F3 Knoxville

Confessing your faults

THE SCENE: Perfect June morning, 60s and no rain
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Projectivators, tempo squats, Hairy rockettes, tempo merkins, mountain climbers
THA-THANG:

START A TIMER – 40 minutes

10-round escalator, as follows:

Round 1: Burpees x 5

Round 2: 1 + Squat Thrusters with CMU x 10

Round 3: 1-2 + CMU Bicep Curls x 15

Round 4: 1-3 + Merkins x 20

Round 5: 1-4 + Little Baby Crunches (LBCs) x 25

Round 6: 1-5 + Lunges x 30 (15 each leg)

Round 7: 1-6 + Carolina Dry Docks x 35

Round 8: 1-7 + Mountain Climbers x 40 (two-count)

Round 9: 1-8 + Goblet Squats with CMU x 45

Round 10: 1-9 + American Hammer with CMU x 50 (single-count)

If you finish before time is up, start back at Round 1 and do a 2nd (or 3rd…) set!

MARY:
No time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Headshot as well.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Confession

When I reflect on the struggles of the church today, one of the main points I see against us is the tendency that church people have for attempting to project righteousness in spite of their internal condition. My experience with many different faith paths is that, at least in my part of the world, we train one another to “look right” but not much to BE right. We are good at saying churchy sounding things and picking churchy sounding activities, but in every case I have ever gotten a look into, behind that picture there was brokenness and turmoil. Why? I propose that we have lost a key piece of the ancient faith, confession.

There are few activities more trying and painful and difficult and, consequently, developmental than confessing my personal faults. Confessing to the Lord is a great start, but if you really want to get serious, you need to speak to another human being. Confession is the spiritual equivalent of the physical training we did today. NOBODY wants to do it, but those who do are easy to spot.

Want to learn empathy? Turn your eyes inward and gaze on your own failings, and you will find yourself much more understanding of others. Want to learn humility? Learn to see your own sins. Want to deepen your relationship with God? Give Him a few minutes each day to show him the things where you know you failed, then let him show you some places you didn’t realize you failed, and end by dwelling in His unbounded forgiveness. This is one of the most powerful, fulfilling and empowering forms of prayer. You don’t even realize how weighed down you are by your guilt until you let it go.

Speaking of guilt, let me mention that there is a little cultural defense the enemy has put in place against this life giving practice. It’s the idea that somehow it is morbid and unhealthy to dwell on your own faults. Like all effective lies, it isn’t entirely false. There are some people who struggle with an obsession with their own failings. But that isn’t most of us. Most of us could stand to spend a little more time. Second, this is not exactly the same thing. The unhealthy version of fault dwelling must be underpinned by the lack of experience with forgiveness. When you approach God with your faults, you must always do so with the image of Jesus in your mind, bleeding and dying upon the cross, and yet asking for his Father to forgive the ones who did it to him. He will make the same appeal for you is only you ask, and you will be forgiven.

MOLESKIN:
It actually didn’t go terribly long. Quick warmup, blocks on hand, explained and got right to it.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Convergence July 8th @ Shamrock, F3 in the nude – July 29th @ The Cove at Concord Park

Baby to Respect

THE SCENE: Perfect June weather
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Tempo Squats
  • Imperial Walkers
  • Grady Corn
  • Moroccan Nightclubs
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Down Dog – Up Dog
  • Projectivators

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to pool wall
    • Wall Ups
  • Mosey to Recruiting Center
  • Each PAX, in any order
    • 20 wall derkins
    • 20 OHP
    • 20 heavy lunges
    • 20 CMU Swings
    • 20 heavy LBCs
  • Gather a group of 4 or more to carry a marine log plus 1 CMU per 2 PAX
    • Make a lap around the islands
    • Rotate gear/position as necessary, but don’t set the log down until finished
    • Log gets set down upon return to the pull up bar
  • Complete the following as a group, someone must be touching the log at all times
    • 20 pull ups
    • 100 heavy squats
    • 200 curls
    • 150 merkins
    • 200 pickle pointers
  • Repeat the whole thing

 

MARY:
No Time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Today, my son turned six months old, exactly 1% of Respect. This led me to reflect on the influence that I have, and even more so on the influence that I don’t have. It’s important to put in the effort, but in the end, Psalm 127 captures the reality well:

1Unless the Lord builds the house,
the builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the guards stand watch in vain.
2In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat—
for he grants sleep to those he loves.
Don’t exaggerate your own power over the world. Each of us is expected to labor, but if we labor against the Lord, it is in vain. So, align yourself with your Father in heaven. Only then will you find true success.

