F3 Knoxville

Joy of Tire Flips

THE SCENE: more hot and humid weather
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

10 Projectivator, 15 Mountain climbers, 10 tempo merkins, 15 Moroccan night club, 15 Imperial walkers, 10 tempo squats
THA-THANG:
Mosey to the recruitment center. Grab a CMU and circle up. As a timer for each exercise, 5 PAX, one at a time, do 3 tire flips as all others do the exercise. After a set of 15 total tire flips, switch to the next exercise in the list. The exercises are as follows:

  • Merkins
  • OHP
  • Tricep extensions
  • Curls
  • Rows
  • LBCs
  • Heavy Freddie’s
  • Goblet squats
  • Heavy Lunges
  • Burpees block jump overs

We got two full rounds in. Mosey back to the shovel flag.

MARY:
No time left for Mary.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
24 for a surprise celebration!
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
“Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” – James 1:2‭-‬4 NASB1995

This is definitely one of my favorite passages, but it is tough. We are instructed here to consider it joyful to encounter trials. These trials have a purpose: to perfect our faith. Perfected faith results in a heavenly home when our life on earth is over. So, sometimes life is hard, but if we endure, our faith will be perfected.

MOLESKIN:
So YHC noticed a few weeks ago, that I was approaching my 100th Q for F3 Knoxville. However, I had no idea that my brothers had orchestrated a celebration in my honor! What an amazing group of men that are in this brotherhood! Thank you all so much for the love and support.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Convergence at JUCO on July 2nd!

Accountability

THE SCENE: 76
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

  • The Thang
    • 4 Corners (20 reps): 1. Merkins (reg, diamond, wide, stagger)
    • 2. Legs: squat, lunge, Bobby Hurley, toe merkins
    • 3. Abs: (BBS, LBC, Heels to Heaven, side crunches)
    • 4. Burpees – 5 each corner
  • Mosey to Playground: 4 Rounds: 6 pull-ups, 10 merkins, 5 wall-ups
  • Mosey to Bell 4 “Corners” (Bear crawl to each)
    • 20 dips
    • 20 Bulgarians -10 each leg
    • 20 decline merkins
    • 20 box jumps
  • Mosey back to Shovel Flag

MARY:
PAX choice – The Skewer, Rosalita, Basilisk, Protractor, Hairy Rocket in Plank

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
6STRONG: Kick, Mathlete, Borg, Tuba, Skewer, and me, Snaggletooth

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Accountability. This is a tough one. Here’s what Q Source has to say about it:

“Submission To Standard Through Enforcement and Consequence

The HIM seeks Accountability because his life is not his own.

No matter how dedicated or deliberate a HIM is in the building of his Guardrails, there will be some stretches of his road that he will not be able to shore up through his own Bricklaying. These are a man’s Blind Spots , the hard-wired gaps in his nature that he cannot protect without help.”

“The Survivor is ruled by his Blind Spots. Like an insatiable parasite they slowly suck the life out of him. The Sad Clown softly submits to his Blind Spots, seeking to uncomfortably coexist with them long enough to die without ever having to asking for help eradicating them. His is a life of solitary denial and Hopelessness.

The HIM is different. Because he is a Servant who lives for his Mission, he treats his Blind Spots like any other Obstacle in his life–as a Problem that impedes Movement. Because a Problem can and must be remedied, the HIM does so by seeking Accountability. For a Blind Spot, that is the only thing that works. Although this requires him to admit his Problem to others, the HIM presses forward because his pride and sense of self are less important than the people he Serves.

After all, because he is Living Third, his life is not his own.

Accountability shines the light of Hope into a man’s Blind Spots.”

The need for accountability is hardwired and we only seek it out when we know for sure that we can’t accelerate on our own and we’re actually drowning without help. When life goes sideways, when we get sloppy, we remember what the bricklaying and guardrails are for. And when we realize that we can’t do it on our own – “we are powerless to change” – then we reach out for help. This is where I am. I am a mess – with just enough brain cells to know that I need help. This requires honesty that I don’t want because it will expose my vulnerability. I find this in each circle of my life: between God and myself, my wife and myself, my 2.0s and my community. So I am reaching out to our Shield Lock because I need help and need someone to know it. There are other ways that I reach out for help: counseling, friendship, reading books and practices that help me slow down and look inside. We’re not losers because we need help. We’re actually hardwired to need help.

MOLESKIN:

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Convergence July 2, Shield Lock on Friday 5:00, Shield Lock Camping Trip

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.

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 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.