12 HIMs graciously posted for my Virgin-Q in full knowledge that it would likely be an absolute shambles. I had to do something British-themed for my first ever Q so, with it being the day of the London Sevens which is an annual rugby sevens tournament, I decided to do a Rugby Sevens inspired workout. You may not know it, but the US is part of the World Rugby Sevens and they’re sometimes pretty good at it (although sitting at 9th in the standings right now). Sevens is a much more simplified version of rugby, which is probably why the US is better at it than normal rugby, played with seven players instead of the full 15. Thought that by focusing on sevens it could be a good intro to the game.
Warmup:
Side straddle hops, arm circles, grass grabbers, toe touches, imperial walkers, peter parkers, merkins (only messed up the cadence once)
Got into pairs and moseyed to the shaft passing the rugby ball between each other. The Rugby ball can only go backwards so each player had to sprint ahead to pass the ball backwards to his teammate. You could not move if you didn’t have the ball. Any dropped passes meant 5 burpees which is the number of points you get for a touchdown in rugby, aka, a try.
7 burpees on our own at the gazebo after regrouping. Continued the passing drill to the shaft with the addition that the person without the ball had to do a single burpee while the person with the ball moved ahead of him. It appeared that I had over-estimated the hand-eye coordination of the group (to be fair, some of the pairs were geared up more than others…only so many rugby balls in circulation here so some were forced to use toy footballs that got completely taken with the wind with each pass…) and so was running a little behind schedule but we made up for this for a quicker than expected Sevens (staying on theme) – derkins and sister Mary Catherines. Bear crawl one way, run back.
Moseyed to the rugby pitch, no passing this time.
Get into teams and then did a passing along the line drill. A dropped pass was 7 burpees for the team (this was changed to 5 burpees for the team that YHC joined in with). The other team did merkins/squat jumps in the meantime (merkins on way up, squat jumps on way back).
YHC gave his best attempt at explaining the rules of touch rugby in about 3 minutes and then game-on – 15 min (7 min halves).
Skins v Shirts with Shirts kicking us off. Good formation to start with but it seemed like some of the players got confused with the fact that you are actually allowed to run forwards, you only have to pass it backwards…not too much territory made in the opening play. The Skins got the first try after a good line break (apologies, can’t remember which HIM scored first as I left it a week before I wrote this), but the Shirts re-grouped and came back strong to score two tries in quick succession. After a high-risk move to intercept the ball by the Skins didn’t pay off (if you don’t catch an interception and fumble it, it means a possession turnover), the Shirts were in a commanding position. In the closing minutes of the game, the Skins had their backs against the wall in defense but held firm to win a turnover deep in their own territory. From this position, Zoolander scored a highly controversial try to level the game in the final seconds. The try was awarded against a fierce appeal from the Shirts about a forward pass…this decision was in no way affected by the fact that the impartial ref had jumped into the game a few minutes beforehand and had started playing on the side of the Skins.
Throughout the game, there was some obvious flouting of the offside rule and a little bit of confusion on the number of touches before a turnover, which wasn’t helped by a very forgetful ref, however we had some great runners of the ball on both sides and, all in all, was very impressed with the ability of the HIMs to pick up the concept of the game very quickly. Obviously a testament to the Q. It was great way to get some good cardio in while having some fun. Next time we’ll be introducing scrums…
After a few reminders about time running out, we moseyed back, no passing the ball. No time for any core.
Announcements – Spartan Beast, T-shirt ordering and Bogue Chitto trail run on June 15.
COT – Russo closed us out with a special prayer for Grundy and his soon-to-be new addition to his family.
