I make my arrows carefully tapered flight arrows mostly by feel. I do use my eyes to verify what my fingers are telling me on a regular basis. But while I am removing wood it is by feel.
You have a Tesla? 
Ditto; though they don’t want my blood, either, since I was in the UK for more than 3 total months in the 1980s/1990s.
I don’t mind seeing other people’s IVs or blood draws, just mine. One of the phlebotomists I’ve run into said that’s not uncommon, and she also hates it.
Typing but only as long as I don’t even think about it. As soon as I think about it I’m screwed.
My older son has this incredibly inefficient way of tying his shoes and I (if I say so myself) have this very neat and quick way of doing it. The only problem is I have no idea how I do it so I can’t explain it to him. I can’t even do it slowly so I can figure out how I do it. If I do that, I start thinking about it and then I can’t do it.
Playing any musical instrument.
Mostly this, yes. And as several others mentioned, I think most musical instruments are like this. There’s still certainly some complex stuff that I need to look, but particularly stuff that I know by heart, not only is it easier and better, but I find the less I even think about it, the more impassioned the piece is. Focusing on the technical aspects takes away from my ability to emotionally improvise.
Funny enough, even singing is that way, where if I’m looking at the lyrics, unless I haven’t memorized them, I find it affects my ability to really “feel” it. Even if I forget a word here or there, just fudging it and running with the flow often works better than stumbling and getting it right.
I saw typing mentioned, but a lot of that isn’t so much with the typing, but with making sure that I can see what’s showing up on the screen and correct the errors. So, I guess that counts. There are a few keys I still have to look figure out though, mostly the special characters. I don’t have any trouble finding @ or !, but I often struggle with $, &, and {} which I need a lot in code and scripts.
Similar to typing, is keybinds in playing games. Obviously, if it’s a controller type of game, you should know where all the buttons are pretty quickly, but I’m talking more about keyboard and mouse games, particularly MMO, FPS, RTS type of games. I’ve seen people with all kinds of complex keybinds all of the place. I actually hide that stuff from my UI because I just find it information overload. And the funny thing is, if people ask me what the bind is for some abilities, I can’t say, but I definitely have the muscle memory for it.
Also the Rubik’s Cube. That is, of course I have to look at it to see the state, but once I start applying an algorithm to go from one state to the next, I find that seeing the intermediate patterns to be confusing and make me feel like I’ve messed up. I just have to go through the muscle memory of the particular algorithm and hope I didn’t make a mistake; I almost always make a mistake if I watch.
Packing cantaloupe. No, that’s not a euphemism. Between H.S. and college I followed the packing season from south to west Texas for the cantaloupe crop (my dad knew the owner ((Othal Brand)) and it was a good paying job before college). They’re sorted into about 10 different sizes, from 4 to 18 and are placed differently in the box based on the station size. The workers change stations each hour so everyone gets an equal chance at slow and fast packing stations since they’re paid by the box. I’d use cloth gloves with bicycle innertube sections sewed onto the fingertips for grip.
The method was to pick up the melon off the culling station with your right hand and toss it to your left over the box so it would orient stem up and place it inside based on that size’s packing geometry. You became so good at it that you were flicking as many as possible and just looking at the next one you were going to grab with your right and not your left hand as it caught it stem up and packed it correctly. You literally might have a couple of melons in the air at one time with the larger counts.
Sometimes I’ll still do this at the grocery store as I transfer the items out of my basket by flicking them to the belt where I catch them w/o looking and set them down. Kinda freaks the cashier out, but always in a good way.
I have extremely bad eye-hand coordination, and a serious messed up hand. I’m great at touch typing and touch “keyboarding,” cause I have no desire to look at what I’m doing.
You should see the filthy things my hands get up to when my brain’s not watchin’ 'em.
I can’t tie a necktie while looking in a mirror.
Another one for typing, with special mention for the numeric keyboard. I learned that one-handed ringing rhythm while working retail something like 30 years ago back in the day when we actually manually entered the numbers in the register, and it’s never left me.
At work we have six digit employee numbers which I enter without even thinking. The problem comes in when someone asks me to tell them my E#…“Uhhh… (closes eyes, visualizes numeric keypad pattern, pretend tapping)…uhhh, I think it’s 968754.”
Yes on braiding too…a long ago memory of the long hair days.
You ever see the movie Mr. Majestyk with Charles Bronson? I actually haven’t, but I read the Elmore Leonard book it’s based on. They actually discuss that type of skill as Mr. M fights vigilante style for the cause of some migrant workers, IIRC. He doesn’t use it to beat the bad guys - now that would be cool - but it is discussed to respect the skill of these workers.
You melon-loading badass!
When I’m fishing it is often times by “feel”.
If I’m not casting to a specific piece of structure or better yet jigging, I’m much better off not looking at my fishing pole or line.
I do buy decent fishing equipment though, so my rods/line do telegraph any bites very effectively.
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Obviously, all of the above applies doubly so at night…
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Putting in contact lenses. I never do this in front of the mirror. Easier to do it without any other input.
I think in this post 2G1C world most people are all too sadly aware of such things, but that’s not the point, it wouldn’t be ME pooping, as I’m pooping.
Ditto for tying a necktie (in my preferred knot… have to look if I have to tie some other knot for some reason).
I know more than one military medic who is completely fine with blood and guts – unless it’s their own, at which point everything goes to hell.
On-topic, t’s best not to do venipuncture completely blind, finding a good vein to stick is, surprisingly, often best done by touch rather than feel. A vein that looks nice and easy and plump may well not be. The trick is to make it look as if you’re looking so as not to freak out the patient, while operating largely by touch.
I wear contact lenses as a rule and on those rare occasions when I wear my glasses around the house, I cannot look down when descending the stairs! I need my ankles to remain untwisted.
When I first started wearing contacts I wore them swimming in heavy surf. The plan was just to close my eyes when underwater. Of course I forgot and one contact lens came out.
By some complete miracle I realised it had not washed away completely and was stuck to my eyelashes.
I was on a lonely beach miles from a bathroom or fresh water and I was at the stage where I could hardly get them in at all, let alone without a mirror.
So I thought “what the hell” and just attempted to stick the thing back in while standing amongst the breaking waves. Went in first time. Huh.
Sleeping.