F3 Knoxville

Category: Big Ball

Prayer Lessons ITG

Prayer Lessons ITG

Everyone knows the drill.  The alarm goes off, you get dressed, drive to the AO, put in work, name-o-Rama, pray. Rinse and repeat.

Pray.  Hmmm, that one stands out.

What I have seen and learned in my time at F3 is that we as men need male bonding, that is no surprise, but we also need God, and we need prayer. The male bonding part is easy, and I can honestly say my closest friends of all time are men I’ve met in the gloom. They’ve helped me grow, as a man and in my faith.  Many of them might not know it, but it wasn’t just going through the motions, it is how they live life, and how they pray. To see how they have walked with God is truly an inspiration.

No one ever said life was easy, and the men at DogPound have seen all the bad, divorce, overdose, car accidents, death, sick kids, sick wives, job loss, and most recently the ongoing battle with cancer. There has also been much joy to combat the bad which is always a blessing. However, what has stayed with me is how these men through everything good and bad, has been to pray.  Prayer has been a focal point in everyone of those situations. Praying together in gloom.  Praying alone about those in need.  A text message or post requesting prayer.  A reminder to pray for someone. Day to day through adversity, celebration, and whatever comes their way, they remain calm and steadfast not only in their actions, their undying trust in God,  their support of one another, but in how they pray.

I wanted to share because prayer hits home for me.  My biggest fear about leading my first Q wasn’t the exercises, cadence, not even the public speaking.  But public praying?  Well that’s not my thing. I’ll be the first to admit even now when I pray it still isn’t fancy. I’m not eloquent like Junk or La-z-boy.  I don’t have Bible verses come to me during prayer.  I still say “uh” a lot, and there are lots of awkward pauses. I’m basically still one step above the old faithful “Now I lay me down to sleep…”.  For me, I know I have never left the BOM thinking “dude, I rocked that prayer”.  But truthfully the men in my Wolfpack have taught me that doesn’t even matter.  What I’ve seen is that it’s not about how you pray, where you pray, what you pray, but it is to just to pray. Just pray. Taking time to speak with God. Thanking him for all that He has given you, good and bad, and then laying your joys and concerns at His feet.  Submitting, asking, and allowing for His plan for our lives.

I believe God always answers prayers. Always. It might not be the answer we want, and it might not be when we want it, but He answers. He opens doors while closing others. And because of that He just wants us to pray.

It took me a long time to understand that, and I am thankful for these men who have helped me.

“pray without ceasing” 1 Thessalonians 5:17

The Rockettes vs. The Five Wise Guys

THE SCENE: 35 degrees, dry and cloudy
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH x 15, Baby Arm Circles x 15 forwards and 15 backwards, Shoulder Taps x 15, Rockettes x 10, Cherry Pickers x 5, some Michael Phelps and A Little of This and A Little of That

Then we broke off into 2 teams, which each chose a team captain and team name. Swanson led the Rockettes while Duggar led the Five Wise Guys.

THA-THANG:
Each exercise below was done as a team competition, whichever team won got to choose what exercise we did at the end.

  • Sunsphere: Everyone did an exercise at the bottom of the stairs while one person from each team raced to the top, did 5 reps of an exercise, and raced back down. 1st team done won, best 2 out of 3. Round 1) SSHs at the bottom and merkins at the top. Round 2) Al Gore at the bottom and Big Boy Situps at the top. The Rockettes won and decided on 25 Carolina Dry Docks.
  • Bridges over Cumberland: Everyone from both teams lined up and held a plank while one person from each team bearcrawled across. Once on the other side, the first man went back to a plank and called the next man from their team to cross. Once everyone from your team had crossed, your whole team bearcrawled back across together. 1st team back across won. The Five Wise Guys won and decided on 25 Hello Dollys in cadence.
  • Big Sloped Sidewalk: Everyone held a plank at the bottom while one man from each team raced to the top of the hill, did 5 burpees and raced back down. 1st team done won. The Five Guys won and decided on 25 Jump Squats.
  • Parking Lot with Rock Pile: Each team had there own rock and had 2 minutes to do as many reps of an exercise as a team. Best 2 out of 3. Round 1) Curls. Round 2) Overhead Presses. The Rockettes won and decided for some odd reason on 10 burpees in cadence
  • Parking Lot with Rocks again: Everyone held an Al Gore while one person from each team Bernied across the lot to their team’s rock, did 5 overhead presses and 5 curls, and ran back. 1st team to all finish the exercises won. The Five Wise Guys barely pulled off the win in a photo finish and decided on 15 4-point merkins.

