F3 Knoxville

Tag: Erector

A Preview of Hardship Hill

THE SCENE: Cold, clear and gloomy.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivator
  • Tempo merkins
  • Tempo squats
  • Overhead clap
  • Run around parking lot
    • Bernie
    • High knees
    • Butt kicks
    • Karaoke

THA-THANG:
Grab a block and carry it to the amphitheater. We did a mini obstacle course in teams of 3.  While waiting for our turn, the rest of us took turns leading block exercises at the amphitheater.

The obstacle course included:

  1. Bear crawl up the hill
  2. Run to the pool wall; up and over
  3. Run to the benches by the fountain and “parkour” the perimeter
  4. Run around the civic center to the parallel bars
  5. Travel the parallel bars with your arms
  6. Run to the pool wall; up and over
  7. Run the playground and complete the monkey bars
  8. Return to the amhitheater

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
I encouraged the PAX to register for Hardship Hill.  I explained how it had a huge influence on me joining F3.  2 other PAX expressed the same.  We also talked about the name: Hardship Hill.  It is a physically hard course on a hill, but it is also a fundraiser for Operation Enduring Warrior.  They help veterans with their hardships.

We then talked about the hardships each of us carry in our own lives and I encouraged the PAX to share those burdens with their peers in F3.  Shield Lock is a great place to do this.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

  • OTB recon workout on Saturday at 0700 at Melton Lake
  • Shovel flag building on Saturday; CMU decoration
  • Escape from Haw Ridge on April 14
  • Hardship Hill on Memorial Day

Go…. Bears

THE SCENE: 50 degrees cool breeze
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER  given 


WARM-O-RAMA:
Tempo squats,  toe merkins, little baby arm circle forward and backwards, Chattanooga Cherry pickers, Seal SSH
THA-THANG:
I

  • Bearmuda triangle
  • Bear crawl inch worms around the triangle.  Then 3 burpees ×3
  • Bear hold ring of fire
  • 10 four count Flutter kicks
  • 20 two count Freddie mercury
  • 30 two count awkward turtles

MARY:
Geronimo : Burpees on the word Geronimo,  squats on BOMbs away then mountain climbers in between.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,
Ephesians 4:2 ESV

https://bible.com/bible/59/eph.4.2.ESV

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:7 ESV

https://bible.com/bible/59/1co.13.7.ESV

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psalm 23:4 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.23.4.ESV
MOLESKIN:

Chirst gave us his spirit to help Bear us through this life by using a rod and staff…F3 and the HIM I have started building relationships with is my rod and staff

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Testing is Purifying

THE SCENE: A crisp, wet 50, Almost new moon
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • Hairy Rockettes
  • LBACs
  • Tempo Squats

THA-THANG:
March Metric Workout

  • Mosey to the recruiting center
  • Everybody get a block and line up along the parking lot
  • 15 minutes of work, change exercises every minute, count total reps as you go, move a parking lot line every 50 (everything is with a CMU)
    • OHP
    • Goblet Squats
    • Bent over Rows
    • Big Boy Situps
    • Curls
    • Lunges
    • Derkins
    • LBCs
    • Tri extensions
    • Deadlifts
    • Thrusters x5
  • 3 minute rest, then DO THE WHOLE THING AGAIN
  • Put up the blocks and head back to the flag

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

The prospect of being tested doesn’t usually make me excited. Thanks, I expect, to our public education culture, most of us associate testing primarily with being judged, usually based on a comparatively short and only vaguely representative sample of our performance. Too often, it seems that the circumstances of the test have more to do with the outcome than our preparation.

Consequently, most of us avoid tests when we can. Our experience says that we get better outcomes when we rely on more controlled vehicles like 1001 take home worksheets. We don’t like the risk if failing. But I am here to tell you that this perspective is a wound and scar that is crippling your growth, and it’s time to start stretching it out.

