F3 Knoxville

Tabata and Hills

THE SCENE: mid 70s, partly sunny, humid as heck after the storms
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

Welcome to F3, Fitness, Fellowship and Faith. F3 is a free workout program designed to improve fitness, share some camaraderie, and foster male leadership in the community.  I’m Pele and I will be your Q today.  I am not a professional, and I do not know your fitness level or injury history.  Please push yourself, but modify the workout as necessary to avoid making any existing injuries worse.  The goal is to get better together!


WARM-O-RAMA:

-30 Split Jacks (4-ct), 15 each leg, in cadence

– 10 Windmills (4-ct), in cadence

– 10 Plank Jacks

– 20 Grady Corns (4-ct), in cadence

  • 10 Steave Earles, (4-ct), in cadence
  • 10 LBCs small and wide (4-ct), forward and backward in cadence

Run to tree down the road, 5 squat jumps, Bernie back

THA-THANG:

TABATA 1 (20 seconds exercise, 10 seconds rest, 4 rounds = 2 minutes per exercise x 5 exercises = 10 minutes per round)

  • Plank Jacks
  • Mountain Climbers
  • Catalina wine mixers
  • Bottle Openers

RUN DOWN STAIRS, OVER TO BASE OF SUMMIT, UP SUMMIT, BACK TO BAT HOUSE.  At EACH “CORNER” DO 15 SMURF JACKS

TABATA 2

  • American Hammers
  • Gas Pumps
  • Wide Flutter Kicks

RUN LOOP, DO 15 BOBBY HURLEYS

TABATA 3

  • High Knees
  • Squats
  • Lunges

RUN LOOP, DO 15 DESONSTRUCTED BURPEES

MARY:
No time for Mary today.
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
13 strong. Pop a top not tagged.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:

Fellows, it’s been a difficult past couple of weeks for our AO.  We recently, had to part ways with a brother, and that’s just not something we ever want to do.   I have to admit I lost a lot of sleep over it.  And the situation made me consider the fine line between holding someone accountable versus judging someone.  We try to do the former in F3, but stay away from the latter, but sometimes that’s a tough distinction.

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines accountability as an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions, while judgmental is defined as “characterized by a tendency to judge harshly”.  After thinking about it a little more, I came up with sort of my own definition of these terms… accountability is holding someone responsible for norms, traditions, rules, etc. that are broadly accepted by a group, while being judgmental is passing judgment on whether someone measures up to your own PERSONAL ideas or notions.

As I’ve expressed in Slack, I feel it’s VERY important to refrain from publicly passing judgment on our fellow brothers, because when you do so it inevitably causes rifts.  Disagreement is fine, but if you have something you object to, I think it’s always best to have a private discussion about it.

Before parting ways, the former member of our group first passed judgment on our AO in terms of how we uphold the Second F (Fellowship), then passed judgment on an individual in terms of his interpretation of the Bible and his message, and finally, in a parting message to me, passed judgment on me (and, more broadly, our entire group) in challenging our religious beliefs, patriotism, and leadership.

Although I’m not perfect about it, I try to refrain from passing judgment on others.  I have my own belief system, and sure, I appreciate seeing qualities in others that follow a similar system, but I try not to denigrate or think ill of those who have other beliefs.  But let’s face it… we all judge others, and on a pretty regular basis.  It’s part of our DNA, as far I’m concerned.  But there’s a difference in making that determination of judgment internally, and publically attempting to coerce others to conform to your perception of how things should be.  The latter is something that I feel we need to avoid in F3, which was intentionally formed as a very inclusionary group of men.  If you were here a few Saturday’s ago, we had a Guest Q from Chattanooga that emphasized F3s core mission: to plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.  That’s it.  There are certain components to every F3 workout, and one of those is the Word, followed by the Ball of Man.  I can honestly say that I have personally disagreed with at least a small portion of just about every Word, but also that is OVERHELMED by the amount of wisdom and perspective that I have received.

In closing, I found a couple of statements that I thought really hit the nail on the head when it comes to being Judgmental :

Judgment is the basis for separation, which is the ego’s goal. When we judge a brother or sister, be it in thought or action, we create a sense of separation.

