Don't Cheat the Beat

Sometimes a fitness instructor (music blasting in the background) will tell a class to “give me as many pushups as you can in the next 30 seconds” or “sprint as fast as you can” to the end of the music track.

BUT SOME OTHER TIMES

She’ll ask her students to “hold for two” at the bottom of a squat or “pulse for eight” midrange on biceps curls. 

And it’s interesting that people who throw in gleefully for the fast requests -- pushing and sprinting with all their might -- those same people HATE the discomfort of requests to hold where they are. (Did I say those people? Oh. I meant me. I hate it.) 

So when I heard Les Mills Instructor Denise Burr call out to her class (and online viewers), “Don’t cheat the beat,” after demanding that we pulse-for-two at the bottom of a squat, I had to smile. First, because I liked the rhymey sound of it. Second, because I KNOW FULL WELL that the holding and the pulsing, properly done, contribute to my overall physical fitness and strength. BUT MOST OF ALL I smiled because I heard an angel whisper in my ear:

“So too the Soul.”

Don’t
cheat 
the beat.

Sometimes when we are in an uncomfortable emotional or spiritual place, we don’t like it when Life asks us to HOLD there. Or stay and pulse for a while. Nope. We don’t like it at all. But the truth is, those times build overall soul fitness and strength just as much (if not more) than the rapid-fire emotional/spiritual experiences we love.

So if you feel you’ve been asked to pause in an uncomfortable place, do this:

HOLD.
Hold with same determination you use when you push yourself to go harder and faster.

PULSE.
Soul chest out, soul core in, soul limbs tightened. Pulse, baby, pulse. You’re stronger than you know. You’ve got this. 

NOW
Listen for The Music
and

Don’t
cheat 
the beat.