who has the potential
(17:12):
to be the next Simon Biles might bring out before
they even get started. Of all the sports recovering on
this podcast, elite gymnastics might seem like the one that,
unless you're a gymnast, is the furthest away from your life.
But as a mental performance coach, I know that you
don't have to be an elite gymnast to apply the
same mental skills they use to your own life. What's
(17:36):
one mental practice that elite gymnasts do that would benefit
the rest of us that we could apply to our
own lives. I don't think I've ever met a gymnast,
especially a higher level gymnast, who doesn't do some kind
of mental choreography. You know you'll see gymnasts if you're
(17:56):
the cameras always are pointed at the gymnasts on the side,
you know, but for they compete, you'll see them mentally
running their routines. You know, they'll be doing small movements
and but you can tell that they're just going through
their routine in their head. And I think that that
is important for everybody. I mean, in reality, even if
you're in a spelling bee, that's something that would be
good for you. You know, like just sitting there and
(18:18):
just going through the minutia and you know that visualization
of like the crowd is there for you, the judges
are there for you. You believe in yourself and and
seeing yourself having that success in your brain over and
over and over again. You know, it's easier to make
it a reality if you can see it in your mind.
(18:38):
Although it may sound complicated and it can be, visualization
is simply your ability to see yourself executing a task
in your mind before you actually go out there and
do it. Most, if not all, elite athletes are doing
some form of visualization. And that's because these athletes understanding
(19:00):
leverage the power of their mind. And it doesn't matter
what profession you have, it's incredibly beneficial to pause and
to visualize yourself being successful before you go out and
do it. After the break, we'll be back with a
unique story an elite cliff diver, one of the best
in the world, who confronted the twist ease when diving
(19:21):
from heights of nearly a hundred feet. After this, I'm
justin Suwa and this is losing control. I want you
to close your eyes and imagine you're standing on a
small platform, nt in the air. You feel the wind
blowing in your hair, and down below, way down below,
(19:41):
is a pull of water. In a couple of seconds,
you're going to jump, and not only jump, you're going
to flip and twist in the air and land in
the water with only a small splash. The sport I'm
describing as cliff diving or high diving. Gary Hunt is
the nine time Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Champion. Now,
(20:03):
if you've never heard of Gary or you've never seen
him dive, I would highly recommend you go look up
some of his videos. It's really out of this world.
Unless you've seen it, I can promise you you've never
seen anything like it. I actually asked him that question
to kick off our conversation on how people respond to
him when he tells them what he does for a living.
(20:24):
It's always fun to have that initial conversation. Everyone is
very surprised that I my my living, My my way
of making a career for myself is by jumping off
cliffs and buildings and cranes and things like that. Gary
Hunt is absolutely unstoppable. I do not think he is
(20:45):
a human being. The jump that twist, everything's in line.
He didn't lose his phone. He's up and down. Unreal.
How high are you generally diving from in meters and
in feet? Please? We jump in from twenty seven ms
around ninety ft, which is the equivalent to around a
(21:06):
nine story building. Talk to me about standing on a platform,
a crane, a cliff that is ninety ft above wide.
What does that feel like? I was a lot more
scared in the past. Now I've been doing it for
twelve thirteen years, and even for the first six seven
(21:28):
years I would be very scared. My my legs sometimes
would be shaking on the end of the board. I
still remember that. The first time I did a show dive,
which is in a into a very small tank of water.
Um I think only only three meters deep. And eight
nine ms wide and a very small platform just the
(21:49):
size of your feet basically, And this was a big
jump for me, a big, big challenge, and I was
asking myself, why am I doing this on every step
of the every rung of the ladder on on my
way up to twenty But yes, step by step you
get used to it. And so now I've been up
there so many times that I mean that that's my office.
(22:12):
That's that's where I'm almost the most relaxed in some sense.
I know what to do from the from the seven board.
