Tag: The Birdcage

After many days and more sleepless nights of relentlessly preparing for what I prayed would be a perfect VQ, I woke up to a beautifully, wet, muddy and demeaning Gloom, courtesy of the Birdcage. Nonetheless, 16 strong braved the weather and duck-filled fields to get covered in sweat and dirt.

The Thang:

• Disclaimer

• “Side Straddle Hop” x 25

• Two lines of a “Burpee Catch Me If You Can Indian Run”
  • Enough for each Pax to get in one set of 5 Burpees

• “Global Warming” where the ducks most certainly left some treats behind for us
  • Mixed in with…
    • Peter Parkers x 25
    • Imperial Walkers x 21…  –  hope to get better at the whole counting thing
    • Arm Circles Forward x 20
    • Arm Circles Back x 20
    • Monkey Humpers x 20
  • (All done while a park employee surely sat in his truck recording the 16 strange men dancing in a circle)

• Mosey back to light posts

• “B.O.M.B.S.” – I severely underestimated how long this would take us. When I look at the numbers again, I’m not sure why. Timing adjustments will be made for my next Q!
  • 50 Burpees
  • 100 Overhead Claps
  • 150 Merkins
  • 200 Big Boy Sit-Ups
  • 250 Squats
  • (pairs who finished early started a second round)

• Workout Complete

• Successful name coup by Breitbart mid-nameorama. Bold move. Bold indeed.

Pumped to have lost my V-card and looking forward to the next Q!

Words of wisdom to anyone planning their VQ:

• You’ll need to take off an entire day of work to go through ALL the exercises on the F3 site.
• Run through your full workout ahead of time so you know what you’ll actually be able to fit in. Should have listened to Reverend on this one!

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A chilly Feb pre-Mardi Gras AM. With 13 PAX circled up and waiting for the joy that El Wire would bring us.

We started with a long MOSEY to the soccer field in front of the ZOO.
About halfway there – Nip/Tuck had to bail bc he wasn’t feeling well. Tclaps for the early wake up – Hope you get well!

Circled up for the warm up: A Jack O Rama
25 SSH, 25 smurf jacks, 25 plank Jacks, and 25 Seal jacks, 20 merks, and sealed with 10 burpees

Then we had a medium mosey over to the LEVEE for 8’s.
We did V-ups at the bottom and burpees at the top.

Then we did a LONG mosey to the highest point in NOLA. The Hill on the Levee. At the HILL El Wire got his revenge for us picking on him about the HUMAN Centipede. I keep waiting for that to return.
So we 5 merks bear crawl up the levee, bear crawl down the levee, 20 shoulder taps on the other side, then we bear crawl backwards up the levee and down the levee still backwards. Rinse and repeat 3 times.

Then we did a medium mosey to exit to the FLY. Here we did 25 shoulder taps on the tracks for some Wiley Coyote. Some mumblechatter about the appearance of coyotes on the levee lately.
Then we had the long mosey to the flag.

A really nice COT reflection with El Wire reminding us to appreciate the people who support us in life and in our jobs.

This BB posted by RY until he can offer a bbschool next Q by Wire.

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Thanks to an APB from the New Orleans F3 Director of Media Communications and General Supplier of All New Orleans F3 News You Need to Know, Reluctant Yankee, the QIC was informed on Q eve of a special guest at The Birdcage this morning.  Apparently it has been leaked to the media all of the hilarious mumble chatter and half-ass workouts that New Orleans F3 has kept quiet these past two years and now NOLA.com would like to run a feature on us.  What better way to get the scoop but to send a reporter with video camera to film our workout.  With so much on the line I was not going to let a little chest cold that had me sweating like 86 on the counting segment of Sesame Street last night keep me from posting my Q.  16 other F3 finest felt the same way.  Casey Jones was so moved by a chance at a feature spot that he even pulled a Kotter.

Our kind videographer let me know that she couldn’t stay for our whole workout as she had to get to her own real physical endevour of Loyola Lady Wolfpack basketball practice.  I just knew we were going to have her laughing inside at some point during the warmup.

Warm Up:  Action!  F3 disclaimer and away we go for a quick mosey around the golf course parking lot and back to oak alley.

