freethoughtandmetaphor

Last fall the News Hour had an interview with Twyla Tharp celebrating her new book, Keep It Moving.  Its subject is the importance of keeping yourself moving as you age. When I went to order it I discovered that she also has done a book called The .Creative Habit: Learn it and Use It for Life. I go for creative coaching books, so I ordered that one too.

They both looked so good that I read them simultaneously, a chapter in this one, then a chapter in the other.  Each book has twelve chapters.  Each book has exercises accompanied by episodes from Tharp’s career.  Keep It Moving is nicely organized, with one exercise per chapter.  The Creative Habit has thirty-two exercises, more about focus and mental preparation than the physical.

The television interview showed repeated images of Tharp exercising, with an energy and agility far beyond what most of us near her age can even think about.  Fortunately, the exercises in the book are not that drastic.  She includes jumps and endurance pieces, but it’s clear that what matters is to, as the title says, “Keep it moving.”

The first exercise is a particularly intriguing one.  She calls it “Take Up Space.”  Don’t start shrinking may be what she means, but she avoids the negative.  Stride when you walk.  Spread out your papers on the table if you’re at a meeting.  Is this real exercise?  Maybe not, but it’s a great opener.

Another is “Mark your day.”  She describes dancers waiting for the subway.  They keep moving though in small space, doing the movements of their dance with restraint but in real time.  Her challenge for the reader is to not separate “work” and “exercise” as you move throughout the day.  She writes: “Thinking of computer or desk work as one job and then exercise as another seems to me like holding two halves of a card deck in separate hands.”  Those cards need to be shuffled.

My favorite of the exercises I have so far put into my routine is “Squirm.” Like a worm, she says.  Starting with the torso she gives a sequence for moving, stretching, curling and arching, covering the whole body, and all of it to be done before getting out of bed in the morning and having to deal with gravity.

That’s only three of the recommendations in this elegant, short book.  But it’s time for me to leave the computer and get moving again.