I’m making a concerted effort to NOT look at my hands while playing (both flatpicking guitar and clawhammer banjo), after the very initial phase of understanding the chords and strings involved.
I think everyone’s objective is to be able to play correctly and cleanly without looking, but I wonder if trying to do it too soon is hindering my progress.
I personally would not make playing without looking an objective, after you play long enough you’ll just stop looking without even thinking about it
So… I’m trying not to look at the tab! haha!
I’ll second Gunnar’s comment.
I’ll third that with adding I still have times I prefer to look like long slides or position changes.
I might be a little strange, but I play non-fretted instruments completely by ear, but add frets and I prefer looking at times …
I would consider that to be normal. Cuz on a fretless instrument looking doesn’t really help anyway, cuz there’s no indicators.
Also, for the record, I still look at my fretboard almost as much as I don’t (especially up the neck on banjo or guitar) cuz it’s something interesting to look at, and beats staring creepily at whoever’s in the room 
Playing with or without looking doesn’t concern me too much. Playing without listening is the danger 
Thanks, all, very interesting. There’s an online clawhammer teacher who promotes not-looking as an objective.
I’m in my first year of flat picking guitar. In January it was all new and awkward. As I learned chord shapes and built muscle memory I have relied less on checking finger positions. But when I encounter something new to me, and I am learning by tab, I place the tab so I can glance at the fingerings and back to the tab.
When I think back to the beginning it was like a one eyed cat trying to watch four rat holes. The fret hand, the pick hand, and pick strokes all while trying to read tab. For anyone that gets discouraged I will say this, it get easier with practice.
Promotes not looking at what? I would say not looking at your picking hand would help, but not looking at your fretting hand would be merely aesthetic for the audience
He was recommending not looking at your picking hand, as muscle memory is the key and visual cues with respect to hand position are of little use after a little while. This is in the context of learning clawhammer (but certainly resonates with me; when I was doing a lot of 3-finger picking, I didn’t even think about my picking hand much less look at it).
Not looking at your fretting hand is harder, but I think eventually yields benefits, not just for audience aesthetics, but also to watch and interact with other players (not that I have a ton of experience in that department)
Ok that makes total sense, I don’t think looking would even help that
That’s true, and I don’t think you should force it. As you get to know the instrument better you’ll naturally look less, and interaction with other musicians will become natural as you do it
Here’s my advice:
Would ya look at that? Just… LOOK at it!