the.com/choke
The moment your talent files for emergency leave right when you need it most.
means To fail, suddenly and badly, at the exact moment the pressure is highest.
from From Old English 'aceocian,' to suffocate or strangle — the throat sense came first, literally gasping for air when something blocks the windpipe. The leap to 'failing under pressure' is a modern figurative stretch, likely sports slang from the 1900s: the body seizes up just like a throat closing, and the nerves do the strangling instead of a hand.
- neuroscience
- pressure shifts control from motor cortex to overthinking prefrontal cortex
- classic example
- missing a two-foot putt that a beginner would make
- irony
- caused by caring too much, not too little
- fix
- narrow focus to one cue, not the whole scoreboard