What does your exercise playlist consist of? Growing up in dance, from elementary school through college and even teaching right before and after our oldest was born, any form of exercise that I did revolved around music. No matter if you call it beat, tempo, cadence, whatever, if the rhythm is there you can bet that I can’t count any higher than 8, as in 5,6,7,8.
Since then, my fitness routine has typically followed our children’s interests. When they played ball, I MIGHT walk around the fields while watching. As they got a little older, they took up karate, which I LOVED. We took classes together, well them for an hour followed by me in the adult class. While sparring wasn’t my favorite, I did find katas to be very much like my old days of dance but without the music (although I did keep a tempo in my head, sorry Sensei).
Now that the kids are out of rec sports and involved in high school team sports Chef Kevin and I go to the Y. You’ll find me on the elliptical or running on the treadmill if you call what I do running. It’s okay, I’m not into most of the classes offered at my time of the morning, so I follow up with stretching, which is not quite the barre routine of old, but in sync with me.
This all to say that while I’m on the treadmill, the music playing must be of a certain beat, per se. If I am warming up a little slower rhythm is okay, but as I kick it into gear (ha, yeah right) there has to be a much quicker tempo to keep up with the pace. Because every footfall has to land on a beat or I feel off and out of time. And of course when the music changes, so too does my pace.
Meanwhile, in my head, I am making up dance combinations to go along with the song that I’m hearing. I guess when you have spent so many years learning tap, jazz, ballet and etc it’s hard to get certain tendencies out of your system, even if it has been almost two decades since the last class. Anywho, I guess if it makes you happy and you’re working on healthy whatever gets you moving is a win-win! I hope that you are all off to a great start on your new year.
