F3 Knoxville

Author: Mathlete

Integrity is integral

THE SCENE: Downright pleasant with a bright moon overhead
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • TN rocking chairs
  • Cheer leaders
  • Lbacs
  • Grady corn
  • Tempo merkins
  • Newton’s cradle

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to parallel bars
    • Rotate 20 merkins, 20 rows, 20 freddies
  • Mosey to pool wall for a handful of wall ups – modify if necessary
  • Mosey to playground
    • Rotate 5 pull ups, 5 burpees, 10 heels to heaven
  • Mosey to amphitheater
    • 11sies – step ups and diamond Merkin
    • Bernie up hill and mosey down
  • Mosey to block pile
  • Line up along parking lot
    • 20 curls
    • Cross the parking lot doing a one-sided half blockee at each third space – right handed
    • 20 OHP
    • Cross back left handed
    • Repeat
  • If time, heavy core, 20 4ct each
    • LBCs, flutter kicks, Freddies, dollies
  • Rtf

MARY:
no time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

I was poking through a back blast sitting in the airport and read something I wanted to pass on. Integrity shares a root with the word integrate. This struck me as profound. Integrity, at its root, is about being complete, whole, pulled together and bound. To have integrity means unity. Between words and actions. Between image and heart. A single man regardless of where I am or who I am talking to.

So let’s consider how integrated we are. Man, son, husband, father. At work or at home. Around friends or around family or around strangers. Face to face, or on the phone, or in a text. My physical person compared to my digital identity. What does it take to draw all these different faces of our lives together into one complete man?
MOLESKIN:
Glad to be back on TN soil and out in the gloom.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Christmas parade December 10th, got an idea for a float…

What needs to go?

THE SCENE: Crisp, clear autumn morning. Couldn’t hope for better.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Slow windmills
  • Imperial walkers
  • Cheer leaders
  • Cherry pickers
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Up dog/Down dog
  • Right plank/left plank

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to pool wall for 10 Wall-pees
  • 4 rounds:
    • 20 jungle boi squats
    • 5 pull ups
    • 20 merkins
    • 5 wall-ups
  • Mosey to amphitheater and do 3 rounds
    • 20 LBCs
    • 20 flutter kicks
    • 20 Freddies
    • 20 awkward turtles
    • Bear crawl up the hill
    • 5 burpees
  • Mosey to fountain and do 2ish rounds until time
    • 20 dips
    • 20 step ups
    • 20 dry docks (or Der-docks for +)
    • 20 BBS
    • 20 Iron Mikes
  • RTF

MARY:
Pulled in Erector for Heels to Heaven and Skewer for some Hammers
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

In my pre-blast, I mentioned the need to make hard choices over the next couple months, and I wanted to expand on this just a bit.

I, personally, have been buried with too much stuff. After the relative low of the past couple years, my self-regulation was totally out of whack, and I have said yes to WAY too many things. All good things that bring value when done right, but doing it right requires time to think and plan, which is impossible when there isn’t even enough time to drive between them.

While this is partly a result of a desire to be generous, that isn’t the whole story. When I really scrutinize my inner most thoughts, there are also elements of self-importance, image, and arrogance.

Self-importance in the sense that it is affirming to feel responsible, to have others look to me.

Image in the sense that I want people to see me as the guy who “does it all”. To say things like “I don’t know how you do it”

Arrogance in the sense that I have rather too high an opinion of my own ability and how it compares to others.

In short, it’s ME focused. In F3 we are peer led, not just to make it easier, but because when I give someone else the lead, it gives them an opportunity to develop their skills. It also diffuses the tendency of groups to orbit around strong personalities.

The image that I should be most focused on is the one I project to my 2.0s. I sought involvement because I saw my father as being uninvolved, but now I see that I can be just as disconnected from them when I’m too involved. My attention for them is sacrificed when I must attend to the group.