This model of testing is shallow and unhelpful. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I think the model presented by the bible provides insight. In the preblast, I quoted Psalm 66 v. 10 “For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.” Here and in many places, “test” is the Hebrew word is Tsaraph, which is directly related to the process by which impurities are removed from silver or gold, what we would call smelting. Through heat and pressure, the precious metal is separated from the dross and purified. So while evaluation is one aspect of testing, by its nature, it is also a means of purification. It is through repeated testing that gold becomes pure, and likewise, it is through repeated testing that we grow, develop, and become stronger. And, in truth, we want to be tested. From our youth, we seek out challenges. Easy is boring. It’s only under the weight of time with nagging fear and doubt that this inclination gets slowly crushed out of us.

Tsaraph – 1) to refine, try, smelt, test 2) to find out who is qualified for battle, as with Gideon in Judges 7:4 3) to smith, as in shaping metal (Jer 6:29-30, Is 40:19) 4) to refine by means of suffering (Ps 66:10-12)

Is 1:25 – “And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin.”

Zec 13:9 – “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God.”

Mal 3:2-3 – “But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto The LORD an offering in righteousness.”

Finally, I want to show how this directly connects to the F3 leadership process, Q4.5, here is an excerpt:

So where does Failure fit into the Leadership development equation? What does it add to a man’s Leadership Foundation? If he already knows what a Virtuous Leader does and is–and is able is able to do and be those things himself–why must a Leader also Fail?

The reason is that Failure is a crucible. It is the forge by which a Leader is purified through the burning away of his me-first self-regarding nature. It matures him. Without Failure (and lots of it), a Leader will retain too much of who he was and keep doing what he did, rather than being fully transformed into what a Virtuous Leader is and consistently do what a Virtuous Leader does.

MOLESKIN:
We were late getting back. In September (ouch…) probably gonna need to get right over to the recruiting center and warm up on the way.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Wild at Heart, Escape from Haw Ridge, Hardship Hill

Pi and other Universal constants

THE SCENE: Cold for March. Actually, cold for anytime.
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • Projectivators
  • Tempo Squats
  • Grady Corn
  • Moroccan Nightclubs
  • Tempo Merkins
  • Mountain Climbers
  • Newton’s Cradle

THA-THANG:

  • Mosey to the bell
  • Pi = 3.14159265359
    • 3 burpees
    • 14 Merkins
    • 15 Squats
    • 92 LBCs
  • e = 2.71828 18284
    • 27 dips
    • 18 Merkins
    • 28 Lunges
    • 18 Wide Merkins
    • 28 Split Squats
    • 4 burpees
  • Mosey to the Pool wall
  • Golden Ratio = 1.618033988749
    • 16 Wall-ups and 18 Pull ups, divided as you think will be golden
  • Planck’s constant (J/Hz) = 6.62607015×10−34
    • 6 diamond merkins
    • 6 Catalina Wine Mixers
    • 26 shoulder taps
    • 34 seconds of PLANK
  • Gravitational constant (m3/kg s2) = 6.67430×10-11
    • Find another body, as a team do 66 BBS, 74 Squats, and 30 wall-ups
  • Avogadro’s Number (mol-1) = 6.02214076×1023
    • 60 LBCs, 22 Tie fighters
  • Speed of Light (m/s) = 299,792,458
    • Dash 299.792 meters, 1 millionth of a light second

MARY:
We did some.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. – Luke 16:10-11

When I read this first, I was planning to talk about the first bit, the struggle that I have with being faithful in little things. And that’s a good thing to ponder, to be disciplined in the details of our lives because how we deal in these small things inevitably forms our response to the big things, i.e. you perform the way you practice.

But the middle verses struck me. Nestled between these two classically quotable lines, there are two strange questions. “If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?” This clearly implies that when Jesus says “a very little” he means wealth. Do I think of my wealth as “a very little”? NO, I don’t. A massive portion of my waking hours are consumed by my wealth: acquiring, distributing, and managing. Even if it doesn’t steal my allegiance, it still feels like a big responsibility. The follow up is no less baffling: “And if you have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?” This plainly indicates that my wealth is not my own, an idea which is oft floated from the pulpit but difficult to really embody. It leaves me wondering, What would it be like to have something that is actually my own? Because evidently, I have a twisted idea of what that even means. The sense in which my wealth is “not my own” seems to me the same sense in which everything else is given me by God. So again, what frame of reference do I even have for what might be “my own?”

