@Nikki posted:My son is struggling with this. He is a catcher. You mention success stories and specific drills. I would love to hear about those.
How old is your son? My son is a 2023 C and was the starting catcher on varsity. He developed the yips pretty bad a week before the season started. At first he couldn't throw the ball anywhere close to his target, then it improved to only the pitcher. We tried just about everything you could ever imagine. He still struggles, but has made adjustments to get the ball back consistently. It is the strangest thing. He can throw to bases with no problems. He can throw a bucket of balls to me on the mound with no issues. He's even doing it now with his eyes closed to get the feel of the muscle memory. As soon as you put another player there though, he loses control. He can still pitch and hit his spots with ease.
You'd be amazed at how common this is. Watch some college and MLB games and you'll see catchers doing a bunch of different routines or awkward looking throws. We run into a lot of college and pro catchers with my son's hitting coach. Just about all of them have funny stories about the yips at some point in their career.
Some things we've done: sports psychologist, a series of warm up drills (backspin drill, facing target with feet planted, rocker drills, etc), plays catch with me a ton.