So now, I find myself working through the new problem, what needs to go.
MOLESKIN:
Just great to be back with the pack.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Halloween event Thursday, 6-8 (setup at 4). Brolympics Nov 5. Christmas parade December 10.

Another Memento Mori

THE SCENE: Crisp and clear, 45, perfect day for heavy lifting
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • Tempo squats
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Mountain climbers
  • Cherry Pickers
  • Grady Corns

THA-THANG:

Two of our number were executing IPC 2022 Week 5. The rest did as follows.

  • Grab a CMU and head to the field
  • Line up on 0 yd line
  • Rolling Reverse Doras using IPC EMOM
    • Start with Thrusters, trying to accumulate AMRAP between EMOM horns.
    • On the EMOM horn, return to the top
    • Pair with the most reps gets to pick the next exercise from the category (what we actually did)
    • Sequence and Motion
      • Whole body – Dash/Bernie 30 yds (Thrusters, Blockees)
      • Legs – Cusack 30 yds (Lunges, CMU Swings)
      • Arms – Farmer Carry 30 yds (Rows, Plyomerkins)
      • Core – Karioke 30 yds (Heavy BBS, Heavy LBCs)

MARY:
No Time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

October marks the beginning of the fiscal year, which for me means that this week a one-year timer started for me to complete a task that is a “notable outcome” on the lab’s Performance Evaluation of Measurement Plan. In simple terms, if I fail to deliver, the Lab Director’s end of year bonus will be impacted. As such, I have broken the task down into parts, identified the parts that are necessary and optional, and laid them on a timeline to ensure that I can accomplish the task inside the time allotted. Because when I know I have a deadline, it makes sense to make a plan to use the time wisely.

Deadlines motivate action because they force us to clearly see what little time we have. And we are all under a literal deadline. Everyone here today, regardless of all factors, is one day going to die. Birth is a death sentence, and none of us knows when that sentence will be executed.

As our brother Rocket has spoken on before, the ancients coined the phrase “Memento Mori”, Remember Death. This idea permeates many cultures: Stoics, Samurai, Buddhists, Islam, Norse mythology, and Judaism. They say when a victorious Roman general processed through the city, a slave stood behind him saying “Look after you [to the time after your death] and remember you’re [only] a man.”

Then the question becomes, what does my plan look like for my ultimate deadline? What parts are necessary and what parts are optional? What can I do in parallel, and what must be done in series? Fittingly, in my daily reading, I just got to this part in Luke Chapter 12:

13Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”

14Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?”15Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

16And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest.17He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain.19And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” ’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.”

Do Not Worry

22Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear.23For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes.24Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!25Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life?26Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

MOLESKIN:
Excellent work by our two IPC challengers.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
2.0 workout on Saturday. Brolympics signup coming soon – Event on Nov. 5. Halloween Event for City of Oak Ridge Oct. 27th.

Discipline v Motivation

THE SCENE: Beautiful fall morning, clear sky for star gazing
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • LBACs
  • Grady Corn
  • Morocan Night Clubs
  • Chatty Pickers
  • Tempo squats
  • Cherry Pickers
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Mountain Climbers

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to the stadium seats
  • Dora – One works while the other goes down the seats and back up
    • 200 Merkins
    • 200 LBCs
  • Mosey to the playground and rotate through pull ups while working on 150 squats OYO
  • Mosey to upper parking lot and line up on first spaces
  • Mosey to each line do squats, then merkins, then imperial walkers then bernie back. Start with 10 each, then 20, 30, 40.
  • Same idea, except broad jump between, do lunges, dry docks, and freddie mercuries. Start with 10 and add 5 each time.

