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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C

So it is almost a week later as I write this.  Better late than never I guess. Hopefully I can recollect most of what happened!

It all started with the usual disclaimer and then a quick lap around the parking lot.

I’m not much for warm ups, but did to some this morning.  Certainly some windmills, merkins, squats, SSH’s.

I then got my speaker out for  a little fun.  Since I have been working my way through the Exicon and we would be doing the letter C today I play a song called Alphabet Aerobics, and made everyone go from Merkins to 6″ holds every time he began rapping a new letter.  The song is just over 2 minutes, but you felt it!

1st routine: The Cycle

We moseyed to the baseball field and started at home plate

  • bear crawl to 1st, 3 burpees, crawl bear to home
  • bear crawl to 2nd, 6 burpees, crawl bear to home
  • bear crawl to 3rd base, 9 burpess, crawl bear to home
  • bear crawl to home, 12 burpees, crawl bear to home

This one always sucks.

2nd routine: C.L.I.M.B.

We went to the hill and did the following exercises:

  • Ran down the hill
  • Crab Cakes, Lunges, Imperial Walkers, Monkey Humpers, Bombjacks
  • NUR up the hill
  • The increments were x2 so it started with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and then 2, 4,6,8,10, etc.
  • We did this 4 times and x2 on the exercise count each time.

3rd routine: Catch me if you can

Mosey back to main lot and partnered up.  You all know how this one goes.  I called out various exercises and Partner A did them, then caught their partner who was NUR’ing, rinse and repeat.  We did 4 reps of this and I called out a new exercise each time.

I can’t remember what we announced or prayed for, but we did!

Thanks for the Q O’Reilly!  It is always a great time Q’ing here!

Until next time,

FLUX

 

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Cannonball : Bakers Dozen of courage, was just what the Cake Boss ordered!

YHC got the invite to lead at Cannonball and I seized the opportunity. The PAX of Lake Wylie are accelerating at high pace and I did not want to miss an opportunity to encourage and continue to “Give it Away”.

Met a bunch on new faces and brothers of da gloom. It was awesome to post and get better with this crew. Two-ferns is doing great work out there so I encourage all PAX to get out there and post.

Disclaimer and Introductions made. AWay we went

  • Mosey around parking
  • Shuffles
  • Karaoke
  • Plank series
  • Merkins

Grab the bells and mosey to lower parking lot

Count off in 3s and get to a station

First round, do 10 reps of each exercise, mosey to play ground and get 10 Swing Crunches rotate to next station

Second round, do 15 reps of each exercise, mosey to play ground and get 15 Dips, rotate to next station.

Kettlebell swing
bent row
Figure eight
squats
Upright row

Lunge press
Sumo
Curls L/R
American Hammer
Tri Extension

Flutters
Hello dolly’s
Freddy’s
Deadlift
Kettlebell Merkins

Lots of encouragement and team work. F3 is best when we operate as a group and accomplish things together.

I spoke to the men about Courage and when we were young and foolish we had stupid courage like picking fights for no reason other than stupidity. Today as men with families and responsibility our Courage has different meaning. Having tough conversation, making tough decisions and trusting in Sky Q and his direction in our lives. I challenge the PAX to take a step towards uncomfortable and be courageous in getting better in relationships and living for something bigger than ourselves.

Thanks Two Ferns!

Cake Boss out!

 

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Early Risers at the Swamp

When I pulled into the parking lot near Best Buy, there were several cars already parked near the AO.  Based on the mumble chatter on social media, several of the PAX were getting in some early training for upcoming events.  There were 23 men at the work out, 13 for ruck, 8 for BC, and 2 runners.

After the disclaimer, we jogged to the front of Best Buy.  We started with a few warm up exercises (Butt Kickers, Toy Solders) before we moseyed over to the back of Just Fresh.

COP

SSH  x 20

Imperial Walker x 20

Windmill x 10

Plank Stretches

 

Next, we moseyed to the front of Home Depot for a round of Dora 1-2-3

100 Lat Pull-ups on the bicycle rack

200 Squats

300 LBCs

Next, we moseyed back to Just Fresh near the staircase for a round of Arod 3-2-1 (reverse Dora). Instead of running around the parking lot, we ran up and down the stairs.

300 Calf Raises

200 Lunges

100 Jump Squats

Next, we headed back to COT for one last exercise, the Merkin Gauntlet.  The Pax lined up in a plank position.  Each person performed 4 merkins in front of each person.

