The following
was written by
one of the
greatest choreographers
ever --
Twyla Tharp...
“I begin
each day
of my life
with a ritual:
I wake up
at 5:30 A.M.,
put on
my work out clothes,
my leg warmers,
my sweatshirts,
and my hat.
I walk outside
my Manhattan home,
hail a taxi,
and tell the driver
to take me to
the Pumping Iron Gym
at 91st Street and First Avenue,
where I work out
for two hours.
The ritual is not
the stretching and weight training
I put my body through
each morning
at the gym:
the ritual is the cab.
The moment I tell
the driver
where to go,
I have completed the ritual.
It’s a simple act,
but doing it
the same way
each morning
habitualizes it –
makes it repeatable,
easy to do.
It reduces the chance
that I would skip it
or do it differently.
It is one more item
in my arsenal of routines,
and
one less thing
to worry about.
Some people might say
that simply stumbling out of bed
and
getting into a cab
hardly rates the honorific ‘ritual.’
It glorifies a mundane act
that anyone can perform.
I disagree.
First steps are hard;
it’s no one’s idea of fun
to wake up in the dark,
stare at the ceiling,
and ask myself,
‘Gee, do I feel like
working out today?’
But the quasi-religious power
I attach to this ritual
keeps me from
rolling over
and
going back to sleep.”
SOURCE:
“The Creative Habit”
Twyla Tharp
Simon & Schuster
2003
