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Is it possible to learn a physical act without actually doing it? For example: in Harry Potter 5, Professor Umbridge expects her students to learn spells without actually casting them. Also, in Ice Princess, the girl learns to ice skate by doing mathematical computations about flight trajectory and the like, but when she gets on the ice, she realizes that she has to train her body to act out the computations she has made. More food for thought: could you have learned to write without actually picking up the pencil and writing?, would you have been able to learn to type without having the keyboard in front of you?, what about the piano? Basketball? Tennis? Karate? Whistling? How do people actually learn how to do physical things? After reexamining my previous examples, I believe I have a partial answer. You can learn how you are supposed to do the thing, and then when you find that out, you can do it in real life; you just won’t be great at it until you practice.