COT

Special prayers for Twister as he recovers from his eye surgery

 

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Shot at a Free NITRO at HIT

It was a great day since it was Wednesday and I Love the new Mod/HIT Shipwreck Site and Coffeteria (NITRO). Ricky Bobby was on Q for the Mod and it was his VQ! So he did the disclaimer and we spilt into the Mod and HIT groups. The Mod group took off towards the track and I kept the HIT guys back for a minute and challenged them (because I feel that if we have a challenge in front of us we seem to push a little harder). So the challenge was simple, u beat me and I buy u a NITRO. Point system will be explained shortly. So we ran (not moseyed since this is HIT) over to the track where the Mod group was power walking/slow moseying. We got a little ahead of them where I stopped my group and we did some Seal Jax until the Mod group caught up to us then we ran to the other side of the track where we stopped again and did some Smurf Jax until they caught us again. We then ran to the back of the school where the hill is and began the Thang:

The lighting is decent on the hill so we walked down it and I told the Pax to get familiar with the terrain. The ground was a little damp and slick (thankfully I knew my Weinke and was prepared by wearing my new trail shoes). Eleanor not happy because he said he felt like a cartoon character slipping because his shoes are stating to wear on the fronts from all the burpees. That is a good thing because that means he is getting after it. So here is the challenge details. Run up the hill on the count of 3 and the first to the top has to do 3 merkins the rest do 4. Walk back down and repeat the race up the hill and each time the winner does only 3 and the losers add one so the second time the losers did 5 then 6 then 7 and so on. Some Pax thought they would sand back and win the later ones but after 3 trips up they were gassed and were falling too far behind in points. Long story short I OWE NOBODY A NITRO! Hats off to Speedhandle and Austin Powers for the push. My take on it, I owe it all to the Pre-Stuff! That truly makes me stronger.

Dessert was the Flag punishment I had to do for leaving my flag once at cannonball. 50 Burpees and 13 Kraken Burpees. Now the Bastards try to distract me every Tuesday just to try to make me forget it. Bastards!!

Ricky Bobby Took care of the Announcements and Prayers!

Always a pleasure to lead.

TWO FERNS
Twofernshotmail@F3lakewylie.com

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Bermuda Murph

It was a glorious Friday morning with a group of eager to work Pax. After a very thorough and intricate disclaimer we got to work.

The Thang was the MURPH!
Mile
100 Pull-ups
200 Merkins
300 Squats
Mile

Believe it or not we had enough PAX finish that we were able to work in about 3 minutes of MARY.

Great morning great group!

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Concentrica Cornhole… with Kettlebells!

Today was my opportunity to lead the men at Cannonball.  This place has become a PAX favorite.  Many of the men enjoy the Peg Leg pre-run before the standard start at 5:15am, so I was setting up with plenty of men gathering early.  Great to see Trench out there pre walking to get his miles in too! RESPECT.

We got the PAX circled up with the normal disclaimer.  Elmer Fudd joined us for his 2nd Day in a row, and Airwolf seems to having posted everyday for the last two weeks!  Got some new guys ready to go all in…

Disclaimer and we left our kettlebells for a little warmup.  One short lap around the parking lot to get the blood flowing then COP.

I don’t recall all, mostly just make up what feels good on COP nowadays.

IWs – Merkins – Producer Pickers – CDDs – LS Squats – Peter Parkers – Parker Peters – Mountain Climbers

Time to get to work, so we grabbed our kettlebells for a small walk back into the parking lot to circle up.

I started the 1st evolution getting all the men used to the 12 exercises (below).  We completed an “in cadence” round of 10 reps of each of the kettlebell exercises below.  Once complete we moved to our game.

My goal today was to share a man’s Concentrica.  I’ve set up this game before a few times, but with so many newer guys around and with our discussions around Q source and how to become a HIM, a refresher seemed welcome.

I drew a large bullseye on the ground with the 5 Concentrica rings.  From Center –> Out the rings are M — Shorties — Shieldlock — Whetstone — Mammon.  I gave a brief summary of each circle and how a man needs to focus his “shots” toward the center to stay in relational rhythm.  We’re not always accurate, but the goal should be the same…you want more of your attempts in the center than the outside!

The PAX would stand about 20 yards away and throw cornhole bags at the target.  Wherever the bag landed, we would rotate between the 2 exercises in each category.

They were:

M = Center

  1. 20 KB Swings
  2. Overhead Carry with a walk

Shorties

  1. 20 America Hammers DC
  2. 20 Flutters w/ Press DC

Shieldlock

  1. 25 Curls
  2. 25 Tricep Presses

Whetstone

  1. 25 Goblet Squats
  2. 20 Bent Rows each arm

Mammon

  1. 20 KB Pistol Squats each leg
  2. 25 KB Thrusters

OUT

  1. 5 Turkish Getups each side
  2. 10 KB Snatch each arm

Everyone got a turn, some a 2nd chance…I think the total attempts and workouts were 17-18.

There were two highlights to the event.

  1. Two Ferns went 1st, and proceeded to miss the target completely.  We started with 5 Turkish Getups, which set the mood perfectly. When he got the chance to redeem himself later he threw the beanbag as far as he could… clearly determined to show his distain for the heckling!
  2. Our 2nd Day PAXer Elmer Fudd was the ONLY PAX to hit the bullseye “M”. Today’s hero for sure.

We finished right on time, put the bells away and finished in COT.

Lots of Announcements – plenty to do… start with the Invergence next week!