RTF (with a JB)

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

I heard this idea from Jocko Willink, who is a former Navy SEAL officer and author of a book called Extreme Ownership. He articulates the difference between motivation and discipline. Motivation is the opposite of discipline. Motivation is the spontaneous urge or desire to do something, and often leads us to start something new. But motivation is a feeling, transient and fleeting. It may support you for a while, when you are well rested, healthy, and relaxed. But like all feelings, it has a tendency to abandon us when we are tired, or sick, or stressed. Discipline is, by contrast, the learned behavior of perseverance in spite of obstacle. Discipline receives the conclusion of mental activity, in which we identify what we ought to do, and holds us to the doing. Motivation is like the impassioned “falling in love” which often propels us into a romance, but discipline is the agape/caritas/charity love that stands against the flux of time.

Motivation feels good, but discipline bears fruit. Discipline reminds you what you know to be true in spite of what you feel right now. I often desire motivation so that I need not exercise discipline, but my experience is that it usually cuts the other way: When I exert discipline and do what I know I should but don’t want to, I find that motivation often follows. The key is to enjoy it while you have it without becoming dependent on it, for as soon as you start seeking motivation, it will abandon you.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis discusses this idea in his chapter about faith:

Now Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods. For moods will change, whatever view your reason takes. I know that by experience. Now that I am a Christian, I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable: but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.

So when we see this common thread running through love and faith and discipline, I suppose it comes as no surprise that Jesus followers were first called Disciples, functionally “those under discipline.” So, I exhort you to abandon efforts to “get motivated” and instead “get discipline”.

MOLESKIN:
Always a pleasure to visit the Men of the Fort. I’m even buyin’ the t-shirt…
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
2nd F on Saturday Oct. 1. 2.0 Q at The Project Oct. 8. Brolympics Nov. 5.

Claiming Territory

THE SCENE: Perfect fall morning, low 60’s, a little drippy, gloom to spare
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • LBACs
  • Windmills
  • Hairy Rockettes
  • Tempo Squats
  • Tempo Merkins

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to Friendship bell
  • Dora – One does work, other bernie/sprint @ lightpole
    • Step ups (150)
    • Derkins (100)
  • Mosey to K-25 Hill
    • 7s – Bobby Hurley/Drydocks
  • Mosey to Pond Loop
  • Dora – One works while other runs loop
    • Flutter Kicks (300)
    • LBCs (300)

 

MARY:
No time.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
In Mere Christianity, Lewis discusses the way in which we are accountable for our moral decisions. He points out that we should not be much invested in the practical outcomes of our actions, because these are dependent in large part upon circumstance, both of ourselves and our surroundings. He points out that while resisting drink may be only a mild strain for a man not inclined to drunkenness, for another it may be a monumental effort of the will to go even an hour. While we tend to judge the sober man more favorably than the man who resisted only an hour, God accounts for all the “raw material” we were given. Rather, His interest is the way that each choice is affecting the kind of person we are becoming, every tiny choice leading us either to be more heavenly or more diabolical. He goes further, using the analogy of war, to point out that every small concession we make to our vices is territory that we have surrendered to the enemy, from which he can launch later assaults.

I experienced this quite clearly yesterday when, at the end of a long meeting, we entered into an hour long spiral where all the work was finished, but folks kept wanting to restate and rehash the decisions, tediously extending the meeting without gain. I got frustrated, and as a concession, allowed myself unrestricted access to my candy stash while I annoyedly waited for the end. This morning, I could see clearly that this one concession had cascaded into a series of poor decisions for the rest of the night including extra dessert, extra drinking, and an inordinately late bedtime for the whole family. [I didn’t know this when I gave this Word live, but this culminated in my kids struggling to get ready and my son being late to school].

My takeaway was this: don’t waste time congratulating myself because of how good things are, it’s largely not my doing. Instead, keep my eyes on things eternal, by making good decisions, with special attention to the temptation to make small concessions, because these small decisions will be seeds that grow up.
MOLESKIN:
Tuesday IPC was heavy, so I went with a nice traditional Dora bootcamp. Hopefully worked out some stiffness in the shoulders, back, and legs.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Kids Tri – Sept. 24th, 2.0 workout in October, Project T-shirt sale is ending soon (Sept. 17th), Brolympics November 5th.