F3 Knoxville

Shedding the False Self

THE SCENE: Blue skies and temp about 70 degrees.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

20 Side-Straddle-Hops, 10 Bottle Taps, 10 Cherry Pickers, 10 Rockettes, 10 Tempo Squats
THA-THANG:
Mosey to Light Post by Lower Parking Lot near trail that goes towards Lyons Bend Gate Entrance.  We will do Route 66 with the following exercises:

  • Star Jumps
  • Big Boy Sit-ups
  • Iron Mikes with both legs forward = 1

We next will do 14’s with Bear Crawls (Bear Crawl 1 light and Run 4 lights in sequence) until we reach the road that goes to Lyon’s Bend Entrance Gate.  Next, we will do 14’s with Lunges (Lunge 1 light and Run 4 lights in sequence) until we get to the bottom of Mt. Everest.

At Mt Everest we will do 20 Merkins, 30 Squats and 40 Baby Crunches.  Then we will run to the road above the Summit.

Next, we will Mosey south on the roadway until it we are by the big tree as the road heads east toward the stop sign.  We will run down incline by the roadway.  We will then do sevens starting with one Hello Dolly on bottom of incline and six Burpees on top.

Mosey back to AO.

MARY:
20 Box Cutters
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
9 men, no FNGs
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
I am a psychologist.  I recently looked back on some literature discussing Eric Erickson’s research and theory regarding identity formation in human beings.  Eric Erickson was a German Developmental psychologist who moved to the United States and taught at Harvard, UC Berkeley and Yale.  In his theory regarding identity formation he stated that we humans go through various stages in life that help form our identity.  One stage, which generally occurs in adolescence, but which extends into adulthood, is what he called the stage of Fidelity.  You may have heard of the term “Identity Crisis.”  Erickson was the first to coin it. The conflict the human deals with in this stage is Identity vs. Role Confusion.  The individual grasps with who they are and what they want to become in their life.  That question of “Who Am I” encompasses vocation, sexual, and religious factors, among others.

Some psychologists and psychiatrists, Donald Winnicott being one of the most prominent, also talk about struggle between the False Self and True Self in terms of identity formation.  Winnicott theorized that we humans often take on the role of a false self in forming our identities – that identity relates more to what parents, teachers, or society wants from us than who we are authentically.  Winnicott felt that we are less spontaneous and real when living up to our false self ideals.  We are also more neurotic and psychological unfit when doing so.

If you look back on your adolescence you may remember your own struggles with identity development.  You may, further, remember trying to fit in with the popular crowd, trying to be the cool guy in high school, not wanting to be considered silly or atypical by others.  I can remember my son, Bennett (aka Puddle in F3) talking about changes that occurred for him during this stage.  He was trying to “fit in” with the way he dressed, with sports he played, even with the music he listened to.  He got to a point where he said “to hell with it”, I am going to be me.  He started wearing socks with his sandals because, well, he liked to when it was colder outside.  He later saw other people doing the same thing as him.  He decided he disliked some of the music that high school kids were listening to.  He found he liked Neil Young, Pink Floyd, stuff his Old Man liked.  But in exploring further, he found Indie music with groups that were influenced by artists like Neil Young and Bob Dylan, and groups like Pink Floyd, but who were creating their own music of a different sort.  He has led his Old Man (yours truly) to find and love some of these artists such as Jason Isbell, The Fleet Foxes, Band of Horses, Jack White, Raconteurs, and Shins.  Bennett found in exploring what he truly liked that other friends truly loved this kind of music as well.  And these seemed to be the kinds of people who were more passionate about music.  I remember taking a group of his high school friends to see 70+ old Neil Young play in an outdoor concert near downtown Nashville.  The kids were very into Neil Young as was this Old Man.

We continue to form our identities as we go further into adulthood.  We face identity crises at work, in our love lives, and in our search for what makes life truly meaningful.  Hopefully, we shed some of our false self skin in the process and get closer to our true natures that God gifted us with.  We, after all, were created in God’s image.  And, the Bible actually speaks of us shedding our false self skin, which it calls the “old self” , shedding what the world wants of us, and living out a “new self” which is what God created us for in the first place:

Collossians 2: 9-10:  Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

1 John 2:15-17: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

MOLESKIN:
Prayers for Pinto’s mother who is very ill and may be entering the final phase of her life.  Prayer for Pinto as well after injuring his ribs when moving some things for his mother.  Prayers for Messi whose wife has had seizures and may have to be operated on in the hospital.  Prayers for Squirtle’s ex-girlfriend whose 21-year-old daughter recently died of medical issues.

Billy Matterhorn VQ

THE SCENE:  Dark and Rainy
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER: Not a professional. First timer.
WARM-O-RAMA:
Learned how to count with SSHs IC and did some Cherry Pickers IC for good measure.
THA-THANG:
Mosey to the base of the Matterhorn.  10 burpees. Pointed out stop line for the run.  Mosey to Pavillion for Billy Madison Self-Study. Run from Pavillion to the base of Matterhorn and back.  On return to the Pavillion, perform first exercise, then keep adding exercises with each subsequent lap.

  1. Burpees x 10
  2. American Hammer x 10
  3. Merkins x 10
  4. Box Cutter x 10
  5. Flutter Kicks x 10
  6. Star jacks x 10
  7. Plank jacks x 10
  8. Carolina Dry Docks x 10
  9. Big Boy Crunches x 10
  10. Diamond Merkins x 10

Mosey back to Dog Pound.

