Pianist Sun Youl cut his practice in half — and started asking why

When Sun Youl arrived in France to study, his new teacher had an unusual request: promise not to practice more than three hours a day.

The teacher, French pianist Olivier Gardon, had a question for him too: If you play perfectly, without a single mistake, what are you actually getting out of it?

What is all the practice even for?

"The question landed like a hard blow to the head.

I realized I had been running like a machine, without even knowing why I practice," Sun told reporters in a roundtabl ...