The Real MVP? Emotions!

F-SWAG™, Epigenetics, and Free Throws: Why the Emotion Is the Shot

In my work as a holistic mental performance coach and the creator of Sports Energy Medicine™, I’ve seen time and again that when an athlete misses a clutch free throw, that it’s rarely about mechanics. It’s almost never just the wrist flick or the arc. It’s something deeper... more ancient. Something that lives in the body.

Inside Sports Energy Medicine, I developed a framework called F-SWAG™ which is a system that blends Chinese medicine with modern epigenetics and neuroscience. It addresses the five core emotions linked to organ systems: Fear (kidneys), Sadness (heart), Worry (spleen), Anger (liver), and Grief (lungs). These aren’t abstract ideas... they are stored patterns that shape performance on a cellular and energetic level.

You see, science is finally catching up to what ancient healing systems have always known. Neuroscientist Luiz Pessoa makes it clear in his landmark research—there is no separation between emotion and cognition. The brain doesn’t compartmentalize like we once believed. Areas like the amygdala (emotion) and prefrontal cortex (logic) are constantly talking... interacting... integrating. Pessoa calls them “dynamic coalitions.” That means your brain isn’t just calculating when you’re at the free throw line... it’s feeling.

And here’s where it gets powerful. Emotion doesn’t just come from this moment. It comes from memory. From pattern. From epigenetic tags which are emotional instructions passed down through generations. I’ve worked with elite athletes who’ve trained for years and still freeze at the line. When we go deeper, we uncover a fear they can’t explain. Sometimes it’s inherited... like the residue of a great-great-great-grandfather’s trauma. A fear of punishment... exposure... or failure. That energy gets stored in the kidneys. And on the surface, it looks like a “slump.” But it’s actually a survival signal... the body remembering something that’s no longer happening but still being felt.

This is where Sports Energy Medicine changes the game. We release the emotional imprint-whether it’s fear, grief, or worry-using a blend of energy calibration, breath, body awareness, and mental repatterning. Once the kidneys no longer hold that fear... once the survival signal is cleared... the athlete steps to the line with presence. They don’t overthink. They don’t flinch. They drop the shot in the bucket. Their performance elevates because the system is finally aligned.

This isn’t just mindset coaching. This is multidimensional recalibration. This is frequency. This is clearing ancestral emotion from the nervous system so the athlete can operate from truth instead of tension.

So yes... the emotion is in the shot. And when you clear it, what’s left is rhythm, trust... and buckets.