Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life

by Twyla Tharp

attach breathing to your work. Breathe in on the preparation for any physical effort and exhale on the actual activity. About to stand, take a deep breath. Exhale as you rise. All physical labor—from lifting ounces to hundreds o...

When you approach the care and feeding of your body as a job—a

you are channeling a farmer’s work ethic.

A farmer does the same two things every day: show up to work and adapt t...

The hours are grueling, there are no off days, there’s always more to do, it’s dangerous (more lethal than any other occupation), and the entire enterprise can be wiped out

Yet the farmer persists in this onerous activity, usually well into old age, because there is sensory delight

So, pick your poison. Run, lift weights, dance,

Make a commitment and practice it regularly, same time, same place.

It puts you in the now.

Here’s what I know: a life that gives the body its due is a happy life. Yes,

I used to believe it was a satisfying life despite these drawbacks.

Now I see it’s because of them.

This is the goal of any pledge. It connects us to forward movement,

In our metaphor, you are the sailor, and the anchor is the weight of your past.

living in your past can also make you stodgy and immobile.

We all know people who prefer life in the yesteryear. Their now is then.

The peril of nostalgia is the way it arrests evolution.

it’s worth taking a look at whether those qualities still apply to you today or whether you are relying on a shopworn idea of yourself.

Unless we embrace the condition of change, the past will act as an anchor, preventing growth.

What if you were to make change your actual habit instead? Not an easy chore. We know ourselves by what we have been and done—what we have accomplished and the experiences we have had. Yet we can also be stopped cold by feeling we have much to lose if we let the past be left behind.

How can we become comfortable with change in order to remain one step ahead of what is past?

Look to the example of Hokusai, the Japanese woodcutter of the eighteenth century, who had a process that allowed him to sail through life without getting caught in his past.

shifted his identity and his style constantly, using more than thirty names in his lifetime.

practice. This process allowed him to be productive over a very long while, impacting even today—his invention of manga is still alive in contemporary cartoons—on

Another polymorph, Robert Zimmerman, came to New York City in 1963. Ten years later, he left as Bob Dylan.

he was able to compart...

Robert Zimmerman, the person, had responsibilities, obligations, and a somewha...

Zimmerman could give Dylan permission to try anything, sending him out to test the waters of opportunity the way miners test the oxygen i...

While most of us don’t go to the extreme of creating a persona, it can be useful to think of a before and after.

if you do not actually take on a new name, give yourself the option, with a milestone, to adopt a generational tag.

Passing beyond an event of major significance—such as childbirth or a major surgery—gives you the...

Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” trilogy of movies from the 1960s, starring Clint Eastwood. The first film, A Fistful of Dollars, sets the pattern for its sequels (For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly).

based on Akira Kurosawa’s classic, Yojimbo. We know nothing about the hero at the start and just as little at the end.

He is named Nobody, defined not by his past but only by his actions in the present.

What would happen if you went into your next meeting, sales call, or social situation determined to emulate Eastwood:

no past, no list of credits, no reputation, not even a name.

You cannot reveal or use anything from your past—not what you do, where you went ...

Your objective is to free yourself to be whatever and whoever you need to be right now.

Be aware that being very grounded conveys a sense of confidence and security that is slightly diminished when you are off center.

Each placement has its advantages for both your skeleton and your character. You will feel it, others will see it.

Carried to an extreme, being too far off your center is but a way station to a fall. This you can use as a heads-up to go with the flow. While I am not looking to promote falling in your life, if you feel a fall coming, here’s a clue. Try not to fight back.

What if we do? There is no growth without risk. Remember as children, learning to walk, we faced risk bravely. Watch closely: you’ll see kids fall often and, most of the time, without injury.

Done accidentally, falling is a dangerous thing and rightfully avoided

But done with control, it is empowering.

If you expect to fall, are prepared to fall, or can accept a fall and do not resent what appears to be a loss of control, you will find the body much more capable of coping with losing its balance....

There are many varieties of fall, but all have one basic requirement: you cannot hesitate on the way down. You must relax into the fall and let it go straight to its mark. Resisting on the way down causes injury.

Knowing how we are getting up makes falling so much more welcoming.

Use your momentum down for your recovery. That’s the only way it works.

Some people are lazy

Some are overly ambitious (they