Burpees are like Life

Jocko Willink says this is not a big philosophical statement, but it resonated with me “Burpees are like life”. In fact it resonated to the point that todays workout is based on the fact that, like a burpee, in life you “fall down and get back up”. Check out this video to listen to Jocko say it – https://mobile.twitter.com/jockowillink/status/890221220678868994/video/1   21 men, including 2 FNGs realized what Jocko meant by the end of the morning.

Warmup – We took a quick “Follow me” mosey around the Murphy Meadow followed by the disclaimer. We started with a little warmup in honor of our SE Regional Champs who just finished their 2nd no-hitter in Williamsport. It began with Smurf Jacks followed by Wimpie Legs > Donkey Kicks; Jump Squats; Jump Lunges. Then 5 burpees, carefully explaining the difference between a “flying squirrel” and burpee. YHC took a moment to explain Jacko’s little philosophical statement to the pax after Wimpie Legs.

The Thang – We moseyed to the Parking lot hill by Charles with a partner – sharing a time in life when you “fell down”. We then completed a Burpee ladder starting with one burpee at the bottom of the hill, then 2 and the top, 3 at the bottom…you get the point. We had a strong pax and that didn’t take as long as expected. However the legs were spent and the burpees did their deal.

The next transition consisted of telling the same mosey partner a time when you “got back up” as we moseyed to the tennis court hill. We completed Bono BLIMPS. It wasn’t until after the workout that Abu reminded me that BLIMPS are done in a straight line and not repeated. Figured that we needed to do a lot of burpees and repeating the prior exercised made sense. Here’s how the Bono BLIMPS went down. We started at the bottom of the hill at the courts running to the top to complete the exercise, then back down. Next time up complete the first exercise, then the next. Keep repeating until all the BLIMPS exercises are complete. That was 6 sets of burpees.

We then moseyed to the circle. The concert last night meant we had to mosey around a fence, but no worries. Pied Piper led us in Flutter Kicks; Matlock led us in Capt Thor’s (sit up with an American Hammer) and Aquaman showed us his Full Eclipse leading us in Jack knives. We ended with somewhere between 80-100 burpees depending on the numbers in the ladder and finishing with the 6.

BOM/COT – Prayers for all the ECU students and PCS teachers coming back today. Band Camp and Fall sports have been practicing/playing for a couple of weeks now. T-Claps for Wimpie and Abu having a birthday. (We got to do 34 birthday burpees in F3 Littleton (Denver) style. Prayers and thoughts for the LLWS SE Champs and their parents. Consider donating to the Go Fund Me for the families.

Moleskin – Things are changing for me. Dissertation research will start Thursday. Life is changing. Duties are changing. The recent overwhelming feeling is getting the better of me. Sunday, I was supposed to Lay read at Church. It’s a duty I have enjoyed for years. I forgot and instead went to see my parents to get a mattress for my 2.1 as we set her room back up after dealing with a water leak the entire summer. I don’t forget to do duties at church and Sunday at 12:15, I stopped on the side of the road and apologized to our secretary, pastor, and the good friend who read in my place. It was appropriate in a failure to “own it”.

Jock Itch and Pied Piper have been rucking around the world, or at least have been doing enough EC rucking to try. They both have shared some Jocko speeches and thoughts recently and the one above was something I listened to Sunday. When Hat Trick needed a Q the idea started to come together. I need my brothers to get through the tough times in life. This is going to be a tough 6 months and I will get knocked down a lot. I will rely on you all to hold me accountable and to stay balanced. That will mean giving up F3 on M, W, Fridays when my bride trains clients and I have Daddy and dissertation duty. It means making sure I post 3-4 other days a week. It means me staying connected using the Twitter-verse and reaching out to good friends I haven’t seen in a while. It was awesome this morning when Early Bird showed up. He is a friend that I still count on from the early days of ENC. I hope to see another old friend very soon…I will get knocked down and get back up, every time… and then “get after it”.