Author: backblasts

This one is two months overdue, sorry about that fellas. Better late than never!

13 brave and daring PAX arrived, some for a double header after a Tortuga beatdown, and some fresh meat waiting to be tenderized. This was a particularly fun Q for me, as it not only gamified the beatdown and took our mind off the pain, but also added some funky spunky switch ups to how we do things. Had to think “outside the box”, which is the name of the game in the UK hit gameshow, “Taskmaster”, my inspiration for this Q.

Posting HIMs included:

1. Captain Crunch
2. Archive
3. Crack
4. Crash
5. Double Beef n Cheddar
6. TBTF
7. Sparrow
8. Nickerdoodle
9. Tortuga
10. Cookies
11. Banks
12. Jailbreak
13. Jäzz Händ

WoR
TASKMASTER COUNTING
IN CADENCE— COUNTING GOES AROUND THE CIRCLE PAX-BY-PAX
1 —> 2 —> 3 —> ONE 
1 —> 2 —> 3 —> TWO  
——
7 motivators 
20 arm circles forward IC
20 arm circles backward IC
20 goof balls
Daisy pickers (left + right + center)

This took about 7-10 minutes. Many silly faults, lots of penalty merkins for miscounting.

THANG 1
Taskmaster Coupon Carry. 
West lot to Pool House (street ending)
TWO TEAMS.
—> 1 MINUTE RELAY, 30 SECOND AMRAP COUPON EXERCISES — RINSE AND REPEAT <—
First team entirely across YELLOW BARRICADE by pool house wins. NO SHORTCUTS – use road only.
Start in west parking lot by flag, move along dry road to the pool house. Stay together, COMMUNICATE. 
Every 1 minute, Q’s alarm will sound: we stop, do AMRAP for 30 SECONDS of these in rotation: 
1) blockees    2) goblet squats    3) grave diggers    4) raised-coupon flutter kicks    5) derkins
After 30 second timer ends, resume coupon carry circuit. 
EACH PAX/TEAM will follow the following rules:

• Only one person  per team can move at a time. 
• After each AMRAP, you must switch what carry style from what you previously used.
• Each team must have at least 3 different coupon carry styles at all times.
• You must always be within 10 feet of someone on your team. 
• Penalty for breaking rules: entire team at fault does 10 burpees.
• Other team will be your whistle-blower.

I don’t remember which team “name” it was, but the other team (not mine) won this relay! Our team faulted twice due to @Sparrow ’s using a “UK foot” instead of a US foot to measure the 10-foot rule 🙄. This new routine took about 30 minutes.

THANG 2
Taskmaster Spelling Bee
Start at the northern most end of the pool house parking lot , end at Basketball Courts to the south. End goal is to spell “F-3” with coupons as a team on the basketball court. 
—> 20 SECOND TIMERS, REPEATING <—
Begin – all PAX line up at the starting line. Begin planking. Whenever timer sounds, someone calls new plank, and the Q released one PAX at a time from the starting point in 20 second waves.
Hands must stay below your knees at all times to transport your coupon. Take any path you choose. Options are bent over carries, murder bunnies, coupon drag—open to interpretation. 

Destination is out of sight so PAX can’t see results until they arrive. Each PAX adds their coupon to the growing creation that should end up spelling “F-3” on the ground on the basketball court. You can’t adjust previous PAX’s coupons when you arrive. When you are not transporting your coupon, you should be planking. Anyone can call a plank position for all PAX to hold. Switch every 20 seconds as PAX depart/arrive.

When the final PAX arrives, if the arrangement does not please the TASKMASTER QIC (YHC), 25 burpee penalty for everyone.

This worked very well and the Taskmaster QIC was pleased – no penalties! However poor @Jolly broke his coupons doing murder bunnies on the pavement! 