I love what you just said, that's where you almost
feel most relaxed because that's your environment. That's what you do,
that's what you love, This's what you enjoy, This what
you train for. What does it feel like as you're
(22:32):
in the air twisting and turning in the air. You're
you're kind of on autopilots, so there's no time to
to think to yourself, to think about your feelings, to
think about what you're the sensations are. You're just all
of your brain and your body is so connected on
on doing the actions that you have to do because
(22:54):
that's that's what you need to do to survive. On
simpler dives, you do feel more like the air rushing
through your hair, and you feel the sensation of flying
and falling from from a very high height. But once
you start doing somersaults and twists, those kind of sensations
(23:16):
you don't have time to think about. Really. There's maybe
two seconds or one and a half seconds of just
action where it's just very busy, very almost like you're
in a in a washing machine, with every muscle in
your body working until the point where you can see
the water towards the last part of the dive, and
(23:37):
then once you see the water, your brain can make
those calculations about how to maneuver your body into the
best way to get into the water without a painful impact.
When he says painful impact, he's underselling cliff diving just
a little bit. Gary is diving from ninety feet and
there's a tremendous amount of physicality, athleticism and mental wherewithal
(24:01):
that makes this possible. Can you share with us the
physical work and also the mental work that enable you
to do what you do. Cliff diving is one of
the rare sports where we can't really train all year round.
We don't have somewhere to to to practice. We're still
not at the stage where we can do seven ter
(24:24):
dives all year round. So everyone who's training finds a
place with at least a ten m platform, And so
the big dives, you can't do everything from tend ter,
so you have to split the dive up into two
sometimes three parts. Gary might not be able to physically
(24:44):
practice a full dive until he actually competes, but that
doesn't mean that Gary isn't practicing at all. He's practicing
in his mind. If I'm planning a new dive, I
often lose sleep because when I'm trying to get to sleep,
my brain just imagines myself up on that platform doing
(25:05):
the new dive, which can be can be a pain,
that's for sure, but it all helps. It's um. It
just gives you that confidence to to make you feel
like you know what you're going to do. As I said, you,
you're kind of going on autopilot when you're when you're
up there and you're finally doing the dive. So if
(25:25):
you've done hundreds and hundreds of those repetitions in your
in your brain, you don't really need to think and
react in real time. You're just doing it. You don't
lose time thinking about every action you have to do.
It's just drilled into your muscle memory and you just
do it without thinking. You're probably noticing a theme here.
(25:46):
Gary is discussing something that Amy spoke about earlier, the
power of visualization, the importance of not just physical but
mental reps. Visualization is simply practicing in your mind. It's
key component of preparation and drilling a skill to the
point where it's automized, or in other words, something you
(26:07):
do without thinking. When you get to to high level,
elite level in in anything, the basics are so mundane.
You don't think about the the the action of throwing
a ball anymore. You focus on different things as as
you you train, your hours and hours, tens of thousands
of hours, you start to need to focus on things
(26:31):
so minuscule. I'm no longer thinking about what actions my
my arms are doing or anything like that, but I'm
thinking more about my breathing. I'm thinking more about getting
myself into a state of mind where I'm relaxed, and
the basic movements and the simple things to do the
(26:53):
dive you don't think about anymore. Now, let's take driving
some of you have been driving for along that you
don't even have to think about when it pressed the gas,
when it hit the brake, how hard you need to
turn the steering wheel to the left or the right.
You just do it because you've done it for so long.
That's what Gary is describing. Now, imagine you're focusing on
(27:17):
a lot of highly specific aspects of driving, trying to
refine small, intricate elements of the motor skills involved, and
then all of a sudden you forget how to steer.
Here's Gary. At some point, you can get so tied
up into the tiny bits that you need to improve
to be world champion that the basic things get lost
(27:41):
and and you can no longer do them without thinking
about them. So that's what happened with me. I needed
to to think about the actions that I would do
to create a twist and things like that, and and
so then when you're when you're doing these big dives
and you're having to think about the basics, it's easy
to just overthink and get lost. It's like you've created
(28:05):
a foundation of actions to build a dive, and then
the foundation has been taken away, and so now you
need to think about reconstructing the base again, meaning the
moves that he was doing effortlessly, the moves that he
wasn't even thinking about doing before. Now he had to
(28:26):
think about them. Now he had to execute them deliberately
rather than by default. At first, Gary thought it was
a mental block which he developed because he was trying
to perform dives that were just too difficult. Not too
difficult physically, but too difficult mentally. Why it started to happen,
(28:47):
it's very difficult to pinpoint. From a young age, I
was somebody who wanted to learn to to twist and
turn in every direction. And I started to play around
with a dive where I would be twisting at the
start of the dive, stopped twisting, and then start twisting again.
