How Long Until You’re A Master? (Twyla Tharp Edition)

So you’ve done the thing. You’re pretty good at it, or so you think, and the critics agree. When is it… enough? When do you feel like a master? Even if “they” are saying you are (but you aren’t believing them yet)?

Twyla Tharp says she was 57 years old and had just completed her 128th ballet choreography when she felt like a Master Choreographer. 

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-EIGHT PROFESSIONAL WORKS IN. That’s when she felt it. Like a twinge or something probably. Might have mistaken it for gas or a cramp at first too. But then it set in. 

Master choreographer. 

Tharp says the question to ask isn’t “Why’d it take so long to feel like this?”

The question ought to be, “Why wouldn’t it?!”

After compulsion to create, all that matters is your devotion to the craft.  

Without passion, all the skill in the world won’t lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combing the two is the essence of the creative life. – Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit