Watching or feeling?

I'm lucky to have an entire wall covered in mirrors at both taiko and karate. But is that a really a good thing?

I wonder how often people watch themselves instead of *put* themselves into their technique. If you can't watch yourself in a mirror, you have to go on feel. And in watching yourself, it's easy to hold back somewhat in order to to see everything going on. I've visited other taiko groups that don't have mirrors, and that's unfortunate too. To rely on mirrors is bad, but so is not having the option to use them!

When we're near a concert, we turn ourselves to face the other way so that we can't rely on using the mirrors. It makes me wonder, what if we prepped for an entire show without using them? What if all we had was our own body awareness and feedback from others? I'm sure it would be frustrating, but only because we've used mirrors for so long.

In karate, I see people looking at themselves doing techniques, to the point of turning their head sideways when they should be focusing in the direction they're going. It's a bad habit. I also have a strong hunch that some people move slower than they could/should because they're "studying" their technique.

I also wonder if truly letting yourself go is disturbing to watch sometimes. To fully put yourself out there, to exert, to possibly not move "pretty", to see flaws, to see the "truth" in the mirror before you - is that easy to face? Or do some people subconsciously hold back in order to avoid seeing that?

There's something in knowing how a technique looks and when you're not doing it right, but does it come at the cost of knowing how it should feel?