You will save yourself and others years of stress, anger, disappointment and resentment if you allow your brothers and sisters to follow their own hearts. If your brothers and sisters know that they can come to you for advice without criticism and judgment attached to it, you will forever be their sounding board. However, if you end up judging and criticizing their efforts and decisions they will put up walls every time you question or try to advise them.

– James Blanchard CisnerosAuthor of You Have Chosen to Remember: A
Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy
, p. 91-92

Born in Geneva, Switzerland. He grew up in Caracas, Venezuela and obtained his B.S. and MBA degrees in the United States. James states “My grandfather served in WWII as a colonel in the United States Marines, my father was a Vietnam Army veteran. After the Vietnam experience, my father wanted to break the cycle and protect us from a future draft. So he arranged for my brother and myself to be born in Geneva, Switzerland (a neutral nation), so that we could choose to refrain from the next conflict if that was our choice.”

James 4:11-12

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, he who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Romans 16:17 

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

MOLESKIN:
Great to see Sparkler out there, and Pop a Top killed it in his second workout.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Speedway launch Saturday at 6 am, Convergence July 2!

Cards Around Asylum

THE SCENE: Hot (89F), sunny afternoon, a few clouds in the sky, slight breeze.

F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER
WARM-O-RAMA:

Side-straddle Hop (20 4 ct), 8 4 ct. windmills (slow, stretch), 10 4 ct. baby arm circles (forward & backwards each), Michael Phelps, & Merkins (10 4 ct.).

THA-THANG:

After a mosey down to the greenway, the group made their way around the park by drawing cards. Number cards indicated how many lights to run and and how many of the exercise we would do when we arrived at the light. If the card drawn is a face card, the PAX would immediately do 10 of an exercise as follows: King – Merkins, Queen – Squats, Jack – Big Boys. If the card drawn was a one eyed Jack or the Queen of Spades then everyone did 10 Burpees. Otherwise, the suit dictated what kind of exercise we would do as follows:

  • Spades – arm exercise
  • Hearts – leg exercise
  • Diamonds – Core exercise
  • Clubs – Cardio exercise

The card drawer chooses the specific exercise to do once we reached the designated light.

MARY:
Arrived to the AO with no time remaining.

COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
Welcome to Pop-a-Top (Jeremy) who showed up looking for an evening workout!

CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. F3 is continues because it is a great system. Let’s all (definitely including me in this) invest to make the system work well.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
New AO starts in Seymour this Saturday.

Cones + A Ball

F3 Q: 5/17/22

AO: Asylum PM

5:45-6:30

[ The Scene ]

[ Welcome/Disclaimer ]

  • Welcome to F3: Fitness – Fellowship – Faith
  • My name is Steam and I’ll be your Q this morning
  • A few things before we begin:
    • I’m not a professional
    • You’re here on your own belief
    • You know your injuries if you have any so if you need to modify anything we do today feel free to do so, but push yourselves and the men around you. They deserve it and so do you.
  • FNGs?

[ Warm o Rama ]

  • SSH: 20×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Imperial Walker: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Rockette: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Cherry Picker: 10×4
    • Run down the stairs and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up
  • Motivator: 5
    • Run down and execute 5 merkins
    • Run back up

[ The Thang ]

(Mosey down to the grass ramp)

  • 3 cones
  • C1: 1 man maker
  • Bear crawl to C2
  • C2: 2 man makers
  • Bear crawl to C3
  • C3: 3 man makers
  • Bernie sanders back to C1 and rinse and repeat 1x

(Mosey to the grass field below)

  • 6 cones
  • Corners are all squats (4)
  • 2 middle ones are Bobby Hurley’s
  • All cones = 20 reps
  • When you’re done with your reps at a cone, come to the middle and do 20 SSHs before reporting to your next cone
  • Clockwise
  • When you get make it around 1 full time, come to the middle and do LBCs

(Mosey to the Bowl)

  • 9 cones on the top of the bowl
  • Start at the grate: 50 SSH
  • Run counter clockwise to each cone and execute 1 Merkin, then back to the grate
  • Rinse and repeat, adding a Merkin each time

[ Mary ]

[ COT ]

  • # off
  • Name o Rama
  • FNGs
  • BOM

The Friction of Our Fathers

There was a talk I heard on a men’s retreat in early April that really struck a chord with me. It’s a subject that some of us run from, and others of us don’t, depending on your experience and journey with your own father. Here’s the breakdown of the talk, and then some of my own notes and study and takeaways as I have been processing this over the past month. 

