5 PAX won THAT FIRST BATTLE to post for a Chappie recovery workout +1. Meaning that it was a post Labor Day Beachday Beatdown +1 day, designed to get us moving but not to crush the soul. There’s something about working out in a group of 30, and there’s something about working out with a group of 5…bene’s on both ends of the scale. So here’s how things went down today:

QIC: Chappie

DATE: 9/8/21

WARM-O-RAMA

• SSH – 18 IC
• Mt. Man Pooper – 10 IC
• Swartzjack – 15 IC
• Moroccan Nightclubs – 30 IC
• Imperial Walkers – 18 IC
• Low Slow Squats – 18 IC

THE THANG

Mosey to wall at East end of Gigante parking lot (while sharing 20lb sandbags)

On the wall:

• Round #1:
  • 10 Chest Bump Irkins/Bearcrawl 70’/15 MJB’s OYO, back to the wall

• Round #2:
  • 10 Derkins/Crawlbear 70’/20 Bombjacks OYO, back to the wall

• Round #3:
  • 20 Chest Bump Irkins/ Lt. Dan 70’/25 X’s & O’s OYO

• Round #4:
  • 20 Derkins/Lt. Danger 70’/30 Gas Pumpers IC

• Round #5:
  • People’s Chair with OHC’s, 1 round of 10 Counts per each PAX/Dragon Crawl 70’/35 Flutter Kicks IC

YHC shared the following apropos 3rdF, directly from Q Source:

(Excerpt taken from QSOURCE by David “DREDD” Redding, Q1.5, 50-52)

Accelerating the M requires both skill and love

Marriage is not easy–it is not supposed to be. But because he never quits working at it, the HIM ultimately develops the skills he needs to enjoy life with his wife. To avoid committing relationship malpractice with his wife, the HIM focuses on five points of marital Preparedness:

1. Maintenance = Deceleration     

The M will not prosper if the HIM thinks in terms of maintaining its vitality rather than Accelerating it.

For the HIM:

• Movement is action taken in furtherance of purpose.
• Momentum is the sustained Movement that results from Acceleration
• To Decelerate is to decrease the pace of Movement

With this in mind, the HIM knows that he is either Accelerating or Decelerating in all his endeavors and relationships, particularly with his wife. There is no in-between state of nature such as “maintenance.” If you think you are maintaining, you are actually Decelerating because there is no Status quo. That is the myth of the plateau. Thus, the HIM never thinks of maintaining his marriage. He always focuses on Accelerating it.

2. The Culture is a Jester      

While the culture purports to embrace marriage, it is actually a hinderance to Acceleration. It breathes truthy-sounding lies like “my wife is my best friend,” and “we try every day to meet each other halfway,” and “we’re pregnant!” Why does our culture resort to Oprah Bombs like these when it comes to marriage? Probably because it doesn’t believe that anything so difficult can possibly be so good. The HIM knows the inverse to be true. Virtue takes work—it is the un-Virtuous act that comes easily and “naturally.”

3. There is no Fifty Yard Line     

Halfway is not good enough when it comes to the M. It is not a football game where husband and wife meet at the fifty-yard line for the coin flip. The HIM must drive the ball the full length of the field and stay in his wife’s red zone, regardless of whether she even breaks the huddle. To the Sad Clown focused on balance and fairness, this seems unfair and out-of-balance. Perhaps, but that’s what Acceleration requires when it comes to the M.

4. Your Wife is not Your Best Friend     

She is made for a much higher purpose. There is a pedestal in the life of the HIM that is set out for his wife and there is no room on it for his best buddy (that relationship is actually two more rings out on the HIM’s Concentrica). Nor is marriage a joint-venture within which man and wife have equal and identical roles. Husband and wife may both become parents, but it is only the mother who is pregnant. The lives of both husband and wife are changed by parenthood, but it is only the mother whose body is rearranged form the inside out, and only she who spends nine months in a state of complete vulnerability—during which the HIM is to be her stalwart and constant protector. The HIM does not let the culture confuse him. He knows his role, and it is nowhere nearly as important as hers.

5. Joy Trumps Happiness     

The culture often confuses joy and happiness interchangeably, but they are actually very different things. Happiness is a transitory positive feeling governed by mere external circumstances. Happiness is a full belly—it goes away when you get hungry again. In contrast, Joy is not so ephemeral. It is a permanent state of hopeful satisfaction that is unaffected by external happenstance. Joy cares not whether a man’s belly is full or empty. It requires a long view, well past the toils and triumphs of any given day. The HIM is a joyful man under any and all circumstances because his vision is cast at a point well beyond the day before him. His focus is on the end and beyond. What do joy and happiness have to do with marriage? Simple. A healthy and vital M is a lifetime pursuit. Anything designed to last a lifetime needs the pure fuel of Joy to grow and prosper. The short term warm and fuzzies of Happiness won’t do the trick. Happy-focused men give up on their marriages when the going is rocky because they are un-Happy. But the Joy-focused HIM views those same rough spots as the precise time to double-down on his Commitment to his bride. Anybody can stay married on a full belly. But it is within the crucible of hunger where the true bond between man and wife is formed.

Marriage is a Team, not a Community. It requires Proximity and purpose to succeed. It transforms a man from a selfish Happiness-junkie into a selfless Joy-seeker. The HIM knows if he fails at his M, nothing else he does will matter.

THE WHOLE CHAPTER IS WORTH A READ, check it out men!

Scripture Reference: (Ephesians 5:25-33)

²⁵ Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, ²⁶ so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ²⁷ that He might present to Himself the church ^[q]in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless. ²⁸ So husbands also ought to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; ²⁹ for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, ³⁰ because we are parts of His body. ³¹ For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. ³² This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church. ³³ Nevertheless, as for you individually, each husband is to love his own wife the same as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband. (YHC’s emphasis added)

Mosey back to the AO

As our pool of Q’s grow here at @f3firststate it’s amazing to see newer PAX get into the rotation, first with a Warm-up VQ, then with a full VQ. The Q list grows long so it’s even more a privilege to Q when the opportunities come. Grateful to lead these 5 HIM at the Grit Mill. Glad to be in the rotation.

COT:

• Number-Rama
• Name-O-Rama
• Announcements: Looks like our Hero’s Journey Gauntlet Ruck will be stepping off on Fri 9/10 at 2200 hrs. Plan: Ruck from the Grit Mill to CHOP and ending at the Aegis (hitting all our AO’s, i.e. The Gauntlet) for a 20 mile ruck, before partaking of the Saturday morning beatdown Q’d by the one and only Quattro. 20 miles = 20 years since 9/11. Looking forward to the challenge. Also: Fallen Angel: Call Sign – Extortion 17 showing tonight at 7 at Chauffer’s, all PAX welcome.
• Prayers: Praise for YHC’s buddy Jeff being able to get up on his feet and walk across his hospital room yesterday; prayers for marriages of the PAX of @f3firststate; prayers for YHC’s oldest son, Zeke (a.k.a. Nature Boy)