MARY:
Moseyed back to the AO and did some Ring of Fire with American Hammers to kill the last few minutes
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Talked very briefly about our tendency to find a lot of misplaced pride and honor in the things we align ourselves with and how that can lead us to be blindly “all in” for something and/or to view others’ as our opposition or enemies. Be it in sports teams, politics, people we work with, or even our families and churches, we tend to want to see ourselves and our camps thrive and conquer and see our enemies fall and suffer. In this Advent season it’s interesting to reflect on the fact that God could have done that with the Messiah, but instead decided for Him to be born a baby, live a human life and die a humiliating death. God chose to demonstrate grace and humility in a way that most of us would have expected to see victory and glory. So I encouraged us all to reflect on the humility of God and to view others’ as more than just opposition or people who are different than us.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
A big welcome back to both Knoxville(for the holidays) and the States for Soot

MARSOC Monday

THE SCENE: 47* – in that window where you don’t know what to wear.  But no rain so good to go
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
Windmills x10 IC
Tempo lunge x10 IC
4 count merkins x10 IC
Tempo merkins x10 IC
SSH x20 IC
THA-THANG:
Pretty simple routine today, I know it’s probably done at every AO including Big Ball, but I hadn’t seen it come up in a bit so I decided it was time for the Marine Corps Short Card.  We moseyed out of the fountain area and over to the Big Ball.  Perform an exercise for the indicated number of reps, then sprint the stairs at BB to the top and back down before moving on to the next exercise.  I did not deviate from the prescribed exercises:

  • 30 merkins
  • 30 squats
  • 30 crunches (4 count)
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 windmills
  • 30 merkins
  • 30 mountain climbers (4 count)
  • 30 flutter kicks (4 count)
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 cherry pickers
  • 30 merkins
  • 30 star jumps
  • 30 supermans
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 chain breakers
  • 30 merkins
  • 30 lunges
  • 30 hello Dolly’s (4 count)
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 trunk twists
  • 3 sets of max dead hang pull ups, 10 second break in between each set

About halfway through the list, I called an audible and eliminated the stair runs in between exercises to allow everyone the chance to complete.  Those that finished earlier moved to the side and knocked out ab exercises, people joined in as they completed the short card:

Oblique crunches led by Butterfly
Flutter kicks
V Ups led by Ariel
American hammers
Heels to heaven
Boat/canoe

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Nine strong including one FNG: Half Caff, Orkin, Ariel, Huffy (FNG), Driftwood, G6, Butterfly, Swanson, Abort
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
“It is not work that kills men, it is worry.  Work is healthy; you can hardly put more on a man than he can bear.  But worry is rust on the blade.  It is not movement that destroys machinery, but friction.”  –

Like usual, what I share is something that I need to hear and listen to more than I’m providing for anyone else.  I just hope that I can listen and that it can help anyone else needing to hear it.  I make things worse nearly always by worrying, worrying before I can even do anything about it.  Worry does nothing to improve a situation.  The best thing I can do is turn worry into action, find something to work on.  If I can actually work on the problem at hand, it rarely is as bad as I worried about it being.  If I can’t yet work towards that, I need to find something else to occupy and improve until the time comes.
MOLESKIN:
Prayers for Lady Junk, Magic Mic’s grandfather Ed, Passport and his M, Ariel’s grandmother, and Orkin as he travels oversees

Working(out) Through Genesis

THE SCENE: In the beginning, it was 45 degrees and slightly raining. And it was good.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
SSH x 25, Baby Arm Circles x 20 forwards and 20 backwards, Shoulder Taps x 20, Cherry Pickers x 10, Mosey to Amphitheater
THA-THANG:
This whole workout revolved around the story of the book of Genesis

