One of my friends asked me before while we were on a basketball court: “Hong, it’s interesting that you like watching basketball but not playing it” (he is a basketball player) and even though I did not pay attention much on the difference, it’s stuck with me for a while. Apparently I can feel it now when I am transitioning from being in the audience to being a player, for violin. In the former place for violin case, I just enjoyed the performance, tried to feel it, sometimes actively, sometimes passively. Nevertheless, since becoming a player, my point of view is shifted from ‘what’ to ‘how’. Whenever I watch someone playing, my eyes are on how they play, where and how their hands are, and the way they perform leads to the result. I become more serious and more engaging. I am more into it. I put myself into the players’ shoes inside out, rather evaluating from outside like before. I understand that they must have been like me in their practicing journey. I feel the connection between us. People say “to deeply understand something, you must experience it” and it’s true. I can’t just totally understand when you just stand outside and watch. Being outsider, you tend to see a big picture rather than little details and most of the case, a big picture does not tell the whole story. More importantly, there will be thing you think simple and once you actually experience it, you realize “oh, it’s harder or more complicated than I thought”. It’s okay and it’s normal that way. It’s just that to have a complete view, we should definitely experience being a player rather than sitting in the audience. This experience will get to the ‘how’, the pain and gain of engaging so that even you step outside to be in the audience again, you understand what’s actually happening.