MOLESKIN:
Projectivators are really unpleasant wearing a ruck.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Convergence at Shamrock July 8th. F3 In the Nude July 29th.

Improv Rain Murph Prep

THE SCENE: Raging storm at the beginning, tapering into drippy wet, 60s
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Projectivator, TN Rocking Chairs, Tempo Merkins, Grady Corn, Newton’s cradle
THA-THANG:
Sometimes

  • Mosey to the back porch and do 3 sets of modified Murph reps
    • 15 pole rows
    • 10 merkins
    • 15 squats
  • Then 2 sets of another pair, followed by 2 sets of Murph reps then a lap around the building
    • 10 Iron Mikes and 10 BttW shoulder taps
    • 10 Hand Release Merkins and 10 Flutter-Dollys
    • 10 Derkins and 10 Box cutters
  • By this point, rain had pretty much cleared, so we moseyd to the pool wall
    • 2 sets of 10 Wall-ups and 10 Bobby Hurleys
  • Mosey to playground and do 1 true Murph rep set including pull ups
  • RTF

MARY:
I think we did some…
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

“The Big Lie in the church today is that you are nothing more than ‘a sinner saved by grace’. – John Eldredge

C.S. Lewis cautions us against the words “just” or “merely”, because they serve to exclude other possibility. To be ‘just’ saved by grace is to remain a helpless infant. You are purposed to be much more. Humanity was created in the image of God so that we would become rulers of creation. To be saved is to gain access to the energizing Spirit of the Creator of heaven and earth, but it does you no good if you don’t choose to draw from it. And the Lord delights when you rely on Him for your power.

If I fail to use my chance to grow strong from the Source, I am the least of those who suffer because of it. There is no one to fill your place in the battle line. Every man who chooses comfort or apathy or fear is a gap in the bulwark. Will the enemy win because of my lack? We are certain the answer is a resounding “NO”. But the Lord does not coddle us with irresponsibility. He respects our agency by allowing real consequences. So be assured that your choice will be respected, and all that comes with it.
MOLESKIN:
Not a huge divergence from my original plan, but definitely a little tricky to adapt to the weather, which totally surprised me.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hardship Hill, Dragon Boat, Flag handoff at Juco May 19th, Rampart May 27th.

The Rule of Lurches

THE SCENE: Cool spring morning, don’t get much better. Waxing crescent
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • SSH
  • Hairy Rockettes
  • Imperial Squawkers
  • Tempo Lunges
  • LBACs
  • Grady Corn
  • Moroccan night clubs
  • Cherry pickers

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to the recruiting center, grab a block
  • CMU pyramid (5, 10, 15, 20, 15 10, 5)
    • Curls
    • Lunges (each leg)
    • OHP
    • Squats
    • Extensions
    • Rows (each arm)
    • 1/2/3/4/3/2/1 pull ups
    • 1 Irkie Dirkie
    • Stopped at 0600
  • Grab a battle buddy and a log
    • Lurches – together, lunge step forward, at the top golden arch to the other shoulder
    • To the top of the parking lot
    • 5 power merkins each
    • To the bottom of the parking lot

MARY:
We definitely did a little
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

I would like to propose a few types of rules that people live by

Rule of War – Do it to them before they do it to us

Eye for an eye – Don’t do worse to them than they did to you

Silver rule – Don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you

Golden rule – Do unto others what you would have them do to you

God’s rule – Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 9:18)

Jesus new commandment – Love one another as I have loved you (John 13:34)

Now, if I were a preacher, this could be a whole sermon series, but since I am not, I just want to hang out around last step. When one reads “Love your neighbor as yourself”, it lands as the highest demand that you could make on someone. In fact, I think most people don’t really distinguish the top three tiers of this list. But I think there is actually a lot going on up here at the top.

