F3 Knoxville

Category: The Project

Holding on to what you have

THE SCENE: Crisp, cool May Morning with a full moon overhead
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Hairy Rockettes
  • Windmills
  • Tempo squats
  • SSH
  • Moroccan Night Clubs
  • Cherry Pickers for Three-peat

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to the pool wall
    • 5 wall-ups
    • 4 reps of 8-ct pulse merkins
  • Mosey to the playground
    • 5 pull ups
    • 10 box cutters
    • 10 heels to heaven
  • Mosey to the Amphitheater
    • 10 box jumps
    • 30 merkins
  • Mosey to the Library
    • 5 Decline Dry-docks
    • 10 bobby hurleys
    • 10 Iron mikes
  • Hold plank for the 6, repeat 3 more times
  • Unwind going backwards through
    • Amphitheater – 10 merkins, 5 box jumps
    • playground – 5 heels to heaven, 5 box cutters, 2 pull ups
    • Pool wall – 2 8-ct pulse merkins, 2 wall ups
  • RTF

MARY:
A few sets with some PAX leading
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

In an essay titled “Membership,” which is an excellent read or listen, C.S. Lewis begins by discussing (in context I won’t attempt to replicate) the “modern” tendency to eliminate solitude. He sees it everywhere, even in the University, where he experienced an undergraduate college of 12 men who knew each other intimately. Even “before the war,” he says, “the typical undergraduate society had come to be a mixed audience of one or two hundred students assembled in a public hall to hear a lecture from some visiting celebrity.” He laments “the crowd of busybodies, self-appointed masters of ceremony, whose life is devoted to destroying solitude wherever solitude still exists.” If one of the great minds of the past were to be born “today”, he would quickly be “cured”. “And even where the planners fail and someone is left physically by himself, the wireless has seen to it that he will be–in a sense not intended by Scipio–never less alone than when alone. We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.”

This line struck me. It’s something that I have been struggling with lately. The family is busy busy busy, and I am adding stuff on top, so I am tired. And in my weariness, I have sacrificed the one time of solitude left to me, the early morning, in the name of an extra half hour of sleep. If, at the outset, I had seen this as the cost of all the activities, I might have been more discerning, but rarely are we granted such insight. So now, I stand to rebuild a habit I once had, to take time each day in solitude to spend time in reading, contemplation, and prayer.

I bring it to you today so that each man might reflect on his own trajectory. I hope this anecdote might grant you time to guard yourself from losing a hard won habit that is on the wane. Remember that nothing in this world is lasting, but if we invest in maintaining something, it lasts a heck of a lot longer.

Matthew 6:19-20

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where  moth and rust  destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

MOLESKIN:
By my count, you ought to have more than 200 merkins and 20 pull ups. Finish up the plank and you’ll have a trident.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Shamrock AOQ change on May 25, Rampart Skeletor VQ on May 23rd, Rampart launch May 30th.

Family workout:remember God’s promises

THE SCENE: nice and sunny
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA: 

  • 10 baby arm circles
  • 10  side saddle hops
  • 10 mountain climber
  • 10 superman

THA-THANG:

  • Relay race
  • Tug a war
  • Floor is lava had to use the monkey bars to cross the lava
  • Climb an slide
  • Bear soccer: while bear crawling had to move a yoga ball up a hill. The other team attempted to keep it down
  • Hot potato : 2 minute timer, pass a 12 pound Kettle ball around the circle as many times possible

MARY:
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Some of them: Chicken Lady, Go Kart, Kitten, Nerf, Buttercup, Sunflower, Race Ace, Skywalker, Optimus, Cheetah Speed, golden eagle,  (plus FNGs: 5) Juggernaut, Peregrine falcon, and Golden Eagle, Nutcracker, wolf, Dinger.

