The snake pit 12/18/19

F07A9CBF-DBA9-43DF-96EE-3E615C1EE305Had a fun time for my first Q, was very interesting getting ready for it. we had 17 people show up with 2 fng’s present.

warmup :

-lap around parking lot

-windmills (10)

-ssh (25)

-cherry pickers(15)

-hillbilly walkers (15)

-imperial walkers (15)

-lbc’s (10)

-Moroccan nightclubs (20)

 

pre-workout (wall)

-wallsit/kB  (everyone did 5 burpees until reach middle)

-calf raises (30 seconds) X2

-wallsit/kb (everyone did 5 Merkins until reach middle)

 

workout (partner):

-KB Swings (200)

-American hammers (200)

-lbc’s (200)

-rows (300)

-squats (200)

 

C.O.T

-Floyd plank (20 seconds) “quite a bit of complaining involved “

-circle of Mary (until 6:00)

We finished with the name o Rama and names two FNG’s

thanks again for letting me Q for the first time, it was a fun experience and will definitely try to do again!!

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Snake Bite At Snake Pit

Five years ago my mom passed away after six months of hell, dealing with kidney failure and all that entails.  She had mental health issues, that meant she had to take some strong medicines that basically eventually killed her kidneys.  Ironically my mom retired as a kidney dialysis nurse.

So with today’s anniversary coming up, I thought it was a good opportunity to remember mom, and talk about mental health.  I shared some facts, and the facts decided our numbers for each exercises after COP.

Mom was a huge fan of Elvis and Ricky Nelson. Facts about the two artists:

Elvis – Born 1935
Elvis – Death at age 42
Elvis – 33 #1 singles
Ricky Nelson – Born 1940
Ricky Nelson – Death at age 45
Ricky Nelson – 14 top 10 singles

35 – KB swings
42 – goblet squats
33 – curls
40 – skull (Helmet) crushers (face for radio)
45 – flutters
14 – Turkish getups (pax favorite)

A few facts about my Mom’s life:

Mom – Born 1945  Death – 2014
Mom – Married 49 years to my father
Mom – 69 years old at death

49 – American hammers
14 – cleans

49 – merkins
69 – flutters  

Then we went on to some facts about suicide and mental health among men:

20 US veterans commit suicide daily.
77% of deaths in the US by suicide are male.
10% of men experience depression and anxiety.
Only 36% of psychological referrals are for men.

20 – Lawnmowers
77 – Rosa Litas
10 – Burpees
36 – LBCs

Finally some lighter facts, about Christmas and New Year’s Eve:

14 days till Christmas
The Twelve Days of Christmas starts on Christmas, not before.
The Twelve Days of Christmas ends 1/5/2020.
12/31 – In the Catholic faith, NYE is the Feast of Pope Sylvester.

I had the pax pick an exercise for the above numbers.  There was much rejoicing.

And we were done!

Thanks 3D for rearranging some schedules to allow me to Q today. Thanks to Bird Cage for all the whining.  Love you brother! Just payback for the Coors Light board of pain!

Brothers your presence today is testimony of what F3 can do.  Five years ago I found out about Mom’s passing about 2:00 am and didn’t make it back to bed that night.  So I posted at Peak 51 in Area 51 (South Charlotte) and was glad I did.  I needed the pax to be around me and pray for me and our family.

Your continued prayers for my father who is 78 and plugging right along are appreciated.  He definitely misses Mom.

Remember: Leave no man behind, but leave no man where you find him.

DT out!

 

 

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WOW!!! 26 for the Ballroom.  25 BCers and 1 IR’d walker.

Workout – Blast from the Past.

 

As if last week’s focus on 70 TV themes wasn’t enough, YHC went in for a return to the early exercon with BLIMPS.

The workout –

Brief warm up of 20 SSH, 10 Windmills and a run around the school to the far side and the “wall.”   At said wall, the PAX executed a round of wall sits whilst the PAX from each end executed two burpess and we worked our way inward.  Followed by BTW.

Afterwards we ran to the field with one lap around the track and divided into four teams at the goal line.  For the remainder of our time here we did four rounds, maybe five, of BLIMPS.  Every 10 yards the pax moved themselves by running, bear crawling, broad jumping and duck walking after the BLIMP was finished the pax ran to the opposite end zone.  What are BLIMPS?

  • Burpees 5
  • Lunges 20
  • Imperial Walkers 15
  • Merkins 20
  • Plankjack 25
  • Squats 30

What was the moleskin?  There wasn’t one . . . YHC was so taken by the 26 pax at at AO he couldn’t think.  However, if there is one it should be this – men, savor every moment with you children if you have them.  Do not complain.  It is amazing and the time is so short when they are little that you cannot comprehend it until they are older.  SAVOR IT!!

