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In kyudo, archers who have had the yips report more injuries than others

1 study · 58 archers measured

ForContextAgainst20202022202420262021, for, n = 582021, against, n = 582021, context, n = 58
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

There is a single study, of Japanese medical students who practise kyudo at the universities of Gifu and Kumamoto. Of the 58 archers analysed, 62.5 per cent of those who had had the yips report injuries during practice, against 31.3 per cent of the others (p = 0.043). The link is fragile, though: once the model also takes years of practice into account, injury no longer stands as a significant factor (odds ratio 4.9, with an interval running from 0.8 to 31, p = 0.091), and the only factor that holds is experience itself, because those who have been shooting for longer have had more chances both to get hurt and to develop the yips. The group without the yips is small, sixteen people, and both injuries and yips are recalled by the archers themselves in a questionnaire. The study therefore points two ways, and the status is contested: the data say the two often turn up in the same archer, not that they are linked beyond years of practice, nor which of them comes first.

Also phrased as: "yips and injuries"; "hayake and injuries"; "release problems after an injury"; "kyudo and injuries"

In practice

Archers often say that the yips tend to follow an injury, once the body has learnt to protect itself and the release never quite comes back, or that a disrupted release ends up loading the shoulder and elbow badly.

Evidence

  • 2021
    For Kyudo archers Published later

    58 Japanese medical students who practise kyudo, questionnaire: 62.5 per cent of those who had had the yips (25 of 40) report injuries during practice, against 31.3 per cent of the others (5 of 16), p = 0.043.

    Yips in Kyudo (Japanese archery): prevalence, classification, and aggravating factors · Seiichiro Nishio, Yuichi Hayashi, Shinei Kato, Yoya Ono, Masahiro Waza, Yoichiro Nagao, Akihiro Mukaino, Shunya Nakane, Takayoshi Shimohata

  • 2021
    Against Kyudo archers Published later

    In the same study, in the logistic model that accounts for the other factors, years of practice among them, injury does not remain a significant factor: odds ratio 4.896, with a 95 per cent confidence interval from 0.775 to 30.953 and p = 0.091.

    Yips in Kyudo (Japanese archery): prevalence, classification, and aggravating factors · Seiichiro Nishio, Yuichi Hayashi, Shinei Kato, Yoya Ono, Masahiro Waza, Yoichiro Nagao, Akihiro Mukaino, Shunya Nakane, Takayoshi Shimohata

  • 2021
    Context Kyudo archers Published later

    In the same model the only independent factor is years of practice (p = 0.047): those with the yips have been shooting for longer, and more years of practice also mean more chances of getting hurt. Past medical history does not differ between the two groups (22.5 against 6.3 per cent, p = 0.251).

    Yips in Kyudo (Japanese archery): prevalence, classification, and aggravating factors · Seiichiro Nishio, Yuichi Hayashi, Shinei Kato, Yoya Ono, Masahiro Waza, Yoichiro Nagao, Akihiro Mukaino, Shunya Nakane, Takayoshi Shimohata

Status history

  1. 1990 Not studied Nobody in the registry's bibliography had compared the injuries of archers who have had release problems with those of other archers: the question has no data.
  2. 2021 Contested The first and only data arrive: 58 Japanese university kyudo students. 62.5 per cent of those who had had the yips report injuries during practice, against 31.3 per cent of the others (p = 0.043). In the model that accounts for years of practice the link does not remain significant (odds ratio 4.9, interval from 0.8 to 31, p = 0.091), and those with the yips have been practising for longer. The same study therefore points two ways, significant in the crude comparison and no longer once experience is accounted for: a single study, on kyudo, contested.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). In kyudo, archers who have had the yips report more injuries than others (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/kyudo-yips-injuries

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_yipsinfortunikyudo,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {In kyudo, archers who have had the yips report more injuries than others},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/kyudo-yips-injuries},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

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