Movement as medium (or Masterpiece?)

Is working out a creative act?

Is Working Out a Creative Act? For some people, the answer is an immediate “YES”! For some, the opposite.

For me, and for my entire life, I have kind of thought that there were athletes and creatives. Two separate groups. Of course, people can cross over the lines from time to time (like my friend Avery who played lacrosse + was in theater in high school, and I always thought of it as a Hannah/Miley kind of deal), but in almost a West Side Story-kind of way, I’ve identified as an Athlete, and thought my creative ID was lost in the mail when I got to about sixth grade.

We call it a workout, a session, a “practice” even. We log it, track it, measure it; Follow a program, or wing it… but either way the “goal” is usually output. Calories, reps, miles, minutes, poses, etc.

That’s fine! Actually, that’s great in a lot of ways - it helps us to be healthier and happier. But what do we lose when that’s the only frame? Aaaand what if it doesn’t matter at all whether anyone ever sees the output (including ourselves)?

Here’s what I notice in Yoga: two people move through the exact same sequence and ALWAYS produce something completely different. Not because one is doing it “wrong”. Because they’re interpreting it (sometimes out of necessity; intentionally, or not). Where you place your weight, how you breathe into a shape, whether you stay or whether you go - those are choices. Small ones, made fast, sometimes (often) unconsciously. But they’re individual choices.

That’s not simply executing a sequence. It’s creating something. Even if the “thing” (or the output) isn’t meant to be held on to (or isn’t even tangible to begin with).

Yoga makes this especially visible… it’s almost the whole point. The practice was never designed to be a workout, we know that. I’ve seen the pendulum swing in “Western” Yoga a lot over the years; I think we’re at a point now where saying “it’s not a workout” has become mainstream - which is great. But what I don’t hear often is what it actually is.

It’s a system for self-inquiry that happens to live in the body. Every pose is an opportunity to observe, respond, choose. The physical form is the vehicle, not the output.

But I don’t think Yoga has a monopoly on this. A long run has a rhythm you negotiate with your breath. Even lifting has a tempo, a feel, a series of small decisions about when to push and when to back off. The creative capacity is there in all of it. Yoga just makes it a bit harder to ignore.

Some forms of movement are obviously creative (*cough, cough* dance). But we just don’t extend the same language to movement that happens in a gym or on a mat.

Audience Attention.

As we do with working out, we tend to think of art as something that produces an output - a painting, a song, a film. An output with an audience. Something that gets seen, even if it’s an audience of one(self).

But, (when you look up Art on google!) its literal definition is “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power”.

Art doesn’t require an audience. It only requires attention.

The moment you bring genuine attention to what you’re doing - real, present, honest attention - you’ve crossed into creative territory. Not because you’re performing for an audience (even performing for yourself). Because you’re paying attention to something that most people move through on autopilot. That’s the distinction.

Not audience. Attention.

And there’s actually research to support this. Studies have found that self-directed movement (the kind where you’re making your own choices, not following a rigid script) measurably increases divergent thinking. The kind of open, generative thinking that sits at the core of creativity… regardless of if someone sees the output.

Every choice you make in movement is a cognitive act, which means the micro-decisions you’re making on the mat - stay or go, push or back off, follow the sequence or follow your instinct - aren’t just physical choices. They’re creative ones.

And so, 1) paying attention to the process of making those decisions and 2) paying attention to the act of movement itself are Art in action.

Svādhyāya

Yoga philosophy has a name for this kind of attention. Svādhyāya (the fourth of the Niyamas) translates roughly as self-study. Not reflection after the fact; but active, ongoing inquiry happening in real time. Watching yourself honestly as you move. Taking the seat of the observer, reading yourself like a text, and then responding. That’s not just mindfulness. That’s a form of interpretation.

Creativity isn’t only about origination (how it’s made). It’s also about interpretation (how attention shapes what something becomes). And by that definition, a lot of movement qualifies.

This shows up most clearly on hard days, right? A session where nothing clicks, where you feel heavy and slow and your body won’t cooperate. We tend to write those off - bad workout, doesn’t count, try again tomorrow.

But a writer who has a difficult day at the desk still had a creative day. The work was hard. We know that’s very different from the work not happening.

What if a frustrating practice had the same legitimacy? You showed up. You made something, even if it was ugly.

So where does discipline come in?

Sometimes, especially if you're training for something specific, you can't just follow your instincts. The program says 10 miles, even if your body wants to rest. That feels like the opposite of creative freedom.

But here’s the reframe: Choosing to do the hard thing anyway, because you’re building toward something bigger, is actually its own kind of creative act. You’re not just following a program blindly - you’re making a decision about the longer story you’re writing with your body. That’s authorship too. Just a waaay different chapter.

Output Direction.

I’ve gone through times where I’ve felt especially creatively flat - in a way I couldn’t name. I thought myself in circles; How do I feel creatively stuck if I’m not creative to begin with? I’m not an artist, (I literally work in excel all day??) why does it even matter if I feel un-creative? Why am I even thinking about this??

I was usually figuring out direction (what I wanted, how I could live a life that felt like it was actually MINE, etc.), and during these times of uncertainty, something kind of switched off. The things that used to feel alive started feeling like tasks. Including my practice.

I didn’t notice it for a while… I kept showing up. I literally have had weeks on end where I’d go to Yoga before and after work ~4 times a week. But I was executing, not really inhabiting or fully taking up the space that I was physically taking up. Moving through shapes without really being in them. It felt like going through the motions of a life I hadn’t fully chosen yet.

What’s cool is that the mat was usually the first place I noticed it was gone. And, eventually, it was also the first place it came back.

Not because I found a better program or pushed harder. But because at some point I stopped performing the practice and started listening to it. Small choices again - staying in something longer than I was supposed to, skipping what didn’t feel right, following an instinct in my body instead of the sequence on the page. The creativity never comes back all at once but it sneaks back in through the cracks of those tiny decisions.

I thiiiink what I was doing was practicing Svādhyāya without knowing it. Turning back toward myself through movement, slowly, until I remembered I already had creative discretion in all areas of my life.

Okay…….., but why?

When you relate to movement as output, your body becomes a machine you’re managing. You’re either performing or underperforming. On or off.

The relationship is transactional:

1. Put in the work

2. Get the result

3. Judge accordingly

When you relate to it as a creative act, something shifts. Your body becomes something different; You’re not managing a machine, you’re collaborating with an artist. A hard day isn’t failure, it’s information. A good day isn’t a metric, it’s a masterpiece.

Why that matters? That changes how you talk to yourself. It changes whether you come back after a bad week. It changes, slowly, the story you carry about who you are in your body - which for a lot of people (hi, I’m the problem, it’s me!) is a story that needs rewriting.

So yes. Long story short, I think working out is a creative act. Not because it produces something you can hang on a wall. And, not because anyone will ever see its output. But because it requires attention, it tolerates bad days, and it asks you to make choices that are genuinely yours.

What changes when you internalize it that way: you stop waiting to feel good and “creative” (or ready, confident, enough, etc.) before you start, and you stop needing the session to go well to count it.

And so, movement isn't just how the art gets made (Movement as medium). Movement is the art (masterpiece).