  • “You know my dad used to be like this, and now he’s not. My dad used to be loud, and now he’s soft. That is possible men.”

Main Points

  1. We find ourselves in 1 of 2 places with “the friction of our fathers”
    • Still chasing their approval. Still chasing hope that they might see us as worthy. Still chasing value.
    • Maybe potentially proving them wrong.
    • OR — shadow side: “I will be like him.” And “You’re not going to be your dad. You can’t chase him.”

(Which one of these three places do you find yourself?)

  • “All I’d ever wanted is my dad to pursue me. Pursue me, I’m your son, come towards me, right?”

Are you trying to live up to the name or live up to the hype?

  • Your compass is pointed in the wrong place

    2. You have a Heavenly Father that is well pleased with you

    • Luke 3:22 — You are my son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.
    • Are you trying to live up to the name or live up to the hype?
    • Your compass is pointed in the wrong place

________________________________________

  • Father is mentioned in the Bible (ESV) 1,024 times over 857 verses. That’s over 2 years of studying how God is a Father in the Bible and in our lives
    • All the way from Genesis 2:24 to Revelation 3:21
    • Genesis: 139x
  • 2 Corinthians 6:18 — And I will be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

[ Closing the “Frictions” ]

These friction points are guideposts more landmarks, not things to be fearful of.

Philippians 3:17 — Join in imitating me, brothers and sisters, and pay careful attention to those who live according to the example you have in us.

Paul mentions “pay attention to those” or take note of those who live according to the example you have in us. Who are some men that you have taken note of in your life? Men that you pay attention to and where they step, you want to step?

— “Do this”

— Do these kinds of things

— Find some other people who are just a bit ahead of you who can set a road cone ahead of you and help be your guide

In John Eldridge’s book “Fathered By God”

  • John is telling a story and ends with this: “As I drove home I knew the gift had been from God, that he had fathered me through this man.
  • We must be willing to take an enormous risk, and open our hearts to the possibility that God is initiating us as men — maybe even in the very things in which we thought he’d abandoned us. We open ourselves up to being fathered.
  • You are the son of a kind, strong, and engaged father, a father wise enough to guide you in the way, generous enough to provide for your journey, offering to walk with you every step.

Ending: You are being so intentionally fathered by a God that has pursued you before you even arrived on the scene men. Regardless of your experience with your earthly father, let’s rest in that there is a “good good father” who loves you more than you can even fathom, and it’s because “it’s who you are. It’s who you are.” You’re loved by him. You’re loved by him.

Are You Ready?

THE SCENE: Beautiful, sunny, 85 degress. Low humidity and slight breeze, but the heat of summer cometh…
F3 WELCOME & DISCLAIMER

Done
WARM-O-RAMA:

– 20 SSH IC

– 8 Tempo Merkins

– 8 Tempo Squats

– 8 Cherry Pickers (4-ct), in cadence

– 8 BAC forward, backward (4-ct, IC)

– Imperial Walkers until Swimmies joined us.

THA-THANG:

Mosey down Roadshow Run to path, admiring the nicely cut grass on Everest on the way down.

NICKLE DIME QUARTERS going south on the path.  (Run 1 light, do 5 reps, run 2 lights do 10 reps, run 5 lights, do 25 reps).

  1. Squats
  2. CDDs
  3. Dive Bombers

Mosey to Gravel circle near Field of Dreams.

NO MERCY (half) MILE

  • Near end: Lunge around turn
  • Run to ½ way point. 25 Merkins. Run to curve
  • Far End: Bear Crawl around turn
  • Run to ½ way point. 25 Squats. Run to Curve.
  • Rinse and Repeat.

Mosey to Roundabout south of the Colosseum, doing Imperial Squat Walkers and other maintenance exercises until 6 catches up.