It was a front triple with four and a half twist,
(29:08):
and I decided to do two twists in the first
summersault and then two twists in the second summersault, And
so that led me to doing some very complicated dives
and twists, and I think, yeah, it just it just
got to a point where it was a bit too complicated,
and when I was tired, it was just, yeah, it
(29:28):
was just too too much for my brain to to
concentrate on. And it only took that one one mistake
that happened a little bit more often and more often,
and obviously when it happened to me on them, that's
when it's all snowball gary headed twist ease. It's um
something that I had heard about in diving when I
(29:51):
was younger, and UM lots of divers. It's it's been
the end of their careers and and something that's made
them freeze on the end of the platform because there
they're too much in their head and they just create
a mental block because of these problems. And I was
seeing that from the outside for many, many years and
(30:14):
just didn't really understand what they were going through. For me,
it was doing an extra twist. I would try to
to do two twists, and I would be feeling each twist,
but there would be something like a block in my
head where I would just go past the point where
I would need to to open my arms out to
(30:34):
stop the twist, and I would realize I would be
aware that I had gone past that point, and so
I would stay in until the next moment that I
could come out, because if you come out half a
twist too late, you'll be in the wrong direction and
it can really cause a crash. So I was aware
enough to to keep going until the next exit, but
(30:59):
it just got worse and worse. For me. I thought
it was just something that would happen in training, and
if I would be focused on the seven, it wouldn't
ever happen. But it did happen on my very last
dive of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series in
two thousand and seventeen. Gary thought he would never experience
the twist he's in a competition until he did. Cliff
(31:21):
diving is extremely dangerous, and many people in gary situation
might have said, well, I had a great career, but
I guess this means it's time to retire. Not Gary.
I'd heard stories of people that that was the end
of their career. They started getting lost in their dives
and and and then that was it. And I didn't
(31:42):
want that to be my story. So I just had
to go back to basics and doing dives with just
one twist and doing them over and over and over
again to stop thinking about it. Basically, for me, the
problem was was overthinking. Once there was a problem, then
I would only be thinking about what could go wrong,
(32:03):
and this was just reinforcing the bad way of thinking.
And so the only way that I imagined I could
get over it was just drilling many, many, many times
these simple dives so that I would I could do
it without thinking. Again, if there is someone out there
listening to this and they're experiencing the twist ees, what
(32:26):
advice do you have for that person? What helped was
definitely positive thinking and yeah, just just drilling the basics,
finding where you're having problems and breaking it down, going
back a few steps, and only going forward when you're
absolutely confident of the step beforehand. I often found I
(32:51):
would have problems towards the end of the week as well.
