Changing of the Guards

Changing of the Guards

Today was a sentimental day for me,  it was 3 years ago I first started F3.  It was at this particular site.   A site started by my dear friends and hero’s Ice 9 and Snowflake.  I still remember the first time my friend Kevorkian EH’d me to come.  He said “you gotta come Sean,  you’ll love this F3 thing.”  I had heard about it before but didn’t give it much credence,  I worked out in my garage,  I had my own thing going but I decided to give it a try given my friends excitement.   I remember I was originally planning on wearing my weight vest, THANK GOD I didn’t, Dasher was on Q that day,  I believe it was his VQ and he kicked my ass.  I was only 15 minutes into the workout and I was cooked and I was hooked.  More about that later.

The WU (AS BEST I CAN REMEMBER):

Snowflake Kicked us off.  Quick Disclaimer, mosey around the lot to the bus pick up

15SSH, 15MC,  10 Merkins, 10 Low Slow Squats, 10 Plank jacks then head to the wall for peoples chair followed by balls to the wall.  Quickly Grab a friend and it was two sets of Curls, Triceps extensions then shoulder presses (10 each).

The Thang: Mosey to the half wall with a lunge walk across the bridge, to the half wall.  10 Step ups each leg, 10 Derkins, and 10 triceps extensions (X2) some quick Mary  up to the side concessions.  YHC takes over,  quick stop for some American Hammers the to the side lot for my main show.  Partner up for 100 burpees while P1 runs the loop,  swap till you get to a hundred.  Mosey back to the concession stand by the flag pole for the handoff to Mad Dog.

Mad Dog takes on a mosey to the back of the school with a bear crawl across the icy bridge (Ironically,  we did that on my first work out, thought it was stupid crazy back then, as well:) up to the railing for 10 Supines with a mosey around the sidewalk and a calf raise up each step (this X3).  Mosey to the side of the school and utilize same partner with the timer being 100 Mike Tyson’s while P2 runs the lap till completions.  Mosey to the hill in the front of the school. BREAK: in all my years I  personally have never used this decent hill in the front of the school,  never,  what a great place to advertise and show F3 to people driving by and I have never ever used this hill, Break OVER.  7’s on the hill with merkins at the bottom and burpees at the top.  Short mosey to the front of the school for some quick mary to finish.

Moleskin:  So back to my sentimental discussion.  In discussing with Mad Dog taking over as Site Q he had many interesting and good questions,  questions about protocol, expectations,  and culture.  So bore me for a minute and let me share with you some of what I shared with him as F3 means a lot of different things to different people.

What it means to me, at first it was success.  I saw men that were older than me that could run circles around me,  Snowflake is a beast and the way I looked at it was,  he’s 52, in shape, do what he does if you want to be in shape when your 52.  Common sense to me,  success is 90% copy,  so what I have found for myself is find people I define as successful and do what they do, its not complicated.

But as time went on F3 became so much more to me, it taught me what true leadership is about, it has taught me about developing other leaders,  it has taught me that unless you put others ahead of yourself you can never get to meaningful friendships and relationships. It has taught me that it should be a blessing to men and can change their lives for the positive. F3 has also taught me so many other things I don’t have time to share them all but I can tell you, I am very grateful for the relationships I have developed through F3 and I’m looking forward to developing more.

So it was with great pride and honor that Snowflake, Doc and myself could hand these responsibilities and more importantly the culture over to Mad Dog and Popeye as trusted carriers of the culture and with that they will bring their own individual culture to the F3 that we all get to enjoy.

Last,  Mad Dog takes the bull by the horns at the COT and asks if anyone would be willing to be his co-site Q (by the way, pretty sure Mad Dog has been dying to say this since day one in the COT with Popeye).  Popeye steps up,  great fit,  but the mumble chatter quickly realizing that two civilians just handed the reins over to two ex military and then Mad dog  WITH OUT EVEN FLINCHING states;

“You know the Marines is a department of the Navy,  THE MENS DEPARTMENT.”

Commitment is in good hands