Existential Crisis

We sat in the Zendo, where a new drummer had just started in the role. As our chanting neared its end, we reached a section that was particularly fast and got progressively faster.
The drummer maintained the beat, but Soryu gestured, motioning him to raise his hands higher. The drummer raised his hands higher, but Forall persisted, raising his own hands even higher and motioning the drummer to change his motion. The drummer raised his hands higher, began to lose the beat, and quickly returned to his previous state to keep the group on beat.
Soryu motioned again, asking the drummer to raise his hands high above his head to strike the drum in a section requiring multiple drum beats per second, despite the drummer's clear limitation.
I wondered about Soryu's intentions and expectations for the drummer, as it seemed the drummer couldn't raise his hands higher without losing the beat.
When we finished, the Zendo was silent. Then, the drummer asked the question that had been in my head. "You want me to raise my hands higher than is physically possible. What do you expect to happen?"
Soryu replied, "An existential crisis. You can't do it, but you have to do it. You can't do it, but you have to do it. And soon, a force beyond you does it, even though you can't do it."
This experience transformed the way I chant, meditate, and train at the Monastic Academy for the Preservation of Life on Earth.