A fish swims gracefully in water. When one part of a fish's body move, the other parts of its body move in turn, like a piece of rubber or a single piece of muscle. Inside the bag of tricks of a chi kung students is a trick or technique called visualization. One common visualization is to visualize oneself swim in water while doing movements. Simply put: visualization himself as a fish!
So, is it simply through imagination that we can do singular muscular movement like that of a fish? The answer is a definite no. The way to do it is to move our body in air as if we are moving our body surrounded by water - do without the annoying fact that we cannot breathe under water, since it is as if. The fish has a definite advantage here, it does not need to breathe, it gills can catch the oxygen, so to speak. It swims as a fish, not as if!
And is it simply switching our mind-body into a mode of "as if" and then all is there? If it is so simple, everybody can a chi kung master on day one. No, he needs to learn something more.
Being anatomically not built from a single piece of muscle, special training is needed for human. Firstly he needs to open blockages to facilitate connectedness, which blockages primarily centre around his major joints (hip and shoulder joints). Secondly, he needs some mechanism to connect the now more-ready-to-get connected muscles. The mechanism to enable connectedness is our breathing muscles, primarily our diaphragm. And in order to make use of our diaphragm and other breathing muscles for this purpose, we need to cultivate a meditative mind.
You can now appreciate why meditation (seated or standing) is so important for the learning of chi kung, tai chi and other internal arts.
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