THANG 3
Taskmaster “Sing” of Fire
Circle up. Ring of Fire / doomsday clock (don’t remember which name is correct) – planking + merkins, one pax at a time.
Begin going around CW with merkins, one per PAX in order. In opposite direction CCW, one PAX sings first word  of “I’m a little teapot”. Next pax sings the next word. So on and so on. If someone gets it wrong or waits longer than 3 seconds to sing their word, everyone does punishment: 5 extra merkins at that moment. (There are about 22 words in that song.) Keep going. 

Eventually PAX gave up on singing portion and it came down to a couple PAX standoff for the last remaining PAX. I believe it was Archive and Captain Crunch but my memory is foggy on this one. 

Recover. Slow, zombie mosey carrying our coupons back to the flag for…

CoR/NoR/CoT

Coffee

Kevin Lipp

12 brave PAX convened in the gloom. (Banks, Panhandle, Shiplap, Whittler, Tortuga, Da Vinci, TBTF, Milk Duds, Babe, T-bone, Katniss, Big Mac)

Warm-o-rama

· Motivators (x7)

· Toy Soldiers (x10)

· Lunges (10 each side)

· Merkins (In cadence, 15)

Game 1: Sandbag Race

As a team, move your sandbag to the end of the parking lot and back. It can only advance by being thrown. Each throw must be earned by completing any of the following. All exercises must be completed before repeating.

· 20 burpees

· 30 starjumps

· 40 merkins

· 50 BBSU

Teams 2 was victories, team 3 got 2nd and team 1 was eliminated and absorbed into teams 2 and 3.

Game 2: Kubb Competition

Set up 5 Kubb blocks for each team 15 yards apart with the King kubb in the middle. Earn throws of the tossing dowels by completing exercises, each bullet point is one throw. You may accumulate throws. Dowel must be thrown underhand end-over-end. The first team to knock over all of the opposing team’s blocks and the King kubb wins.

First 3 rounds:

· 50 curls

· 30 overhead presses

· 30 skull crushers

After that:

· 50 bent over rows

· 30 high pulls

· 50 presses

Both teams played valiantly displaying both dedication and a very evenly matched utter lack of coordination. Although at the end Team 3 edged out Team 2 by a single Kubb block. Neither team had been vanquished at the end of regulation play.

Moleskin – (Quote from CS Lewis in Mere Christianity) Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive—is competitive by its very nature—while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others.

Call: Focus on what you have to be thankful for, not on what others have that you lack.

Prayer: Bloomer’s 2.0’s operation on Friday. Praise for T-Bone’s job, Prayer for SAGA and his M.

QIC: Beaker

11 faithful PAX gathered in the gloom for a beatdown orchestrated by YHC.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional, I do not know your injuries. Modify as needed.

WAR: Goofballs (x15 ic), Abe Vigodas (x10 ic), Tappy taps (x10 ic), Arm circles (oyo), Arm across chest (oyo)

PAX were divided into two teams (team 1: Bloomer, Cheese, Jolly, Saga, Shiplap, Tortuga; team 2: Banks, Beaker, Hotbox, Panhandle, T-bone) and moseyed to the obelisk—after explaining to Shiplap what an obelisk is.

Thang 1: the two teams raced around the long loop to the far baseball diamond; each team traveled in an Indian/scout run. Team 1 traveled clockwise, team 2 traveled counter-clockwise. Team 2 won and was awarded 1 point.

Thang 2: Team 1 Bataan death crawled from the edge of the baseball diamond to the east end of Dan Taylor alley and then came back via Dan Taylor getups (Dan Taylors, but with no surrenders in place of squats). Meanwhile, Team 2 ran around the baseball diamond doing multiples of 7 reps at each base/plate.

Round 1: 1×7 diamond merkins

Round 2: 2×7 merkins

Round 3: 3×7 leg raises

Round 4: 4×7 lbcs

When one team finished their routine, both teams stopped, and then switched routines. The team that went around the baseball diamond won both times; 1 point was awarded to each team.

Thang 1, revisited: Both teams continued in an Indian/scout run, travelling in the same direction that they had originally travelled, completing the loop. Team 1 won and was awarded 1 point.

