A New Perspective on Choking:
Part 1

Olivier Lingbeek, Phd

In these two articles we look at choking--the experience of anxious tension that negatively affects performance--from the conceptual framework of what is called Rational Emotive Training (RET). What is RET? It’s based on the idea that people don’t suffer from negative experiences as such. They suffer from their irrational thinking about these negative experiences.

The purpose of these articles is to describe this irrational thinking. Describing irrational thinking is described in detail in part 1. Part 2 focuses more n how to use specific RET techniques to free yourself from irrational thinking and choking on the so-called important points in a tennis match.

Theory

RET theory states that negative emotions can be divided in healthy and unhealthy. Unhealthy negative emotions are caused by irrational belief about negative events, not by the events themselves.

Irrational beliefs about adversities like failure, rejection, and ill treatment lead to unhealthy negative emotions, choking, anxiety and dysfunctional behaviors. In contrast rational beliefs about adversities lead to "healthy" negative emotions, like concern and then to positive functional behavior.

Irrational often means not flexible. Unhealthy thinking produces negative behavior emotions and feelings. Healthy, flexible thinking leads to positive reactions in terms of behavior, feelings and emotion.

So for tennis this means, for example, that anticipating the loss of a point a player can think: "I absolutely must not make a stupid mistake, because that would make me a loser." This creates unhealthy feelings like inferiority feelings and behavior like choking.

A healthier way is to consider making a mistake, annoying but not the end of the world. And that making a mistake doesn’t turn me into a loser.

Anxious Tension

We define choking as the experience of anxious tension during competition that results in a dramatic loss of the quality of execution at decisive moments. There are two forms of choking.

The first is over thinking, or paralysis by analysis. The second is fear of failure to the degree such that performing specific sports movements is blocked.

You can compare overthinking to walking up a flight of stairs and starting to consciously think about which leg you are taking each step with. The likelihood that you will trip over your own legs increases. Breaking the skill down into parts is thought to causes choking because those individual parts require a lot of attention.

Fear of failure, sometimes called distraction theory, happens when a parallel thought process takes up working memory that must be fully available for the performance of complex sport related actions. The distraction model says that choking occurs when the athlete must process anxiety while also performing the skill. This strains working memory in such a way that the automatic action necessary for performing specific sports movements becomes blocked.

Both theories are based on the idea that pressure causes athletes to experience high levels of dual processing of both relevant and irrelevant information. Both theories say that pressure induces athletes to have high levels of self-awareness and internalize their focus.

Big Points

The question is what contribution RET can make in defining and handling choking? Let’s look at two major sources of mental difficulty, namely the system of point scoring in tennis and the serve.

The point system in tennis is all about winning games and sets. Even if you have accumulated fewer points overall than your opponent, you can still win the match in sets.

Conversely, you may very well have accumulated more points than your opponent but if you don't win the big points, you win nothing. Big points are those points that lead to game, set and match wins.

Mental pressure can arise when you want to take advantage of your chances on those points and avoid mistakes. The player may start overanalyzing or becoming anxious at those times causing serve execution to suffer.

When playing those key points, the quality of serve execution is often the focus. The example of Jana Novotna is often cited in this case. It shows that the serve suffers most from choking on big points.

Novotna was a Czech professional player who won Wimbledon in 1995. But two years earlier, she played a final against Steffi Graf. Novotna was leading 4-1 in the third set. But after several double faults, Novotna lost the match.

This failure by Novotna is far from unique. Choking on serve is common in tennis.

For example you have set point against you on your own serve, and for the first time you double fault. You haven’t hit a double fault for a whole match until the moment it becomes crucial and at that very moment it goes wrong.

A Hypothetical Example

That's what happened to Kiki Bertens in a match I saw of hers. During a WTA match in Doha in 2017, she hit her first double against Caroline Wozniacki on set point.

But suppose Kiki Bertens had had a RET discussion with a RET psychologist. How could the RET psychologist have helped Kiki Bertens?

It begins with a RET interview in which 6 categories are distinguished: These are: ACBDEG.

"A" is the activating event that triggers the feelings or behaviours that bother you. But this is not the cause.

"C" is consequences, or describing those feelings and behaviors.