MARY:
More Merkins and some planks

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
14 HIMs
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Carry one another’s burdens.
MOLESKIN:
Prayers for those struggling with addiction.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Brolympics coming up

The Prison Yard

THE SCENE: Steady rain, over all gloomy and around 57 degrees
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Grab some CMU’s and head down to pavilion to warm up.  25 SSH on 4ct, 10 Windmills on 4ct, Little This and That with some  Michael Phelps
THA-THANG:
In the Dry

  • 1 Minute “jump rope”
  • 30 second squats
  • 1 min “jump rope”
  • 30 sec wall sit
  • 1 min “jump rope”
  • 30 sec Iron Mike’s

Rinse and repeat x3

Then CMU routine at Pavillion

20 CURL, 20 OH PRESS, 20 LAWN MOWER (10 EACH SIDE), 20 TABLE ROWS

Then mosey up little hill 2 burpees, rinse and repeat.  Got in 3 rounds

MARY:
Had enough time for LBC’S OYO, ATM Cash out, and BB’S OYO
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Message was about the importance of accountability and seeking out those men in your life who you can be vulnerable with and can share with.
MOLESKIN:
“What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be know in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.  It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are…because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are an little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version of which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.  It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier… for the other to tell us a secret or two of their own. ”

Fredrick Buechner

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

CMU NASCAR

THE SCENE: Rain 60 degrees
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Over head claps x 40 IC

SSH x 30 IC

5 Burpee OYO

Tempo Squat x 15 IC

Flutters x 15 IC
THA-THANG:

Sling Shot: Partner up. One partner with CMU. Partner 1 with CMU starts running along greenway. Partner 2 does 20 push-ups and 20 squats, then runs to catch Partner 1. Partner 1 then does push-ups and squats. Continue to 1/2 mile marker and then return to AO doing the same swap.

Block Burner 13: Line up with CMU. Push CMU in bear crawl position 40 yards then do 1 push-up. Push CMU back and do 13 BBS with CMU on chest. Increase number of push-ups and decrease number of BBS.

MARY:
10 – 8 count BB

10 Flutters IC
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
You are son’s of the Living God. Heirs to the Throne. Our Elder Brother has gone before us. Know your place, know that you are made in His image and so are the people around you.
MOLESKIN:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Rodney RIP

THE SCENE:  43 degrees F., 83% humidity, dark.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Cherry Pickers, Imperial Squat Walkers, Little Baby Arm Circles, Windmills

Mosey around the baseball field in honor of the Boys of October.

THA-THANG:

Perform the following exercises:

Merkins x12, WWII Sit Ups x12, Dry Docks x12, SSH x12 (4 count), Pull Ups or Inverted Pull Ups x12, Burpees x6, Box Jumps x12 or Step Ups x12/leg, and Dips x12

Bear Crawl then Lunge to CMUs (40 Yards total distance)

Perform the following CMU exercises:

Bent Rows x12, Curls x12, Upright Rows x12, Squat Press x12, Triceps Extensions x12, On the Shelf x6/arm, Lawn Mower Pulls x12/arm, and Russian Swings x12

Run to Trail Apex at Road and do Burpees x6

Run Back toward Scrap Yard

Bear Crawl up hill at steps

AMRAP Until Time for Mary

MARY:

CMU Flutter Kicks, CMU Box Cutters, CMU X’s and O’s

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
11 HIMs
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
I just got back from a 6 week, 8,000 mile RV trip into Canada and along the Pacific coast of Washington, Oregon, and California (as little of California as possible).  In all, about 900 photos were taken.  This number is down from previous trips because I decided I needed to see more through my eyes and absorb more in that way.

One picture that will always be burned into my brain is one of those scenes I did not record with a camera.  It is a picture of Rodney in Kearney, NE.  While getting gas after a day of traveling from Cheyenne, WY, the car he was riding in pulled up behind our travel trailer.  A woman, Amber, jumped out of the driver seat and started yelling for help while she ran around to the passenger side of the car.  I alerted my wife, Julie, before running to Amber.  She was trying to pull Rodney from the car but she was not able to do so.  I took over and was able to pull a non-responsive, purple colored, eye bulging Rodney out of the passenger seat and lay him face up on the pavement.  I then looked at a frantic Amber and told her there was nothing else I could do to help.  I do not know how to perform CPR.

Seemingly out of nowhere a nurse showed up (it had to be a God thing) and she started chest compression.  She worked tirelessly until 3 separate policemen arrived and attached an AED and pumped air into Rodney’s seemingly lifeless body.  Paramedics showed up and took over.  After he was loaded in the ambulance and gaining our composure, Julie and I got into the truck and drove a few miles to the RV park for the night.

The next day, Julie called the station while on our way to Kansas City, MO, to find out if the store clerk knew the outcome.  Rodney had died before reaching the hospital of a massive brain aneurysm.  I suspect he was dead when I pulled him from the car.

Few times have I felt helpless in my 67 years of life.  This was definitely one of those times.  The thing that bothers me the most is that I helped raise three children and now have seven grandchildren and I have never taken a CPR course.  That is going to change and it is going to change quickly.

We are all expected to be our brothers and sisters keepers.  I hope everyone listening to my story assesses their own life saving training and takes appropriate actions to avoid the helpless feelings I experienced.

MOLESKIN:
Insert any personal comments, notes, devotion content, etc.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Insert information about upcoming events, 2nd or 3rd F opportunities, and any other announcements.