Feel Vs. Real

When I was in college, my teacher, the legendary Ray Sasaki, used to do something that, when I look back on it, confused me. Sometimes I would come into a lesson after a week of practicing well and sit down all cocky and play something for him, and he would look at me and simply say, “Alright, not bad. Let’s try this again.” And other times I would come in after not practicing very much throughout the week, and play for him and he would say, “You sound great! Good work.” 

In the years after college I would look back on this and find it confusing. Was this some kind of long-game reverse psychology? Was he trying to even out my ego? But now I think it wasn’t either of those things. Now I know he was helping me set aside how I FELT about however I was playing, and just look at it as it actually was. 

There’s a famous golf coach named Butch Harmon that coached Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Ricky Fowler, and many other elite professional golfers. He famously talked with Tiger about understanding “Feel vs. real”. This idea has many implications but mostly it is that the way you feel about what you’re doing doesn’t necessarily reflect what is really happening. For Tiger, just because he felt like he was taking the club back on a lower track didn’t mean he was actually taking it back lower. Just because I might feel like I’m playing a note louder doesn’t mean it’s actually louder to the audience. 

Another way of thinking about “feel vs. real” is the emotional component. This is what Professor Sasaki was doing. Just because you feel really confident about your playing, that doesn’t mean you sound good. And just because you feel really down on yourself doesn’t mean you sound bad. In reality, you probably sound the same either way! 

I guess the point is, we can’t let our feelings dictate the way we pick up the horn. You sound like yourself either way. And that’s good.