Thang 3: We moseyed back to the parking lot as a group. As a tie breaker, we did a doomsday clock in plank position, adding merkins by 2s and holding an Al Gore when you were out. At 6:15 both teams had 3 HIMs remaining in the clock and it was declared a tie. Both teams split the prize of an additional 100 burpees.

NOR: Banks, Beaker, Bloomer, Cheese, Hotbox, Panhandle, Jolly, Saga, Shiplap, T-bone, Tortuga

Moleskin: F3 taps into the reality that we are people who long to be named. When we are named, a new life is created; we become our new name. Upon being named, we are brought into the PAX. In the PAX we are given the gift of a community that reminds us of our names every time we show up, and thus continues to nourish and call forth that new creation. This follows the pattern first demonstrated to us when God names us as his sons, calls us forth as a new creation, and gives us the church to daily remind us of our new name, nourishing and calling forth our new selves. In this same way, the other most important relationships in our lives are ones in which we receive new names (husband, father), new realities, and new roles. We are also given a new community (our Ms and 2.0s) who call us forth to live into our new names. YHC encouraged the gathered HIMs to go forth into their day, remembering that they are new creations empowered to live into their names as son of God, husband, and father.

COT: Prayers for Bloomer’s 2.0 Cooper’s surgery on Friday, Jolly’s 2.0 Rancher as he returned home from college to finish the semester remotely, Tortuga’s M and tweaks to her medication, and for us to live out our lives as new creations.

15 Pax showed up on a beautiful Saturday morning at AO Tar Pit for a Connect 4 inspired beat down!

WOR: Motivators, Arm Circles, Michael Phelps, Tappy Taps, Quad Stretches.

The Thang

Once the Pax were warmed up and ready to go we headed over to the Tar Pit track. We did a schoolyard pick to spilt into two teams. Captains Shiplap (Red Team) and Big Mac (Black Team) carefully picked the Pax they would go to battle with. Not surprisingly, Tortuga was a top pick while Jolly was nice enough to let everyone else be selected before he committed to a team.

Now that the teams were picked it was time for the competition to begin! There were 8 stations spread out around the track. Each player would take a Connect 4 token with them as they made their way around the track completing all 8 exercises along the way.

Station 1 – 25 Merkins

Station 2 – 25 Lunges

Station 3 – 25 Big Boy Situps

Station 4 – 10 Burpees

Station 5 – 25 Merkins

Station 6 – 40 Squats

Station 7 – 25 American Hammers

Station 8 – 10 Burpees

Each time a Pax completed a lap they were able to play their Connect 4 token.

In addition, opposing team Pax could challenge each other in a race. One Pax would sprint a lap around the track while the other would complete 25 burpees. The first to complete the challenge would take the loser’s token and be able to play two tokens their next time around. Tortuga and Big Mac were the only ones to attempt the challenge. Not surprisingly, Big Mac easily won despite Tortuga putting up one of his fastest lap times.

Official records are unclear, but I believe Big Mac’s black team was the clear Connect 4 winner!

NOR: Archive, Beaker, Big Mac, DaVinci, Gummy Bear, Hotbox, Jolly, Katnis, Noodles, Panhandle, Saga, Shamu, Shiplap, Tortuga, Whittler

COT: Prayers for safe travels for Noodles, sleep for Tortuga’s M, reduction in Covid cases on campus.

QIC: Beaker

11 PAX gathered for run club/ruck club.

WAR

Motivators (x7 ic)

Quad stretching OYO

Tappy taps (x15)

Abe Vigodas (x10)

The Thang:

The run clubbers ran on the prairie path. The ruck clubbers rucked on the prairie path.

NOR

Run club: Archive, Banks, Shiplap, Tortuga, DaVinci, Whittler, Big Mac, Jolly

Ruck club: Babe, Jailbreak, Beaker

COT: We gave thanks for beautiful weather and bodies that work, we prayed for Captain Crunch’s friend’s wife and baby, Jazz Hands’ friend’s husband, and Sparrow’s trip to Armenia.