F3 Paradise Island – (The Glue) 2/26/20

F3 Paradise Island – (The Glue) 2/26/20

On Wednesday, February 26 – On a decent, semi-chilled, 27 degree, questionable facemask wearing morning, Tater Tot was ready to welcome the other 17 PAX including a to be named FNG brought by Merch (Anyone have his cell by the way?…). He tossed out the mission statement, suggested to connect with someone new or old, but to connect regardless, and we were off on our mosey to a non-traditional, not out of the wind setting that was lakeside on the veranda.

PAX: Wait Time, Lucky Charms, Fire Walker, Road House, Slow Pitch, Slick, White Claw, Arm Bar (Brah), Splinter (Cell), Bubbles (Love), Huffy (Ching, Ching), TC (Respect), FDIC, Khakis (Respect), Biff (Welcome FNG!), Merch, Blue Suede and Tater Tot.  

Warm a rama – After a street-led mosey to the veranda the PAX circled up and seemed quite organized and ready to rock. 

SSH X 15 IC

2 Burpees

Hillbillies X 10 IC

4 Burpees

Tappy Taps X 10 IC

6 Burpees

Hush Hush’s 

• Tater joined the circle and had everyone go into plank position. In cadence PAX moved their right arm and right leg in unison directionally to the right followed by the left arm and leg in unison. After moving to the right for a 5 count in cadence PAX held and did 5 merkins. We switched to the left, 5 merkins. To the right, 5 merkins and finally back to the left, 5 merkins. (Tater Tot quickly mentioned the exercise was influenced by the song produced by Kajagoogoo (Hush Hush Shy to Shy) being stuck in his head while practicing in his living room going side to side thinking his entire life they were saying “Hush Hush Side to Side”. Reality hit while looking the song up on Youtube while writing this backblast. Tater is an idiot but will continue to call this exercise Hush Hush….

On to the next mosey.

Tater Tot stopped at the base of Harney Parkway near a circular planter.  PAX completed the following when the six was in.

20 dips

20 incline merkins (Someone wanted extra credit for decline but was stopped)

10 dips

10 incline merkins

On to the next mosey on a side path up Harney to the top of the hill.

Tater stopped and gathered the PAX for a leg version of Hush Hush.  In a squatting position the group moved to the right in a 5 cadence, stayed in a low squat and did 5 air squats, move back to the left, 5 air squats, to the right, 5 air squats, back to the left and finished with 5 air squats.

On to the next mosey to Regency Park

The Little Thang

Once the PAX were gathered from the mosey we counted off into three groups for a grinder having a group at one flower pot, a second group running to release the third group at a flower pot 675ft away.  The groups performed the following rinse and repeat style until they were relieved from the push.

Pot 1 – 

5 Burpees

15 Dips

10 (IC) Decline Mountain Climbers

Pot 2 – 

10 (IC) Decline Shoulder Taps

10 (IC) American Hammers sitting on ledge with legs out

10 Jump Ups

After 15 minutes of the grind Omaha was called and we took off back to camp.  Tater led the group down an unfamiliar “dead end” street that many of the PAX yelled to let Tater know he was going the wrong way, or was he?…..  At the bottom of the dead end there was a lit path that took the PAX to three flights of steps that we decided to bear crawl down in order to get the group back together.  The final push was made to the shovel flags where smiles and fist bumps were had by all. 

Count off and Nama-O-Rama – The FNG (Biff) followed great directions from Merch on how to introduce himself as Tater Tot did not give him the heads prior to filming.

Announcements – 

Meal plan for Splinter. His wife will be having surgery on March 4.  Check Slack and twitter. 

Prayers for a PAX member that did not want to be mentioned

Prayers for Dredd who ran into Wait Time at the airport and was traveling to his sisters funeral

Closing thoughts – Tater Tot read a paragraph from Freed To Lead, the book that was written on behalf of the building of F3, that recently has been connecting with him and reiterated the importance of the connection with the PAX and the strength in continuously posting but also continue to EH and give away the gift of F3 that was given to you. 

Freed to Lead – Chapter 3, The Glue

“Inevitably, the world will shake a man.  When that happens, the damage done to the foundation of his life will depend upon the depth of his male friendships.  The stronger and more stubborn his friendships are, the less likely they are to fall through the bottom of The Sifter.  It’s these sticky friendships that a SadClown lacks. His friendships are finite and situational.  With F3, that changes.  Having gotten in shape through shared pain and sweat, he finds he has formed deep bonds with the men in his Workout.  When the world starts shaking, these guys don’t fall out of the bottom.”

I feel honored to have led this group!

Tater Tot – Aye!