The Yips

"The Yips" is the tenth episode in the third season of the television series How I Met Your Mother and 54th overall. It originally aired on November 26, 2007.

Plot

The gang decides to get in shape and everyone joins a gym. Barney is shocked to see that the woman working at the gym's smoothie bar is Rhonda, the woman to whom Barney lost his virginity. Barney has a flashback to when, fresh from his break-up with longtime girlfriend Shannon, his brother James (who was "not gay yet") set him up with his mother's friend, Rhonda "The Manmaker" French, who told Barney that he "rocked her world," boosting Barney's confidence. Later, Rhonda tells Barney that James convinced her to tell him that he was her best ever, and Rhonda only agreed to it because James slept with her - Rhonda doesn't even remember Barney's name (she calls him Barry). Barney decides to get over it by going to the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show after-party with Ted and Marshall, where all of Barney's pick-up lines become vulgar and fall flat. Barney realizes he has the yips - he is overthinking hitting on girls to the point where he can't do it any more. Heidi Klum convinces him to go back to Rhonda and try again to regain his confidence. She rejects him at first, but after Ted talks to her at the bar, she invites him over to play cards, which quickly turns into sex. Rhonda insists that it really WAS the best she ever had this time, while Barney agrees in monotone, clearly having gained his confidence back.

Marshall is having a much harder time at the gym than anticipated. Although his trainer is a cute girl, she drives him very hard, making him do hundreds of push-ups and making him cry with only her words. Lily gets a very muscular trainer who is helping her with flexibility, but it turns out, is completely unaffiliated with the gym. Robin enjoys the gym because she doesn't have to wear a cute outfit and can work out uninhibitedly. Ted seems to always find a reason to avoid working out (i.e. bringing the wrong shorts), but after Marshall passes his trainer on to him, he gets what he paid for. Although everyone agrees joining the gym was a great decision, Older Ted's voice-over reveals that, after that first week, they never went back.

Continuity

• When Rhonda asks Barney about the last time he spoke to a woman with no intention to sleep with her, Barney says that he sat next to Madeleine Albright at a benefit once and did not "intend to hit that". This is referenced in The Bracket, in which Albright's picture shows up in a montage of women he has slept with. Barney also references his hook-up with Madeleine Albright in the episode "Benefits" when he is talking with Ted about sexual tension being the cause of international conflict.
• Rhonda and the story of when Barney lost his virginity was previously mentioned in the episode "First Time in New York".
• Barney has mentioned the Backstreet Boys on many occasions.
• In this episode Barney's mom is called Patty (by Rhonda French), however in "The Stinsons" Barney introduces his mother to the group as Loretta. Given that Rhonda repeatedly calls Barney by the wrong name throughout the episode, it's possible that she simply has a bad memory for names.

Cultural references

• Heidi Klum's alleged German translation of "having the yips", the sentence "Ach du meine Güte, nichts klappt mehr, überhaupt gar nichts mehr, so 'ne Scheiße!" is not actually a figure of speech but rather what a German might say ("Oh my Goodness, nothing's working anymore, absolutely nothing at all, what shit!") in that situation. Klum also says it much faster than Standard German is normally spoken, actually having a slip of the tongue at the end of both times she says it. In the German translation of the episode, nothing indicates that she was switching between the languages.
• When James made the deal with Rhonda, he starts chanting Reggie Jackson

Critical response

Yann Breteau from Times graded the episode A-.

External links

• The Yips at TV.com
• The Yips at the Internet Movie Database