Keep It Moving by Twyla Tharp

Author:Twyla Tharp
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2019-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

I once lived next door to master harpsichordist Rosalyn Tureck. Listening to her practice difficult passages in Bach’s music over and over was to marvel at the ingenuity of a great performer bringing to bear many different approaches and intentions to the repetition of the same bars of canonic music. Each pass accomplished a different goal. Creative repetition teaches us there is no single right way.

Yes, you have to fight through walls to build stamina and this tour’s hardships offer plenty. But you don’t quit taking a test because you don’t know one answer and you don’t settle on last night’s show as the be-all and end-all of tonight’s. New ways must be found in every performance and pushing through to the next and the next gives you more options for passing future tests.

While many of our physical tools diminish noticeably as we age—speed, flexibility, and power—we don’t have to lose stamina. The more my youthful powers wane, the more I appreciate stamina as the great equalizer. If we have stamina, we can keep going no matter what the clocks and calendars show. That said, the fact that we have the capacity to retain our stamina well into old age doesn’t guarantee we will actually do it. Stamina is a choice, not a birthright. We develop it over time by practicing simple steps—and repeating them.

Hua Chi, a Buddhist monk in China now in his seventies, has repeated the same ritual for fifty years. Every day before sunrise, he goes to temple. Once there, he bends down to pray in the same spot. He then rises and repeats his activity, his action similar to what we would call a squat thrust. Over and over, an unbelievable three thousand times every single morning. This ritual has created a physical artifact: the imprint of his footprints ingrained in the temple’s wood floor. With stamina to burn, he looks like he could live to be a thousand. Hard work keeps his aging from getting old.

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