{"id":366,"date":"2013-08-04T12:18:07","date_gmt":"2013-08-04T17:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/?p=366"},"modified":"2013-08-04T12:18:07","modified_gmt":"2013-08-04T17:48:07","slug":"eggxercise-movement-and-inspiration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/eggxercise-movement-and-inspiration\/","title":{"rendered":"EGGxercise: movement and inspiration"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>You might think a choreographer wouldn\u2019t have much to say to writers, but you\u2019d be wrong. Twyla Tharp has been creating dances for a long time, and from what I can tell has fought and won all the battles involved in making something out of nothing. Her book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>absolutely nails the issues any creative person faces.<\/p>\n

For example: \u201cWriter\u2019s block means your engine has shut down and the tank is empty. Being blocked is most often a failure of nerve, with only one solution: Do something\u2014anything.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Then she gives a bunch of exercises to \u201cdo.\u201d What\u2019s key for me is that most involve moving your body. One more quote: \u201cI can\u2019t say enough about the connection between body and mind; when you stimulate your body, your brain comes alive in ways you can\u2019t simulate in a sedentary position.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is true. Being a dancer was never even on my radar. Even those group exercises where you act out a name or word or idea always made me feel awkward and dull. But I decided to try a couple of Tharp\u2019s ideas. That is, I had to force myself. The level of resistance was astonishing. But I got on the floor and assumed the postion for Egg: knees bent up to my chin, arms hugging them. Nowhere to go from here but out\u2014somewhere. Tharp lists Exploded Egg, Scrambled Egg, and Egg-Cited as some \u201ceggs\u201d that her students have come up with. I managed Rolling Egg and something I\u2019m calling Flailing Egg.<\/p>\n

I noticed that the movement was fueled by the tension in my body. That is, initiating the movement gave the tension a place to go. Then it took over and shaped the movement. I didn\u2019t need to figure out<\/em> where to move next; I just went along for the ride. The movement broke open the shell of tension (or resistance), and the idea for this post popped right out of the crack.<\/p>\n

Doing these exercises went beyond the old \u201cgo for a walk when you\u2019re stuck\u201d idea. It was more formal, more structured, focused directly at making<\/em> something. More powerful.<\/p>\n

Have you had an experience of this kind of movement sparking an idea, plan, other inspiration? I\u2019d love to hear about it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You might think a choreographer wouldn\u2019t have much to say to writers, but you\u2019d be wrong. Twyla Tharp has been creating dances for a long time, and from what I can tell has fought and won all the battles involved in making something out of nothing. Her book The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life\u00a0absolutely nails the issues any creative person faces. For example: \u201cWriter\u2019s block means your engine has shut down and the tank is empty. Being blocked is most often a failure of nerve, with only one solution: Do something\u2014anything.\u201d Then she gives a bunch[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,22,4],"tags":[127,55,126,56,57,54,123],"class_list":["post-366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creativity","category-inspiration","category-writing","tag-creativity","tag-dance","tag-inspiration","tag-movement","tag-the-creative-habit","tag-twyla-tharp","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stephaniegolden.net\/writing_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}