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Music, Lamination and a Chainsaw at the Armory

Second Q in 48 Hours for a limpy YHC…

While the PAX mingle and stretch we are serenaded by the smooth stylings of Bob Seger reminding us of his time being Like a Rock.  Standard warm up situation began with Huey Lewis singing about his desire for a new drug, leading to some pain stations with partner work…

Stations

  1. Skull Crushers x20 while partner bangs out as many Box Cutters as possible, switch, repeat…  Wake Up Call – Maroon 5
  2. Kettle Bell Swings x20 while partner bangs out as many Air Dramas as possible, switch, repeat…  All Summer Long – Kidd Rock
  3. Curls x20 while partner bangs out as many Shoulder Taps as possible, switch, repeat…               If You’re Going Through Hell… – Rodney Atkins
  4. Quick wander with bells overhead while Malcolm solves problems with his chainsaw
  5. Overhead Press x20 while partner bangs out as many Sumo Deadlifts as possible, switch, repeat…  Jump – Van Halen
  6. The UHaul x10 while partner gets in as many Peter Parkers as possible, switch, repeat…          Fat Bottomed Girls – Queen
  7. Laying Press x20 while partner hammers out American Hammers, switch, repeat…                          You Shook Me All Night Long – AC/DC
  8. More wanderings while evading Malcolm and his chainsaw
  9. Upright Rows x20 while partner maxes out on Low Slow Squats, switch, repeat…                            Down Under – Men at Work
  10. Rinse Repeat stations
    1. Crazy Little Thing Called Love – Queen
    2. Shut Up and Drive – Rihanna
    3. Malcolm chases us back to COT
  11. 5 minutes of Mary while R.E.M. reminds us that Everybody Hurts
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Celebrating Shield’s 49th @ Footloose

Warmup: 49 SSH
Party: 7×7’s = 7 rounds of 7 counts of: Monkey Humpers, Incline Merkins, Peter Pointers, Merkins, LBC’s, Squats, SSH
Happy 49th Shield! pRespect!

Next we mosey’d up and down Confederate St, Indian style. We finished on the far side of Southern Sugar. There we did a wall sit while the 2 ends broke off to do 2 burpees. Another mosey later we were at Fort Mill Church of God running up and down their stairs. I like to call that the Smithers Stair-climb because the first time I did it was when Smithers was on Q. It hurt me back then so I knew it made me better. I try to incorporate it into every Footloose Q now.
Around the corner we found another set of stairs that a few of us ran up and down twice. At the top we circled up for a round or 3 of Mary. Another slow mosey got us back to C.O.T. We prayed.

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Lead where you are – 2 years have flown by @ THE Ballroom

What a beautiful, steamy fall morning as the gloom saw 19 of The Fort’s finest show for our Shovel flag Hand-off at THE Ballroom. Can’t believe that it was over 2 years ago when Cake Boss asked YHC to take over Site Q duties for this awesome AO. #Honored and Humbled. Numerous FNGs and VQs later, it is time to hand over the reins to my guy, Manziel. Tclaps my friend.

Mosey to other side of the school

COP:

  • Seal Jacks * 20
  • 5 Burpees
  • Merkins * 10
  • 4 Burpees
  • Squats * 15
  • 3 Burpees
  • Gas Pumpers * 15
  • 2 Burpees
  • SSH * 20
  • 1 Burpees
  • MOROCCAN NIGHTCLUBS * 20

MOSEY to ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STAIRS- LADDER 10s- 1st set-LBCs at bottom, SSHs at top, Bear Crawl up, Stairs down, 2nd Set-Merkins at bottom, squats at top

At this point, I shared some:

 Thoughts on Leadership – F3 has been called a “Leadership Machine”, this is a great environment to hone your leadership skills. As it says in Q Source – “Man is by nature a Group-forming animal. In My Experience – I grow as a leader when I am pushed OUTSIDE MY COMFORT ZONE. AYE? As Maximus & Royale both related at the Invergence – people saw leadership potential in them before they realized it themselves. LOOK WHERE THEY ARE NOW. When Cake Boss asked me to be Site Q for THE Ballroom about 2 years ago – I was honored. And grateful for Manziel taking the reins now. STEP UP WHEN CALLED UPON-YOU WON”T REGRET IT.  

Mosey to Elem School Playground – 3 EXERCISES- Shoulder Taps (single count), SQUAT JUMPS, FLUTTERS- START WITH 5 OF EACH, RUN TO OTHER END OF CIRCLE, ADD 5 ON EACH LAP. Only made it to 15s. had to save time for one of my faves . . .