Prayers for Costanza’s co-worker Nikki going through health and addiction issues.  And for YHC’s old friend Katie McCloud who lost her Mother to pancreatic cancer in a month.

A honor to lead,

Royale

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Shovel Flag Handoff @ The Deep

What a day!

This morning was a beautiful sight to see.  30 men came out to see the passing of the shovel flag from YHC to O’Reilly.  I have been lucky enough to call myself Site Q of The Deep since March(?) 2018 and have loved every minute of it.  When I was first asked to take over by Royale, I said yes without hesitation.  I didn’t know it at the time, but running this site was going to instrumental to my growth as a leader within our F3 region and in my personal life.  I remember when I first took over as Site-Q, there were Saturday’s that I wouldn’t make it out and just chalked it up to work the night before.  But it wasn’t long before I got my mindset on being present and taking on my leadership role.  When Royale asked me to take on being Site-Q, he didn’t want someone to just make a schedule and be absent.  So I changed work schedules accordingly and even if for some reason I had to work the night before; I still made it out the next morning.

Thanks to everyone that stepped up to Q during my tenure.  Without you, The Deep wouldn’t be where it is today.

The Thang:

Disclaimer for our 4 FNGs and the PAX.  Mosey across to the Elementary School.  COP exercises included: SSHs, Windmills, Moroccan Night Clubs, Merkins, Flutters and Mountain Climbers.  Maybe some other stuff but I forgot.

Shakespeare’s Q- Playground Dora

PAX partnered up.  100 pull ups, 200 Squats, 300 Freddie Mercury.  1 PAX work and other made a run around the playground area.  Swap on return.

O’Reilly’s Q- Track Work

PAX got into 4 groups and lined up on the track.  Each group took off and ran approx. 100M.  After the run, PAX completed various amounts of exercises as a group and then lined up for the next run/exercise.  It started as a slow mosey for 100M but it soon turned into a sprinting race between Witch Hunt and Two Ferns.  Which then turned into Witch Hunt, Two Ferns, Flux, Shakespeare, John Wick, and Wolverine… and some others… but they were behind me so I wouldn’t know.

Exercises after the run included (in no particular order): 50 Merkins, 50 Lunges, 50 Bomb Jacks, 50 squat jumps… and stuff like that.  You’d have to ask O’Reilly what he wrote on his Weinke.  I don’t remember.  I just remember doing all the exercises and reps.

NameORama and Ball of Man at the end.

Announcements (all in the past now)

Prayers- For our brother Riverboat who passed the night before.  He was Godly man who ministered the Word until his last moment.  Fighting a brain tumor and multiple recurrences of this over the years; he never wavered in his Belief.  We were lucky to have him come towards the end of a workout at The Deep and give him his name.  He prayed over us that day.  Riverboat will be missed on Earth; but we all know where he is and there is absolutely no doubt about it.

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Clutch at the Crows Nest

Had 16 HIM this morning at the Crow’s Nest

We started out with a typical warm up consisting of:

SSH, 5 Bur-pees, Windmills, 4 Bur-pees, Moroccan Night Clubs, 3 Bur-pees, Produce Pickers, 2 Bur-pees, Hillbilly Walkers, and yes you guessed it, one last Bur-pee

We took the long Mosey to the back to get started on the THANG:

DORA 1,2,3,2,1

Merkins

Bulgarian split squats

LBCs

Squats

Dips

Next on the agenda was going to be MONSTER 11’s on the “Green Monster” (Hill for those that may not know) BUT we were getting close to time so we went with the MINI MONSTER 11’s instead on the, less steep although just as long, hill nearer to the parking lot.

The 11’s consisted of CDDs at the top and Bur-pees at the bottom, but due to time constraints (and a few gassed PAX, namely me) I called an audible halfway through and we finished the 11’s with CDDs top and bottom.

Final mosey back to beginning for a refreshing round of stretches then we called it done.

Announcements: Invergence-Convergence , Block and Bears 5k

Prayers / Praises: Radars son turned 16 over the weekend, prayers for students and teachers starting back to school

Welcome FNG Dough Boy!

Thanks Ice for the oppertunity to lead!

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Copyright’s Counterclockwise Claudia

Cop

Pax started off with a full lap around the parking lot followed by some F your neighbor (exercise followed by everyone taking two-four steps to their left). AKA an excuse for me to share my 30#er.
Exercises included: bent over rows, tricep ext., Squats, moroccan night clubs

The Thang
Found this KB WOD on some CrossFit website. Claudia: 5 rounds of 20 KB swings, 400 m run

Kraken catch me if you can
Pax partnered up, P1 took two KBs and walked, P2 did a kraken burpee and ran to catch up and relieve partner for 2 laps.

DORA 100, 100, 100
P1 – KB thrusters, bent over rows (50 each arm), plank rows (50 each arm)
P2 – overhead carry to light pole (switch arm) and back

Finished with some Mary and a fan favorite counter clockwise nameorama.

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