Guest guest Posted October 10, 2000 Report Share Posted October 10, 2000 I enjoyed reading your Carlsbad reports and in general I think watching other people practice is interesting, harmless and can be inspiring - as long as you don't start comparing, or fall into the trap of using other people as a benchmark for your own practice. <br><br>Personally, I usually find being watched practicing is less distracting than I expect it to be, as long as the watchers are polite and quiet. I always feel very conscious of the potential distraction when I photograph people practicing. When I took pictures in New York (Guruji's workhop) in the first week I got a couple of looks from people practicing when I was taking shots from outside the room, with a fairly quiet manual camera with no flash. By the second week there were people letting off flashes, using noisy motordriven cameras, even walking into the class with video cameras. But after a while I found I just got on with my practice anyway and was much less distracted by the spectators than I expected to be. <br><br>A far worse distraction in New York was people (presumably locals, I suppose I should feel sorry for the poor things) who didn't seem to be able to relax for more than a minute or two at the end of class. After that they would either get up and walk around, or - worse - sit up on their mats and start nattering away with their friends, next to people like me who were still trying to relax. That was just downright rude, and far more distracting than people watching quietly.<br><br>When I was back in England for a weekend recently I had a private lesson with my old teacher. And having one person intently watching ME practicing and nobody else - now that did feel odd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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