SO MOSEY TO Front of PK Middle School for– JACK WEBB

Name-o-Rama, Announcements: Fort Mill Care Ctr mowing, new Millstone AO, Crossroads. Prayers for marriages, families, injured Pax. Then YHC expressed my gratitude to Manziel for taking over and thanked all the Pax for being there that morning and over the last 2 years. Took us out in prayer.

So, get out there and lead gents. Push outside of your comfort zone-you won’t regret it.

Short Sale, out.

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For a moderate, this was kinda rough

I’m not sure when I have Q’d that I can recall being wiped out. Today was pretty rough. Good but rough. I think it was just rough enough for Shady and Pusher to keep them interested.

 

We left ChickFilA and went toward the library, gathered in the grass of the roundabout and knocked it out for a few minutes.. the usual warmups for SSH, Imp Walkers, Windmills, SSH’s again, Merkins, etc. We had a tight circle and each took a turn of bear crawling in the wet grass.

 

We moseyed to McAlisters deli and partnered up. While partner 1 did the exercise, the other conquered the stairs up one side, strolled across the upper deck and back down the other side. A pretty decent up and down. The exercises were: Flutters, LBC’s, SSH’s, Planks, CDDocks, Grave Diggers and Freddys…

 

I talked a little about my upcoming Q at Crossroads Tuesday. We are discussing marriage. I gave some testament to the fact that F3 has really helped me grow as a husband and father, and how I have learned to spend more time taking deep breaths with the M, listening more, and less time making suggestions because I am brilliant and have all the answers.

Headed back to Chick, and discovered we hadn’t hit 2 miles in total for the morning, so Pusher led us to get in another quarter mile, which was met with some ….. umm … well, it was great !

Prayers for Amelia today! (Update at 2:00 .. operation went well…)

Assassin

 

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23

7th Year Convergence for The Fort

The 7th Year Convergence for The Fort followed an exhilarating Invergence from the night before.  Hoping to continue that acceleration, the 4 Q’s had a plan to talk about the 4 Skills needed for Virtuous Leadership: Vision, Articulation, Persuasion, Exhortation.

CakeBoss to start us out with Vision: Recognizing advantage and the movement required to achieve it.

Disclaimer and welcome
“Go Hard or Go Home!”

Take off for 100 yard mosey up path, Get in 3 lines – Indian Run across WEP

Break into 4 lines, 2 groups of seal teams -20 seal team sit ups in cadence

Back into 2 lines , Everyone plank – Tunnel of Love (25 guys per line) – Plank series while guys army crawling under

Crowd pleaser for sure!

7 Burpees for 7 Years!

Vision is what I spoke about and the men that saw the advantage of F3 and planted it (moved towards it) in Charlotte, the The Fort and we continued to give it away in Rock Hill & Lake Wylie.

Hand off to Maximus

Articulation: Describing vision to others in a clear manner. Being able to tell others where we’re going and being able to describe that vision to others.

So, with that said, we’re going over to the top of the big hill to start with drill bits:

½ the group goes one direction while the other goes the opposite way

At each white post (drill bit), 10 Jumping Lunges (10 each leg)

10 Jump Squats

Mosey to the base of the other hill, the one with the statue on it:

NUR (backwards run) up the hill

3 Burpees at the top

Bear Crawl down

5 Burpees at the bottom

Hand off to Fun House for the “P”.

Persuasion – The initiation of first Movement.  Convincing people to move in the direction of advantage, abandoning their Status Quo,

YHC gave an awesome yet forgettable speech about Persuasion.  Then the Thang:

Circle Up – Duck, Duck, Goose – One guy runs around the circle the rest of us plank, the next guy goes when the running guy finishes.  Planking excercises were called out: High Plank, Low plank, Mountain Climbers….. Audible called to get the next guy running after 1/2 a lap around the circle of Pax….. Peter Parker, Parker Peters….. Audible called to get the next guy running after 1/3 lap around….. Mak-Tar-Jai, Left Hand High, Right hand high…..Done.  That took 10 minutes!  60 guys is a lot of guys to be running around in circles.

Stay in circle, 5 minutes left, Jack Webb: 1 Merkin to 4 Overhead hand claps.  We got to 8!

Hand off to Pusher for Exhortation!

Exhortation – Incentivizing The Breach Of Obstacles.