Partner up.  One Partner runs to end of Roundabout, do 5 BBSs, 5 2-CT American Hammers, 5 Leg Lifts 3x increasing by 5 each time. Switch off after each set. Other partner does LBCs.

Return to AO

MARY:
Stretching with Pele. Ahhh…

steam
COUNT-OFF & NAME-O-RAMA
8 strong. Cheetah Boy not tagged.
CIRCLE OF TRUST/BOM:
Showed the PAX an inspirational video about F3 (hat tip to Blindside, who put it out on FB).  Here’s the transcript:

Make no mistake men. Every day you’re in a battle. A battle for your health. A battle for your family. A battle for your very soul. There are forces, seen and unseen, that want you to fail. They’re counting on you to fail. There are voices in your head that are reminding you of your past failures and telling you hey, stay in the comfort of your house, don’t come out to this work out, instead of getting out there, doing something difficult, and accelerating with other men who support you, and require your support in return. This is F3. There are no lone wolves. We’re a pack of men with a shared vision to plant, grow, and most importantly to serve, for the invigoration of male leadership in our community. We are… F3.

Are you ready?

MOLESKIN:
Prayers for Abscess’s recovery
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Launch of new AO in Farragut at the end of the Month, the RAMPART.  May charity drive is underway.  Details to be posted on SLACK.

The Asylum PM’rs Take On The Compound

[ The Scene ]

  • 70s
  • Hot
  • Character building
  • Pre-Ruck with Guppy

[ Welcome/Disclaimer ]

  • Welcome to F3: Fitness – Fellowship – Faith
  • My name is Steam and I’ll be your Q this morning
  • A few things before we begin:
    • I’m not a professional
    • You’re here on your own belief
    • You know your injuries if you have any so if you need to modify anything we do today feel free to do so, but push yourselves and the men around you. They deserve it and so do you.
  • FNGs?

[ Warm o Rama ]

  • 10×4 Around the Clock Lunges (12, 3, 6, 9)
  • 10×4 Cherry Pickers
  • 10×4 Windmill
  • 10×4 merkins 
  • 10×4 SSH

Cash-In with some ATMs

[ The Thang ]

(Mosey to The Compound)

(1) The Timeless Classic: 11s

  • but since today is the 10th, we’ll just do 10s
  • Here: Merkins
  • There: Star jacks
    • (9 + 1, 8 + 2, etc)

(2) Battle Buddy Bays

  • 3 POCs or “bays”
  • 1 BB will wall sit up here + execute raise the roofs until recovered
  • 1 BB will run to the bay and execute 25 reps of an exercise at each of the 3 bays.
    • Bay 1: Merkins
    • Bay 2: Bobby Hurleys
    • Bay 3: LBCs
  • So you and your BB team will graduate from 1 bay to the next. Each BB will complete the X for each bay
  • The wall sits remain the same throughout

(3) There And Back Again

  • 2 POCs: The Compound + The Dock
  • Compound: triad merkins and run to The Dock
    • 1 reg, 1 wide, 1 diamond
    • Run up tue platform and back down, and then up to The Dock
  • The Dock: triad of squats
    • 1 reg, 1 sumo, 1 together and then run back to The Compound
  • Rinse and Repeat, adding 1 rep to each station (round 2: 2 reg, 2 wide, 2 diamond + 2 reg, 2 sumo, 2 together) until you complete 5 reps of each triad.
  • Recover at The Compound

[ Mary ]

American Indian run back up to the AO

BTTW (Balls To The Wall) to the AO about 50 yards out

[ COT ]

  • # off — 9
  • Name o Rama
    • Guppy, Brick, Drum Major, Crispr, High-Heels, F6, Mr. Jinxy, Rooney, Steam
  • FNGs — 0
  • BOM

For my BOM tonight, I’m going to try and listen to myself as I talk, because I really need to hear this, and I feel like this was  put on my heart to share as well, and just maybe, you’ll find some things that will apply to your life as well.

I’d like to start off by sharing a story.

Last night, I was asked to play goalie in my fiancé’s soccer game with her brother and some of the women she coaches at Johnson University. Now I played soccer growing up, and while I did play church league soccer, I also played competitively, but I was always a midfielder or forward. I ran and kicked, I didn’t block. So after some prompting from both my fiancé and future brother in law to play goalie, I said okay, knowing that this was about to be way better than I expected, or way worse than I expected. So we took the field and I was pretty pumped up.

