Date: 8/7/18

QIC: Chappie

What happens when you buy sidewalk chalk at Family Dollar (not a commercial) and pick up a prescription next door at Walgreen’s (not a commercial)? You discover a yet-to-be-minted F3 pain station. YHC couldn’t believe these two walls separated by about a 20′ alley-way had somehow been overlooked for the past 2+ years, even after working out in and around the parking lot so many times. How’d we miss this grand station of a beatdown location? Who knows! YHC noticed it a few weeks ago and could hardly wait to get his Q on and personally introduce it (like a new found friend) to the rest of the PAX from the Milton Mustard Seed CHOP AO – Semper anticus! Well, this little “canyon” or “valley” IS ON THE MAP NOW! YHC will tell you all about it. In meantime, what say ye, men? Shall we call it The Valley of the Shadow of Death (even though there really was no “walk” through it) or Death Valley (because it was so doggone hot and there was no air)? The place will live up to its name either way. Here’s what it looked like after the Gloom — YHC had to go back and get a shot for this post:

Well, call it what you will…here’s how it all went down:

Warm-O-Rama:

SSH – 18 IC

MNC – 15 IC

Shell Picker, Crab Flipper, Cherry Picker – 10 IC

Hillbillies – 18 IC

Flying Squirrel – 10 OYO

Calf Raise (toes in) – 20 OYO

Calf Raises (toes out) – 20 OYO

The Thang:

Mosey to the new station (The Valley of the Shadow of Death  or Death Valley): Steady Mosey interchanged with a Picked-Up Mosey, switching between power poles/light poles all the way to Food Lion parking lot, ending in front of Walgreens:

Between the Walls (in the valley) – all OYO

5 Mike Tysons on one wall

10 Bombjacks in middle of alley

5 Mike Tysons on other wall

15 Burpees in middle, and so on…

5 Mike Tysons

20 MJB’s

5 Mike Tysons

10  Count/Breather (PAX had to get out of the valley because it contained no air!)

Back between the walls…

BTTW – 10 Count

People’s Chair – 10 Count

BTTW – 10 Count

PC, Leg Up (L) – 10 Count

PC, Leg Up (R) – 10 Count

YHC  forgot all who counted, but some counts were brutally slow. But, hey, it was in the valley of the shadow…

3rd F Message – a Brief Shared By YHC:

One leadership principle I’ve been pondering lately is this: “OUR REFERENCE POINT IS CRITICAL.”

Years ago I heard someone say that “if the whole world stinks, check your mustache.” The idea being that if there’s some old moldy cheese or other leftover food in your stache and that’s all that you’re able to smell, then from THAT reference point the whole world is going to stink. The metaphor is clear. It may not be the whole world at all; it might be your perspective, the reference point from which you “smell” [see] the world.

HOW WE SEE ANYTHING DEPENDS ON OUR REFERENCE POINT. I shared that thought in a recent sermon, but I think it’s just as applicable here, in F3. In fact, part of what we do here at O-GAWD-THIRTY (the Gloom) just about every day of the week, in some measure gives us a reference point for leadership. We get up very early; that’s the hard thing to do. We Q and prepare workouts and 3rd F messages hoping to inspire one another in spiritually, mentally, and physically in leadership; that’s the hard thing to do. We push ourselves and each other past self-imposed limits; that’s the hard thing to do! And we do all this and more, not just because of the fitness but because it does make us better leaders.

How does all this make us better leaders?

I believe one of the ways it makes us better leaders is that doing the hard stuff gives us a reference point. Let me explain, Mark Batterson mentions that psychologists refer to this as the contrast effect: If you lift a really heavy weight, then lift a lesser weight, it will seem lighter. We do this simply enough by doing really hard workouts. We do this with sandbags and cinderblocks. We do this with our rucks especially — we carry around 40lbs and then when we carry around 30lbs or less and everything else seems lighter. The reference point is the 40lbs or its the hard workout before anything else in the day comes along. Having that reference point is to help us to see things from a different perspective, one that is meant — in terms of leadership — to give us the reference point that just about everything else that follows throughout the day will not seem all that tough or difficult because we’ve already done something incredibly harder by comparison. This, again, is called the “contrast effect.”

The practice of Q’ing a workout also leads to the same outcome: We practice that leadership here regularly, and, in part, that practice carries over where it ought to most (it’s supposed to) — at home, in the workplace, and in the communities in which we serve.

In real life, it might bring about a different reference point after going through difficult circumstances. We are to see them differently after God carries us through them. (Point being that He is the One, then, who actually carried the weight…POINT BEING that Christ must be our reference point.) That’s why we cling to verses like Romans 8:28, “AND WE KNOW THAT GOD CAUSES ALL THINGS TO WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD TO THOSE WHO LOVE GOD…”

Those words of Scripture and the experience or fulfillment of them train us and give us perspective — and how you see anything depends on your reference point. When we’ve been through something, tough circumstances, and we can see how God turned them around for our good, it gives us a new critical reference point. Doing the hard thing here, carrying the extra weight here (in the Gloom) trains our bodies and our minds with the reality of these truths.

Back to work:

YHC’s failed attempt at the Hands of Time (one of his favorites, but its been awhile and he forgot how to do it. Oh well, still got in some ab-burn)

Steady mosey return to the AO.

Meanwhile, back at the AO…

GFerkins (Good Form Merkins) – 10 OYO

Mary, all 9 PAX got in a round but YHC can’t recall all that was chosen

Time’s up, only thing we missed on YHC’s Weinke was a round of Partner Push; next time. It’s all good, the Valley of the Shadow of Death (a.k.a. Death Valley) took a good bit out of us.

Great push by all the PAX.

COT:

Announcements:

Everyone is welcome to join Grace Church’s Warriors for Him men’s ministry for a hot dog cookout at The Home of the Brave this evening at 6. Home of the Brave is a homeless shelter for our veteran’s. Join us for some dogs and a few rounds of cornhole as we serve those who’ve served us.

Thursday Gloom we’ll have a guest Q – Nunchuk will be here serving up the beatdown and getting his F3 Passport stamped; let’s make a good showing in support of our brother from York, SC!

Prayers: Prayed for the substance abuse blanket to be lifted from Sussex County; prayer for others…

BOM

Welcome back Ying Ying, we’ve missed you brother! Good to see you. It was a privilege to lead all the fine HIM who broke the hold of the Fartsack and posted! Humbled and honored to lead the way.

~Chappie, out!