Burpees x 10 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
Mosey to a corner of WEP
Burpees x 9 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 8 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Rosalita IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 7 OYO
Flutters IC x 10
LBCs IC x 10
Rosalitas IC x 10
Hello Dollies IC x 10
Mosey to another corner
Burpees x 6 OYO
LBCs IC x 10
Flutters IC x 10
COT
Naked Moleskin – The name-o-rama took forever.  That is a good thing. When 60+ PAX post to celebrate something that has obviously changed their lives, then change is happening!  Thanks to Maximus who put this awesome weekend celebration together!  His leadership is not only Effective (Using VAPE) but he is a Virtuous Leader! (Check out the Q Source for the 5 C’s Virtues of Virtuous Leadership) Can’t wait to see what year 8 brings to The Fort!  More importantly, who it brings!  Time to go EH someone.  See you in the gloom.
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Iron Paradise

Since becoming the Site Q at The Coop YHC has been missing The Tomahawk. Luckily, 3D was gracious enough to swap AO’s for a day. Needless to say I was pretty excited.

10 PAX showed up 10 minutes early so we had some good mumble chatter in the darkness that is The Tomahawk parking lot. A few PAX snuck in as the clock struck 0515 and the disclaimer was disclaimed.

Mosey 400M without gear.

COP
SSH x 42 at different tempos
Tappy Taps x 10
Low slow squat x 15
Al gores hold 30 seconds

While holding Al Gore discussed isolation and how it is terrible for men like us. Explained the shield lock and how being surrounded by like minded men who want to accelerate will hold you to a higher standard.

Merkins x 15
Downward dog
Honey mooner
Side plank left arm/leg high
Flap jack
Low six inch hold

Discussed isolation further in depth and explained how when we are alone we are more prone to attacks from the enemy.

Mosey to back side of school to discover a beautiful piece of 1×12 with fresh weinke written all over it.

Weinke

Partner BOP w Light Pole Suicides

Partners will work toward the below exercises together. While one pumps the iron the other runs out and back to one of the five light poles down the backside of DBES. Partner one hits pole 1, swap, partner 2 hits pole 2, and so forth out to the farthest pole and back. Repeat until completing the BOP.

100 curls each arm
200 Swings
200 Tri Extensions
200 Goblet Squats
200 American Hammers
200 LBC’s

(This BOP may or may not have come from a prior workout at The Tomahawk).

We made it to the American Hammers as a group… then had to head back to COT. YHC had a BONUS on the backside of the board. That will have to happen another day. Maybe at The Armory on September 9… maybe…

In all, we got about 2.5 miles of running in. Not bad for a gear workout!

Got back to COT and had one minute to knock out some flutters with press x 16 (4 count).

Name a Rama

Announcements:

Shovel flag hand off at Footloose tomorrow.
Invergence is 9/6 at Rush Pavilion @ 1800. Sign up to bring some deliciousness.
Convergence is 9/7 at WEP @ 0630.
Bobber on VQ at WEP this Saturday @ 0630.

Prayers/Praises
PAX in isolation, either on IR or in a dark place. Reach out to them.
Cancer. It’s seemingly everywhere.
New ventures for Training Wheels.
Family members with mental illness, and those who care so much about them.

Thanks 3D for the creative opportunity to lead at a different AO than my own site. Had a blast meeting some of the newer PAX.

Punch List out.

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The Ballroom Gets Its Boogie On

25 PAX  turned out to the Ballroom and boogied down, not in the Boogie Down Bronx,  BUT in Da Gloom:

DISCLAIMER

Warm Up at the B’ball court:

Lots of mumble chatter…….

SSH , Leg Extensions, Low Slow Squats, Arm Circles, Mnt. Climbers, Merkins & a little bit of BROGA!

Next we “boogied down’ to the walk bridge & sat on the People’s Chair for several sets of overhead claps, calf raises, arm dips & topped it off with burpees.

The Thang:

On the football field-25yd sprints in between bomb jacks & merkins 10x each. RINSE & REPEAT. Next CCD & Bobby Hurleys, 10x each in between 25yd sprints. RINSE & REPEAT. Gas pumps & grave yard diggers 5x each was added in because we were getting down to a such a nice boogie rhythm.

Back to COT was announced. PAX protest-We still have 10 more minutes to boogie!! AB LAB was announced back at COT. LOTS of mumble chatter……….

Indian run back to COT, column of 2s.

AB LAB-circle up. each PAX took the initiative & announced a series of box cutters, Freddy Mercury, Flutter kicks & some big boy sit ups to round it out by Little John.

Was so amped to Q I realized no cell phone on hand. Short Sale came thorough with his. Thanks!

Announcements. Prayers & Praises

Want to thank those that turned out to support & allowing me to leadl!  AYE!!

 

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