Now I didn’t get too upset when the first 2 goals were scored on me, but man, the last 5 were brutal. One of the 5 was between my legs, another one out of the 5 I mis-timed and tipped it back into the goal for an own goal, and yet another one out of the 5 was shot from midfield and sailed past my head. I was furious. I was ashamed. I was humiliated. I was disappointed. I was upset. I used an expletive or 3 both in my head and out loud. I had failed. I had let the team down. I wasn’t good enough. I was furious with myself for my performance. Even in the midst of my fiancé, future brother in law, and some of the other collegiate women who were on the team’s “Hey you did great” and “We’re just out here to have fun” and “You did way better than I would have done” my internal programming and messaging screamed LIAR. FALSE. INCORRECT. NOT TRUE. I don’t want to be consoled, or comforted or your pity, I know how badly I did out there. After a hasty and very unloving hug and “I love you” I have my fiancé, I sped out of that parking lot in rage for how poorly I had performed.

One thing my fiancé said to me before I left was “You have to stop beating yourself up about this. You need to quit being so hard on yourself.” To which I replied a measly “yeah.” My internal response to this in that moment and all the way home and as I went to bed last night and woke up this morning was “NO I DON’T HAVE TO. I CAN’T STOP. I FAILED AND I AM GOING TO LET MYSELF KNOW IT. IF I STOP BEING HARD ON MYSELF AND BEATING MYSELF UP I WON’T BE GOOD ENOUGH. Whoah…..there’s something deeper there. My fiancé has not heard me communicate any of this to her yet, but she knows me well enough to know what type of humiliating and self-deprecating dialogue was going on internally for me.

Maybe you’ve heard these things before:

  • I’m my own harshest critic
  • I’m so hard on myself
  • I just beat myself up about this or that

As those goals continued to pummel me throughout the game, I kept thinking “Cmon Dan you’re better than this. You should be doing better than this. You’re failing. Goal after goal after goal, the same mental assault crashed like waves on a beach, louder and louder.

Until I realized this – and honestly the Holy Spirit loved me so well in this moment and helped me realize: You’ve never played goalie before Dan. Why did you think that? Why did you think you would be so much better than this? Why did you allow yourself to set standards of near perfection that you were never going to achieve? You’re destroying yourself mentally. I’ve never played goalie before guys. But it didn’t matter, I showed up and gave it my all, shouldn’t I have been better than this?! I MEAN CMON.

And maybe you’ve found yourself on the wrong side of a mental fuse the enemy has lit. And all he has to do is sit back and watch you start to believe that lie a little bit more and a little bit more until you’re furious. And humiliated. And have talked yourself out of grace, mercy, gratitude, and love.

As men we can be so hard on ourselves and beat ourselves up until we are mentally and emotionally and spiritually black and blue. STOP IT. Go easy on yourself. If you’re too hard on yourself like I typically am, here is something I found today, or that found me today, that helped take back some lost ground, mentally.

Three Warning Signs That You’re Too Hard On Yourself

https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/am-i-too-hard-on-myself

            1. First, you’re being too hard on yourself if your failures to meet your standards result in a depressed loss of joy in the Lord.

“Christ has made you his own. That changes everything about how you run your race.”

            1. Second, it’s evidence of a person’s being too hard on himself if his failures result in hurtful anger: hurtful toward himself, inclining him toward habits that are self-destructive, or hurtful toward others.
            1. Third, it’s evidence that he’s being too hard on himself if his failures produce paralyzing fear or anxiety about approaching the tasks of his life. If he feels like he’s fallen short so often that he loses the capacity to attempt anything of significance, it’s evidence that he’s being too hard on himself in the sense that he’s not trusting Christ for the ability to keep him going.

So maybe we change the mental conversation and quit being so hard on ourselves as men. And maybe it sounds something like this:

“I’m not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don’t get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I’ve got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I’m off and running, and I’m not turning back.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:12-14‬ ‭MSG‬‬ (https://bible.com/bible/97/php.3.12-14.MSG)