When I was at university, my flatmate asked me one night to come to his jazz band practice as a stand in for their drummer who was indisposed.
I’m surprised I agreed, in retrospect, having never touched a drum kit in my life, but I must have been more game in those days. He told me it would all be very chill, but it was usual for the drummer to do a little flourish every eight bars. Well, I never tried any flourishes as I found it hard enough just to keep time, with everyone depending on me to keep the rhythm. For whatever reason, I was never invited back, probably because the drummer was in general a very healthy and dedicated person, so that a replacement was never again needed.
On Thursday, after I had foxtrotted around the room with the rest of the class, the teacher said we had all done very well, and in fact it was the first time we had all been in time with the music. I always feel as if she’s looking straight at me when she says these things, but I suppose everyone feels that way. Anyway, it takes two to tango, and to foxtrot, so surely the timing isn’t all up to me?
I went for a run this morning, trying out my new 180 bpm soundtrack. I have found the normal running sound track too slow for my unusually rapid cadence. I’m not saying I’m fast, just that somehow my feet go up and down more than most people’s. Don’t ask me to explain it. Anyway, the new soundtrack was a great success, although Spotify seems to struggle to find music with the correct beat. Somewhat dispiritingly, I ended up with two versions of the song that was a big hit a few years ago, Despacito, which translates to “slowly”, or at least it does in the version Justin Bieber sang.
I was moving at a different pace altogether at my yoga class later in the morning. It was my first level 2 class, which is slow progress indeed after however many years I’ve been doing it. The instructor said I coped very well, although I needed help kicking up into my headstand, a position I was regretting a few minutes later when I remembered I’ve been having trouble with my neck recently. How embarrassing would it be to render myself a quadriplegic in front of all those people? Anyway, another and less stressful exercise was walking meditation , where you walk very slowly and mindfully up and down the room. It sounds dull but it was quite mesmerising, once you get over the odd wobble due to loss of balance. It was a very peaceful ten minutes.
My last bit of exercise for the day has been taking the dogs for a twilight walk along the beach. There tend to be less people out and about in the gloom, so it’s less stressful letting the dogs off their leads. I had my EarPods in again, with a walking playlist on this time. The old hit “Staying Alive” came on, and I was wondering how many beats per minute it was, as it felt slightly too slow for a good striding pace, when I remembered that it’s the song you’re supposed to sing to yourself when doing CPR, as it’s exactly the right beat that you’re aiming for to get the best cardiac output during your chest compressions, at around 100 bpm. “Another one bites the dust” famously has the same beat, but is less encouraged in this scenario, for some reason.
This reminds me of the cardiac arrest I walked into in theatre the other day. I messaged the young consultant that evening to say how impressed I was at how he managed the resuscitation, and he said the patient was doing really well, awake and already ready to leave ICU for the ward. I would definitely recommend hospitals as the best place to have your heart attack.