I would be fine during the start of the week
Monday to Wednesday, and then when I'd be a little
bit more tired Thursday Friday, there would be a lot
more chance of a problem. So I would say, don't
don't work on that the whole time. If you're just
focusing on your problem of the time, you're you're going
(33:12):
to burn out. So you have to mix up your
training with obviously focusing on on on these problems your
mental block, but more often in the start of the week,
and mixing up with something that you're confident with, something
that you you enjoy doing, so that you just don't
get too far down dug in a in a hole
(33:32):
and you can Yeah, you can amuse yourself and and
and still enjoy what you do. Sometimes we will try
to tighten up our weaknesses to the point to where
it consumes us. What I love about Gary's words is
he's like, don't drill the problem to the point to
where it pushes you into despair. Whatever you're working on,
(33:54):
whatever you're trying to get better at, be mindful and
identify a signal that you're pushing too hard. You're not
finding joy in what you do. You're starting to feel
like you have to do it instead of remembering that
you get to do it. Chances are you're seeing a
connection between what Gary is saying and what Amy said
(34:16):
earlier on. Both Gary and Amy would believe that a
happy athlete is a high performing athlete. It's not every
day that you get to talk to one of the
best cliff divers in the world. And I had a
few more questions for Gary. Can you tell us what
you've learned over the course of your career about fear,
managing fear and leaning into it. What have you learned
(34:38):
about about it? That would be difficult to to describe
in words what I've learned about fear. Um, I mean,
I'm my sports is is definitely one of the sports
where you're you're confronted with your fears every time you
take part, every time you jump. So I've just learned
(34:59):
the you can use your fear to benefit you. Every
time that I'm under pressure and I'm worried about a
new dive, those are my proudest moments when I've overcome that,
when I've when I've done something, when I've set my
mind to a new dive and I'm worried about it,
and finally I go from going through the dive hundred
(35:22):
times in my head and thousands of times in my
head to to finally realizing the dive and and doing it.
It's it's just such a wonderful feeling of achievement and
it kind of rolls over into my into my daily life.
The things that I'm worried about, I push myself to
do them more than I feel like I want to,
(35:42):
because I know that that's pushing that barrier is gonna
in the end benefit me, It's gonna be worth it.
It's I don't want to just sit back and try
and find the easiest, easiest way through life. I want
to push myself. I want to tell myself and be
proud of what I've done in the end. What's your perspective,
(36:05):
I'm failure. I think it's it's great to just get
used to failing when you're when you're at a young age,
and then it's not such a big deal when you're
when you're older. For me, I was I I landed
flat so many times when I was When I was young,
I didn't have the best spatial awareness, and I was
(36:28):
I was a crier as well. When I when I
used to hurt myself, I would cry, and my coach
would would yell at me and and things like that.
But after a while, I I just got used to
it and I would I learned to laugh at myself.
I learned to laugh at it with everyone else, and
and so that just kind of made it a lot
(36:49):
easier to live with making these mistakes. And obviously you
you do learn a lot more when you when you fail.
One person we spoke to told us that she had
experiences like the twisties was the most relatable thing about athletes. Yeah,
so relatable to not just other sports, but life in general.
(37:09):
People are taking things for granted and suddenly not being
able to do what they've done for for a long time.
My psychologists was saying that she'd worked with the pole
vaulters who just at the last second, when they they
want to they need to plant the pole, something will happen.
They'll click on the bail the last minute. Just when
you think you've heard about every variety of the yips,
(37:32):
you can make so many connections with this this phenomenon.
So yeah, I'll be following along. Thanks Gary, and for
all of you listening. If you want to follow Gary
and see some truly incredible cliff diving, keep an eye
out for the upcoming Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series,
which you can find on Instagram at red Bull cliff Diving.
(37:54):
Next time, on Losing Control, we're teed up to talk
about the yips in golf as well as here from
a world champion archer who has battled and beaten target panic.
Next up on Losing Control, a sincere thank you to
our guests. Amy Borman, one of the most talented coaches
in gymnastics and a longtime coach of none other than
(38:17):
Simone Biles. Follow Amy on Instagram and Facebook at Salto
Coach or on Twitter at Salto Underscore Coach. And Gary Hunt,
the nine time Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Champion
and one of the best cliff divers in the world.
Follow Gary at Gary Diver on Instagram. Thank you so
(38:39):
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 could also
check me out on the Increase Your Impact podcast. Losing
Control is a podcast from Sports Illustrated Studios and I
(39:01):
Heart Radio. Original music by Jerrem Suah. Michael McDowell is
our producer, editing and mixing by Will Stanton. This episode
was fact checked by Zoe Mullock at SI Studios. Max
Miller is supervising producer, and Matt Lipson is executive producer
At I heart Radio. Sean ty toone as our executive producer.
(39:22):
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
This podcast 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
(39:42):
seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health
provider with any questions you may have regard in your health.
Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it
because of something you have heard on this podcast. Bong
Bong
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