metaphorical playing and practising

[fuchs77]

thinking about what the brain does while playing I found out that its actually quite amazing that this actually has strong effect on how you play:
Who doesnt know the teacherīs : "think of your hand as...". and suddenly you get something different out of  you (physical) hand.
Or the typical answer to HOW CAN I PLAY FAST? : dont THINK OF  the run as single notes but rather as flowing liquid , for example !
Or light staccato: little fast bouncing  balls . etc.
I call this metaphorical playing . Every experienced player has encountered this , yet i dont know of it being treated systematically .
Besides , this also seem philosophically interesting , since it concerns just
that body-mind parallelism , an old ever occuring dillemma .
but I would rather talk from pianists point.

ideas anybody ?

[JeffL]

In order to obtain an unhindered lateral movement across the keyboard I like to think of a moving typewriter carriage! (Kalkbrenner invented a bar that fitted on to the keyboard on which the lower arms rested, presumably for the same purpose). In order to assist me to comprehend rotary action one of my former teachers suggested the analogy of turning a door-knob.
I read somewhere that Harold Bauer built his technique on the idea of balletic movements of the hands.

[fuchs77]

thasts exactly what I mean .
metaphors just describe complex things much faster and as a whole other than i.e. : move finger 1 there while the elbow goes up , but dont forget about not raising finger 5 etc. .
in fast passages that require lightness I look down at my fingers imagining them as littel fast spiders -thus not regarding single events happening and so stopping flow .
I belvieve every body might have metaphiracal images even without realising . They are very practical .
I am busy right now traing my mind to go steps back from actual events on thhe keys ( after having learned them thoroughly! ) , thus achieving much more performance flow and lightness of playing . Kenny Werner says that if Horovitz plays it looks as if he is just observing his fingers play - not being actually involved anymore and by this even in the most difficult passages the wholle appearence ist just like serene  grasing sheep .