Goenka (following his master and the Burmese tradition) took the Vipassana to a too narrow interpretation of only observing body sensations.

The Satipatthana Sutra speaks about 4 types of objects to observe, only one of them is the body sensations. If you are vigilant, you will notice that Goenka disregards the other types of objects in an elegant way (maybe in order to keep the technique as simple as possible for the masses).

For beginners, this radical interpretation serves well as the mind is focused on one type of object and has no escape to invent bypasses and personal versions.

But for old students who practice Vipassana for a long time at some point the narrowed interpretation is not enough, they feel that something is missing, that the mind has found another back route of reacting. This is the time for such people to check on the other 3 objects: to ask who is that meditate, to observe the body as a whole, and to observe emotions as they apear directly as the sutra instructs to do.