MOLESKIN:
Timed out pretty well. Plan was on the complicated side, so I missed a couple things I had wanted to do.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Cardinal Widow House Painting, Escape from Haw Ridge April 14th, Hardship Hill Memorial Day, Wild at Heart Retreat.

College Graduation 2 – The Pukeless Sequel

THE SCENE: Mid 40’s, light/limited rain
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

In honor of my nearly four year anniversary, I decided to take on the second bootcamp I attended, which had me puking my brains out at during the BOM. I wanted to see where I stood in You vs. You fashion. Trolley’s words and workout are cut and pasted below:

WARM-O-RAMA:

  •  SSH x 20 (4 -count)
  • Cherry Pickers x 5 (4 -count)
  • Merkins x 10 (4 -count)
  • Squats x 10 (4 -count)

THA-THANG:

  • At the CMU (aka Freshman) wall,  harken back to when you were a freshman.  Just doing a pushup or finding a class was a challenge.  So for freshman we keep it simple.

    25 Merkins and run around wall.

    Recollect that when certain people would for the first time, spend a full year at the dorms, eating potatoes and carbs for three meals a day, their thighs ended up being a bit large..  So we did a larger (from bottom to top) hill and

    50 Squats + Sophomore Hill

    Then, as a junior you were more refined, you were getting the hang of classes, and getting through the “CORE” classes as well as some of your major classes.. so:

    Run the Junior Hill Stairs and do 75 (four count) Freddy Mercuries

    Then, in preparation for the real world your major courses were kicking your tail, it was and is a long grind, you did what you had to, to reach the graduation finish line.. so

    Run the Senior Stadium hill and follow it up with 100 Burpees.   Break-em up into sets of 15, then 10, and find a battle buddy to do whatever you can to graduate.

MARY:
In the spirit a of leave no man behind, we helped the 6 push through the last 25 burpees and made sure that everyone graduated. We still had some time so we did Imperial Walkers x 20 (4 count) and Tempo Squats x 10 (4 Count)

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Just shy of 4 years ago (29 March 2019), I attended my first boot camp after seeing Erector’s post about The Project. Having not seriously worked out in nearly 10 years, Booster’s birthday Q was tough but manageable and had me wanting to come back for more after taking a week’s rest. My second boot camp was led by Trolley and he absolutely murdered me with the above. I remember thinking when he said that we were to do 100 burpees that my goal was to get to 30. I ended up getting to 60 and feeling so proud of myself. Back then, on that day at least, modify as necessary was not a thing. Trolley went down the line confirming each HIM reached his 100. I announced my 60 and he told me to keep going and had everyone else go too. I made it to 80 before we headed back to the flag, feeling spent but prouder still. For the Mary, Trolley asked me what number I got to…so it was more burpees for all. I know we were well past 6:15 but 5K, BOOSTER, ERECTOR, GUANO, KENJO, ROCKET, SNAGGLETOOTH, SPOTTER, TROLLEY, and WAXJOB racked up 100+ burpees to bring me up as the 6. I have no idea what Trolley said because my head was spinning and when he called us in to prayer, I stumbled over to the median and merlot’d the water in my belly. I am pretty sure everyone was thinking, “Well, he’s not coming back!”

Today was a different story. Four years later, I knocked out 100 burpees at the Stadium and another 21 bringing up the 6 and we still had time to do two Mary’s. We have seen a lot of HIMs come and go, including Trolley, but the men of F3, their talent, their character, their effort to be better continues to encourage me and it is the point I emphasize when I share what we do with sad clowns. You gentlemen make this quote easy to live out – “Every man I meet is my superior in some way, in that I learn from him.”

Today, I graduated college!