  • In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them. Then He made man in is own image. So we did 25 man makers
  • Then after Creation, the serpent deceived Adam and Eve, leading to the fall of man. So we did Cobra merkins in a Ring of Fire (each person did 5 reps while everyone else held a plank. we did 3 rounds around the circle)
  • After the Fall, mankind continued on its downward spiral of sin, eventually leading to God seeing that the intentions of their hearts were always evil and leading to the flood. God preserves life through Noah and his family and by gathering 2 of every animal to stay on the ark. We didn’t have an ark so we settled for Boat Canoes. Similar to the Cobras, we did this by going around the circle and each of us took a turn calling out Boat and Canoe
  • After the flood, several generations later, God calls Abraham and tells him that he will be father to a great nation that will bless all other nations. God also tells Abraham to go and leave his father’s homeland and go to the land He has promised for his descendants. So we moseyed to Ayres Hall aka the Promised Land
  • After much travel and even more waiting, Abraham finally has a son named Isaac. Years later, God calls Abraham to climb a mountain and sacrifice his only son Isaac at the top, but then provides a ram to take Isaac’s place. So at the bottom of The Hill we did 25 4-count Mountain Climbers and then sprinted up the stairs to the top of The Hill
  • After this Isaac has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Jacob tricks Isaac into giving him Esau’s blessing, leading to Esau threatening to kill Jacob and to Jacob fleeing into exile. While in exile, Jacob marries Leah and Rachel, and has a literal metric ton of children. So we did Pickle Pounders, also in a Ring of Fire. Each person did 10 reps while everyone else held a plank, we did 3 rounds total
  • After years in exile and building up his own family, God tells Jacob to return to his family and his father’s land, so we began to Mosey back to World’s Fair Park
  • Along the way back to Esau, Jacob has an encounter with God where the wrestle through the night and he is renamed to Israel, meaning “wrestles with God”. So we did Sumo Wrestler Squats in a Ring of Fire at the bottom of The Hill. Each person did 5 reps while everyone else held an Al Gore. We did 3 rounds
  • Esau and Jacob reconcile with one another, rebuilding the bridges Jacob burnt. Then years later his sons sell their brother Joseph into slavery in Egypt. Joseph ends up through circumstances as Pharoah’s right hand man after years in slavery and prison. Years later famine brings Jacob’s sons to Egypt to ask for aid from none other than Joseph. Joseph and his brothers are also reconciled, rebuilding the bridges they burnt years ago. So we did American Hammers and Bear Crawls on the bridge in front of the Hill. We partnered up, one partner Bear Crawled across the bridge and ran back while the other partner did American Hammers, then switched. We did 3 rounds of this
  • After reconciliation with his brothers, Joseph invites his family to live together in Egypt to endure the famine. Genesis then ends on a happy high note of encouragement with the eventual death of Jacob, Joseph and his brothers. So at the parking lot across from campus we did suicides. Each run had an exercise at the far end of the lot and at the beginning when we ran back, and each set was a shorter run and different exercises. Set 1: 10 merkins out and 10 Big Boy Sit ups back, Set 2: 10 Carolina Dry Docks out and 10 American Hammers back, Set 3: 15 Cobras out and 15 squats back, Set 4: 15 Wide Out merkins out and 15 Smurf Jacks back, Set 5: 15 Man Makers out and 15 BBS back
  • Then we moseyed back to the fountains

MARY:
Did some Ring of Fire with merkins and squats to kill some left over time
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
The reason I thought to revolve our workout around Genesis was for 2 things: 1. We just finished studying it in the ministry I work for and 2. Someone at my church while preaching about Advent said the Church Calendar was originally designed to help us orient our lives around the story of Scripture. I think we have a tendency to do just the opposite, we’d rather try to take Scripture and God and try to orient them around our story. So just as we oriented our workout around the story of Genesis, during this Advent season let’s think of ways in which we can place ourselves into the story of God rather than try to put Him into our own stories
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
None

discernment

THE SCENE: 58* and rainy
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:
It would be kind of silly to have a bridge to warm up under and not use it right?  Slowzy to the underpass before warm up exercises:

Imperial squat walker x10 IC
Four count merkins x10 IC
TN walking horse x10 IC
Grady Corns x20 IC

THA-THANG:
Short mosey from the underpass over to the amphitheater, where we modify the Q to stay out of the rain (though not dry).

First routine is Dora starting from top of amphitheater steps, so pair up.  One guy at the top performing exercises, the other sprints down the stairs, jumps on stage and runs to the farthest point (don’t run into the pond…) and knocks out 5 merkins before turning around and sprinting back up the stairs to reliever their partner. Exercises as follows:

  • Pull ups/inverted rows x100
  • Burpees x100
  • Star Jumps x100

Recover and assemble on the stage for modified Route 66.  Placed a ruck in the middle of the stage as the half way point, maybe a tad shorter than light pole distance but worked fine.  First round of Route 66 was runs with sit up ups, obviously going 1:11.  Quick 10 count off before we do another round of Route 66, bear crawling between and doing Jack Webb’s 1:11.  Shoulders were smokeeddddd.

MARY:
No time for Mary
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
4 very not dry ballers: Swanson, Ariel, G6, Abort
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

At another workout, I had shared a quote which I didn’t realize was so fitting for the group of men I’m fortunate enough to surround myself with: “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” When I shared it, I really liked it and therefore planned a workout with rocks near a big church.  But what I was unaware of was the HIMs that I share my mornings with have visions of cathedrals in their minds, and the strength and determination to turn those visions into actions.  Those actions into their dreams.  I am extremely fortunate to be in such close proximity to these men, and my hope I take in what I see and hear to emulate them such that one day I might find the rocks and become the architect as well.

Prayers this morning are for discernment.  I requested selfishly for this for myself, but noted that I am aware that every man in that COT needed it more than me.