My eyes have been most opened to this as, over the past ten years, I have attempted to be a father to my son. Being a father has demanded from me an enormous amount of growth, which I frankly didn’t think I needed before I started. When I was married without children, I pretty much had the whole “love your neighbor” thing down. I was a pretty charismatic guy who knew how to steer a situation toward good outcomes, and pretty much did right by all, at least on a comparative scale. And having a baby made it tougher, cause it was exhausting, but I had served on a submarine, so sleep deprivation was kinda normal already. But then the boy turned two and things went downhill. For some reason, he didn’t obey my every word, in spite of my very good imitation of the way good parents act on TV. As the years went on, I descended into a mindset of figuring out how to force my son to behave, and as my methods escalated, I started realizing that I didn’t like the path I was on. But I was caught in a mental trap, on one side an intense responsibility to “raise him right” and an intense reality of how things were actually going.

Eventually, I arrived at the realization that the difference was the rule. For most people, I lived in the golden rule zone, treating them the way I wanted to be treated. But with my son, I was operating on the next level up, I was loving him as myself. Trouble is, I didn’t love myself very well. While on the exterior I was all relaxed and friendly to others, internally I was a slave driver. My son had the unfortunate experience of actually being loved by me more. Pride played a huge role in this, leading me to have low expectations of others while demanding more and more of myself, primarily in the form of external performance. But with Paul, I expected everything, even more than myself because he had the full attention of potentially the greatest dad ever born.

And that’s the genius of Jesus’ new commandment. Rather than allowing my own, twisted internals to set the standard, the expectations are nailed to a cross. I need to stop trying to make a better version of me and start acting like Him.
MOLESKIN:
Ran out of time for my planned work at the wall. Maybe next time.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Hardship Hill, Forg3, Dragon boat race

Queen for your Queen

THE SCENE: Cool and Clear, brisk for Spring but totally perfect, waning gibbous overhead
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Hairy Rockettes
  • Cheerleaders
  • Moroccan nightclubs
  • Grady corn
  • Cherry pickers
  • Mountain climbers
  • Tempo merkins
  • Pickle pounders
  • Pickle pointers

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to the Friendship Bell
  • Bicycle race 3:04
    • 20 4-ct freddies, 5 rowboats x5
    • 10 4-ct mountain climbers, 5 pickle pounders
  • Another one bites the dust 3:37
    • Mucho chesto at songs pace
    • 10 Catalina wine mixers
  • Hammer to fall 3:40
    • 20 4-ct American hammers
    • 20 imperial squawkers
  • Headlong 4:33
    • 20 drydocks, run
    • 20 basilisks, run
    • 10 dive bombers, run
    • 10 speed skaters, run
    • Repeat to end of song
  • Breakthru 4:09
    • 20 squats
    • 20 Lunges
    • 20 step ups
    • 20 dips
    • 20 hello Dolly’s
    • Repeat to end of song
  • Flash 2:48
    • Indian run around the loop
  • Mosey to the pool wall
  • I want it all 4:01
    • 6 Wall ups
    • 6 BttW shoulder taps
    • Wall sit until they say “I want it all”
  • RTF

MARY:
No time, and I had Bohemian Rhapsody all ready to go…
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

In F3, we spend a lot of time talking about working out, but there is another part of fitness that we rarely talk about, what I would call the silent majority of fitness, the queen. Exercise is awesome, but without the right supplies, it won’t make the change we are hoping for. Trouble is, there are so many different aspects and topics and controversies that can muddy the water. So I just wanted to touch on some of the basics that I think are generally agreed upon.

  • You can’t out-king your queen, or another way I have heard it said, you can’t outrun your fork. There is not an amount of exercise you are capable of doing that will allow you to eat whatever you want. Your ability to consume calories Completely outpaces your ability to burn them
  • In – out = accumulation. That’s it. There are no tricks to understanding your weight. If you eat more than you burn, you will accumulate.
  • Drink water. Signals from the body can be confusing, and it common to try and address thirst by eating! Before you eat, drink water to make sure you are actually hungry. Also, you will feel way better and it will help manage the stunning amount of salt in the American diet.
  • Quality protein. We 90s kids were raised in a world that seemed to think protein was outdated, so we have bad habits about eating primarily carbs. An exercising man should eat about 1 g of protein per 2 pounds of body weight. That’s more than the nutrition facts imply, unless you weigh less than 100 lbs. Try to center your meals on a food that is high in protein, which my rule of thumb is 25% or more of the calories from protein. If you don’t want to do the math, more grams of protein than fat is a good place to start and pretty much avoid things made with grains.

MOLESKIN:
Something different for each song was kinda fun, but it was too much briefing. Shoulda made a sheet or something.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
ESCAPE FROM HAW RIDGE!!!!!