So I have been spending a large portion of my free time in the last week or so brushing up on some piano pieces and, in some ways, becoming reacquainted with the instrument. It’s been a very long time since I really spent this much time and effort at the piano. Between that, and all my other hobbies that I hop between, it’s got me thinking about creative crosstraining.

This general idea was introduced to me a few years ago, after reading a lot about creativity on Austin Kleon’s blog and in his books, which I highly recommend. I started to think of creativity as more similar to athletics than I had ever considered before. Let’s say a runner wants to run a marathon. Well, they have to do a whole lot more than just run marathons, right? There’s a lot of training. Shorter runs, longer runs, but not a full marathon usually until the day of the race. And there’s often strength training and stretching, etc. Same with other athletes. Swimmers train outside of the pool. Football players train off the field. In sports, coaches and athletes implicitly recognize that other exercises will benefit the overall performance, even if it doesn’t appear to be directly related.

I think the same thing applies to “creatives.” Someone who wants to write novels, for example, should do more than just write novels. Writing poetry, writing flash fiction, writing essays, writing short stories – all of that will help when it’s time for them to run their marathon (a.k.a. actually write a novel). And beyond that, painting, drawing, listening to music, playing an instrument, dancing, crafting will help them build those creative muscles, too. I think of it as creative crosstraining. The equivalent of a figure skater running on the treadmill for half an hour, or of a runner taking some yoga classes.

Any creative endeavor will help prepare you for other creative endeavors.

Maybe that’s just what I want to think to justify the time I spend at the piano, even though I have no intention of using that skill professionally, or all the time I’ve spent painting, even though I have no intention of becoming a professional painter. I guess at some point I’ll figure out if the notion is completely misguided, but at least for now, I’ll keep playing music, painting, and sewing.