"B" is beliefs, the irrational thoughts that RET believes cause the emotional burden or behavioral problems. These are mainly those thoughts that contain a "must."

"D" is disputing. Here thoughts that contain a dogmatic imperative like 'should' are challenged for their logic, empirical evidence, and practicality.

"E" is an effective new thought. A new thought is formulated that is diametrically opposed to the irrational consideration from B and contains a new thought about the situation that does not lead to choking.

"G" is new behavior, behavior that can be practiced and that goes against the irrational thoughts or attitude.

Let’s follow the structure of an imaginary RET conversation with Kiki. Then, in part 2, let’s switch perspectives and indicate from the point of view of a tennis coach what exercises can be done to train RET insights when choking.

Step 1: (A) The circumstances

Kiki: "The other day I was playing against Carolyn Wozniacki in Doha. I had to serve at an important moment in the match, set point against me and I hit a double fault, the first in the match."

Step 2: (C) What is bothering you?

Kiki: "I suffered from nerves when hitting a second serve at set point against me on my own serve. I cramped up causing me to hit a double fault. I really feel like a worthless loser in those moments."

So the C formulates the emotional or behavioral problems you suffer from such as being depressed or anxious.

RET then distinguishes between adequate and inadequate emotions. Tension can have an irrational/unhealthy and a rational/healthy component. The unhealthy form can be called "choking" and works against performance. The healthy side is alertness and great readiness for action.

Step 3: (B) What is irrational in the belief?

Suppose Kiki says when asked what she was thinking at that specific moment of hitting a double fault and answers "I absolutely must not hit a double fault at an important moment in the match, otherwise I am an inferior loser."

RET argues that what Kiki is suffering from is not the result of serving on a big point--an exciting circumstance--but of her irrational attitude toward missing services at important moments in a tennis match.

Step 4: Challenging the irrational thought (D)

It seems that Kiki can't deal well with mistakes at key points. She cannot accept herself as a full player because she is not doing well at critical moments when it is of utmost importance.

RET states that her irrational attitude of possibly hitting a double fault at such a critical moment is the cause. The essence of RET is to challenge irrational reflections that describe that attitude. Irrational thoughts are dogmatic and are challenged by the RET therapist by asking questions. The cramping on second service is caused because Kiki has turned the strong desire to hit a good serve into a demand. "Because I desire it, therefore it absolutely must succeed."

The question the therapist then asks is; "Why should it absolutely succeed, why can't it fail?" Or: "Why do I become less or bad (in this case, an inferior loser) by doing something wrong?"

Inferiority

Therapist: "Now suppose at an important moment in the match I am, say, 6-5 and 0-40 behind. I then have to serve, choke, and hit a double fault. What do you think of yourself then?"

Kiki: "Then that would make you a huge inferior loser in my eyes. Especially when it's at an important moment in the match. At those moments you have to hit aces, you have to strike."

Therapist: "So you go out on the court as a non-loser, hit a double fault and become a loser? How do you become one? Basically you yell at yourself - trying to ward off the possibility of making a mistake. 'Don't do it because you'll become an inferior loser! Afterwards, after hitting the second service you can say to yourself; 'Inferior losers do inferior things,' absolving yourself from acknowledging and dealing with the mistake. But also from correcting it.

Why would anyone start thinking so negatively about themselves at those very moments? As mentioned, overambitious tennis players will easily turn the healthy thought that they would very much like to avoid hitting a double fault on big point into the imperative that they must avoid the double fault.

This "must" is the cognitive expression of the unwillingness to accept the possibility of hitting a double fault, a short-term solution to the unwillingness to endure uncertainty. It is an attempt to escape what the player can’t accept, the possible failure at a very important, exciting moment in the match. The player can briefly cherish the illusion that the coveted desire (avoiding a double fault on a big point) will be realized. A new law has now been created in the universe that precludes failure.

All the problems involved in playing big points disappear for a brief moment into insignificance. The tragedy, however, is this solution provides only temporary relief because the tension is gone for only a brief moment and returns a moment later.

After all, the goal is still there as is the need to achieve it. The excuse that you are failing because you are worthless seems like an answer to the tension, but gives only a brief reprieve because not much later you feel even worse for having labeled yourself as an inferior loser.