That's probably because Kage Bunshin just doesn't have anything that you can visualize or experience. It's just making the seal and then poof, clones. For no particular reason. With the chidori, you're still holding lightning in your hand, you see light, feel heat, and you have to contain it. You can imagine those sensations. There's no way you can imagine the sensation of clones just popping into existance, so it doesn't work.

I think I'll try not to clone myself, but to just make the smoke appear at first. I think that somehow makes a ten-mile journey into two one-mile trips, since when you do Kage Bunshin fully, you are too focussed on the end result but it's hard to imagine a clone appearing out of nowhere. But I don't think making smoke appear is that hard, if you focus on it. And then, when you have the smoke, you can focus on the fact that you want to see a clone when it dissipates. That cuts the process into two much easier parts, I think.