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
God will always keep his promises. A way he shows that is by creating a rainbow.. yesterday with the heavy rainstorm  several us saw a single,  double,  and even a triple rainbow
MOLESKIN:
ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Battleship

THE SCENE:   Mid 50s and calm.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER:  Administered
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivator
  • LIH/RFTS
  • Cherry Pickers
  • LBAC F&B
  • Grady Corns
  • Squats

THA THANG:

Mosey to the tennis courts.  At the benches do 20 dips + 20 squats.  Bear crawl to the road, crawl bear back.  (Repeat)

Get inside the tennis courts for a couple games of Battleship.  Separate into two teams.  On the court are 12 cones for each team, grouped into a set of 2, two sets of 3, and a set of 4.  Each team has six battle stations – each of which has an exercise associated with it.  At “go” PAX run and grab a ball then run to one of six battle stations.  Perform the exercise, then throw the ball at the enemy’s ships.  Do each battle station before you repeat one.  Continue until one team’s ships are sunk.

Exercises were;

  • 30 Merkins
  • Lunges 15 each leg
  • 40 Mountain Climbers
  • 20 diamond merkins
  • 25 Bobby Hurlies
  • 40 flutter kicks

30 second rest.  Rehabilitate your fleet (i.e., stand up your cones).  Play another round of Battleship, this time exercises were;

  • 20 carolina dry docks
  • 40 plank jacks
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 catalina wine mixers
  • 40 hello dolly
  • 10 burpees

MARY:

  • 5 squats + 5 seconds Al Gore
  • 10 squats + 10 seconds AG
  • 15 squats + 15 seconds AG
  • 20 squats + 20 seconds AG
  • 25 squats + 25 seconds AG

20 merkins + 1 minute plank
(Repeat)

Play the song “Turn it up” by Oh The Larceny.  SSH to the cadence of the song.  Burpee each time they sing the phrase “Turn it up”.  28 Burpees + what felt like about a thousand SSH…

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

Me and 9 of the best men I know.

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Last Tuesday, Biohack’s Word about leaving a legacy made me think of something that a colleague told me years ago.  On a Monday morning, she gave an account of an event that had happened over the weekend in her neighborhood.  She told of a young dad who was mowing his yard.  He rode his mower onto a steep hill, and it tipped over and crushed him underneath.  The man’s wife heard the commotion and came running out to him.  Knowing that he was hurt badly, he asked her to get their children and bring them out so he could speak to them.  He saw his kids for a minute or two and died before the ambulance arrived.

That short story has haunted me for years.  I wonder to myself, “if he sensed that this was the last time he would speak to his children…what did he say to them?”  And then I ask myself, “what would I say?”.  Would I spend my last breaths to tell them how much I love them?  Or would I try to say one last time the most important thing I want them to remember?  If so, what would those words be?

Imagine yourself in a similar scenario…  If you had just 1 more minute on earth with your children, what would you say to them?  Some of our answers included;

  • “It’s all about Jesus”
  • “I love you so much, more than you’ll ever know”
  • “Despite my faults, you turned out great”
  • “I’m so proud of you”
  • “Don’t let this loss ruin you, thrive in life”

(What about you, BB reader?)

Deuteronomy Chapter 6 says (paraphrasing), The Lord our God, the Lord is One.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.  Teach these things diligently to your children.  Repeat them.  Talk about them when you’re at home…and away…when you lie down…and get up… Write them down and tie them around your wrist… Write them on the doorframes of your house…   In short, do everything you can to ensure your children understand these things and remember them.

It is likely that you will, mercifully, have much more than a few minutes remaining with your loved ones.  Maybe you’ll heed the advice of poet Robert Frost, and “live life like it’s the last breath you take for that breath is the whole essence of living, the little things in life are what connects us to all the big things we live for.”

What is the big thing that you want your kids to know?
Teach it to them diligently.
Repeat it often in big and little moments.
Find an opportunity to say that thing to them today.
Make the time and have the courage to say the things that mean the most.    

MOLESKIN:

  • Three-peat is deadly accurate with a tennis ball!
  • Glad to have Kraut with us from downrange!

