Raise your hand if you’ve ever taken a spin class.

Now raise it if you’ll ever do it again.

I’ve been taking indoor cycling classes on and off for about 9 years. Off for my pregnancies (and that one time I pretty much got banned from one) and then on again in between.  The first time I endured an hour in a dark, close spin room I wondered one thing:

How did they get their feet to go so FAST?

I mean, they don’t go that fast all the time, but when the instructor calls for a sprint, we all pump our legs as fast as we possibly can but I could never keep up.

After my first few cycle classes (and trying so hard to mimic the form and speed of all the seasoned cyclers) I still didn’t get it.  Now I was armed with dual water bottles, new cycling shoes that clipped into the pedals and some questions:  the girl I asked told me to focus on the PULL not the PUSH.

Oh.

I’d been focusing on the pushing down of the pedal during the sprints.  Doing that, I would never go as fast as anyone else.  If I focused on the up motion and pulled the pedal rather than pushed it, immediately I could spin my feet as fast as the rest of them.

It had nothing to do with physical prowess or fitness, but it had to do with how I completed the action.  What I spent my focus on.  The funny thing is, to the outside observer, the motion looks exactly the same.  Totally different muscle groups are used but it looks the same.

Hmm.

So now I spin fast during sprints and share my tiny bits of indoor cycling knowledge with others if they ask.

Who was it who said that the definition of stupidity or insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results? That’s what I’d been doing those first few classes.

I sat in a cycle class yesterday morning and I wondered what else I was pushing in my life.

The styles of disciplining my children I’ve settled into: is that a push?  Are there better ways to accomplish the same (or better) things?  What about the communication with my husband? We seem to fall into the same three arguments over and over again.  Should I be looking at us with fresher eyes? And to be really really honest here (because you all pretty much know all of my stuff) I’ve been trying to lose the same ten fifteen pounds for about 2 years.  And I know it’s because I am too lazy to give up certain foods I love.  I am doing the same thing over and over again and wondering why I’m not losing the weight.

I need a new perspective. I need to get up, grab my new cycle shoes and take charge of those situations in my life that seem to present the same (unhappy) results over and over again.

I need to learn to PULL.

What about you?  Have you been PUSHING when you should be PULLING?