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • Family Workout planned for Saturday 9:00 AM – might pull the plug if there is rain
  • May 25 – AOQ Change at Shamrock
  • May 30 – Rampart AO Launch, 7:00 AM Fort Southwest Point
  • July 2 – Convergence at JUCO

The desire of my heart

THE SCENE: Downright PERFECT May morning. Crisp and cool.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • Little baby arm circles
  • Moroccan night clubs
  • Tempo merkins
  • Mountain climbers
  • Pickle pointers
  • Tempo squats

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey on down to the parallel bars for 30 merkins and 10 dips
  • Mosey over to the pool wall for 10 wall-pees
  • Mosey to the recruiting center, grab a block
  • Circle up by the pull up bar and black betty
    • Work it circuit – 45/15
      • Black Betty dead lifts
      • Pull ups (optional chain for weight)
      • All others rotate thru:
        • Curls
        • Goblet Squats
        • OHP
        • Heavy Lunges
        • Derkins
      • After each full rotation
        • 30 flutters (4-ct)
        • 30 big boys
        • 60 second plank
      • We got through 2 rotations.
    • Mosey on back to the flag

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

Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

Desire is a powerful thing. The desire for wisdom led to the fall, and each of us today continues to cope with our own desires. There are different approaches to dealing with desire, but at the root they generally take a few forms. You can attempt to sate a desire by giving in to it, and in some cases this is appropriate. If you are thirsty and desire water, drinking water is often a good solution because slaking your thirst will truly address the desire and is ultimately healthful. In this case, the desire supports good management of my body’s needs. Most desires also have feedback mechanisms. In the case of thirst, the pleasure of drinking correlates pretty well to the need, quickly falling from ecstasy to neutrality and eventually becoming painful as need becomes glut. This desire seems to me to be well ordered, and consequently, you don’t often see folks struggling with their desire to drink water, although it isn’t unheard of.

Many other desires need to be managed more deliberately. Not all feedback mechanisms operate promptly, and sometimes by the time we see the real consequences, it is too late to turn back. In addition, other desires often ask more than an equal portion of our time and energies; it is physically impossible to sate all of my desires. If we try, they compete with each other, growing, pushing against each other. Those desires that have the slowest consequences and the provide the greatest pleasure will naturally expand to consume all they can manage. Thus, desire becomes disordered and sinful.

Romans 6:12 Do not let sin control the way you live; do not give in to sinful desires.

This problem is further complicated by our own interference. Once we ate from the tree, we could discern between the outcomes we like and the outcomes we don’t, and this introduces the opportunity to use our power to modify the outcomes. Artificial sweeteners can modify my food to heighten the pleasure but reduce or eliminate some of the physical consequences. In the short term, this seems like a win. I can sate my desire without the trouble of getting fat. But a desire that is fed grows. While our power of discernment can be used to aid us in learning to regulate our desires, just as often we use it as a way to more fully give ourselves over to them.

Psalm 37:4 Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Men, hear the good news. The Lord is not cruel; He does not test us in vain. He did not make us as a sort of prank, filled up with desires that we must reject to make our lives difficult. It is right for man to desire wisdom, but we must not grasp it for ourselves as we did in the garden. Rather, we must receive it from the hand of the One who made us. If we can learn to follow Him rather than our desires, He will do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He alone can satisfy the desire of our heart. He placed it there for that very purpose.
MOLESKIN:
Great group today! Nine was a bigger group than I expected, stretched out the rotation a bit.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSAUP TOMORROW! Family workout moved to May 14th with Skewer on Q.

The Whole Story

THE SCENE: Cool and clear
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivator
  • Easy lap w/ high knees, butt kicks, strides
  • Tempo merkins
  • Cherry pickers
  • Tempo squat

THA-THANG:

  • Death march to ORAU Hill the long way
  • After each exercise sprint up hill; mosey down
  • 1 minute merkins
  • 1 minute big boys
  • 1 minute squats
  • 1 minute plank
  • 1 minute merkins
  • 1 minute LBCs
  • 1 minute imperial squalkers
  • 1 minute plank

Mosey back to the flag. We stopped at the playground for some pull ups.

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
May the 4th is tomorrow.  When watching the Original Trilogy, you think the story is about Luke, but after watching the Prequel Trilogy, you realize that the story is about Anakin.  A story of redemption.

Also, God laid on my heart this week to be aware of the legacy I’m leaving.  I shared the tale of Steve Jobs.  He built a huge company that changed the world, but within months of his death, Apple launched a product he said they’d never sell:  the iPad Mini.

Our legacy is much more affected by the people we influence throughout our lives.  Our children, wives, friends, coworkers, and others.  The values we invest in them and the fruit of the Spirit we bear around them will make a bigger impact than the work of our hands.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
CSAUP this Friday!  Family workout postponed to May 14th.