• SSH IC X 30 (Featured Pax based on the glare of the camera light: QuickDraw)
• IW IC X 30 (Up-Short shot of Douille)
• Smurf Jack X 30 (Yankees untanned thighs catching the lens for sure)
• Plank position for Peter Parker X 20 -> Plank Jack X 20 -> Mountain Climbers X 20 (With the camera rolling no one was cussing)

Mosey to the Shelter for some bench work (keeping it close by for the crew):

• R leg step ups X 20
• Dips X 20 (Jadaveon in the spotlight as I think she wanted to feature as least one pax who actually looked like they were physically benefitting from the workout)
• L leg step ups X 20
• Decline Merkins X 10 -> Shoulder Taps X 10 -> Decline Merkins X 10 (A lot of knees on the ground at one point and about all our camera crew needed to see to determine we might be hopeless)

Free to be ourselves again mosey to the pull up bars for some group activities.  Groups of 4 or 5 with rotation from station to station:

• Partner pull ups. 10 pull ups and then rotate with the partner for support.  This station is the count.  Some were sharper than others on how to pull this off.
• Bobby Hurleys
• Lunges
• Mission Impossible.  The possibility of group pulling this off for the duration of the count was tough and in Q Karma the guys in the pull up group during my Mission Impossible I think were holding hands between pull ups.  Oh Well.

Mosey to the levee for some 7’s as time was running a little low to pull off 11’s. By this point my cold had me sucking wind and I couldn’t even finish this- sorry.  The aim was 6 burpees at the bottom and 1 incline merkin at the top with respective count down and count up.  Nice job to everyone else for busting this out.

Mosey back to the flag with 4 minutes to spare for some Mary in the dirt.  This would have been great footage.

• V-ups X 20
• Superman X 3 sets of 10s
• Pickle Pounders X 10
• Putin X 20 and donesky

Count-off yielded 17.  Nameorama.  Intentions included thanks for Yankee’s mom’s discharge from the hospital.  Casey Jones works in New Orleans East and has many coworkers who were affected by the tornado yesterday and he offered their recovery as an area of special prayer.  I thanked God for sparing us any causalities during the potentially deadly storms of yesterday.  Thanks for the opportunity to lead!

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We gathered by the flag to find out the Q’s watch was 45sec slow. Nevertheless we begin.

Mosey to grassy area to warm up

• SSH IC x20
• Imp Walker IC x20
• Hill Billy IC x20
• Seal Jacks IC x20
• Smurf Jacks IC x20
• Parker Peter IC x20
• Plank Jacks IC x20
• Peter Parker IC x20

Mosey to find grassy area for 2nd warm up

• Plie’ IC x10 by 4x
• Superman IC x20
• Monkey Humpers IC x20
• Plank Walk IC x20
• J Lo IC x20mosey to front of park benches to have some more fun
  • One Leg Squat IC x20 (each Leg)
  • Dips IC x20
  • Power ups IC x20 (each leg)
  • Incline Merks x12

  Mosey back towards flag, but stop for voluntary mary first. Each Pax takes turns selecting a MARY exercise 10x each. Back to the flag just in time, few may say it was 45sec over.

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I signed up Reverend for this Q a few weeks back but I never checked in with him about it – so as punishment for my failed forced Q – I covered the Q.

Today as I walked up the flag was there -thanks whoever brought it. Douille was there in long sleeves – it is 75 degrees but he is still adjusting after his Disabled List run. I was surprised to see Hawg – I guess he was hoping for Reverend’s Q. Word on the street Reverend brings tons on non-traditional exercises – sorry Hawg.
Also Whoop! was in the house. Welcome back Kotter. 14 PAX in a humid, foggy gloom.

I brought James’s speaker for some Tabata but first things first. Disclaimer. Then a short mosey to Oak Alley for a COP warmup.
SSH x 20, Hillbillies in honor of Hawg x 25, Plank Jacks x 20, Peter Parkers x 20, and finished with Squat arm circles front x 12 back x 12

Then a short mosey to the over-hangy thing. or as Roots calls it a Shelter.

Here we did our first “real” timed event.
30 secs of Lateral Jump Burpees, 10 sec recover 30 sec of Lateral Bear Crawl. We did 4 rounds of this.

Then mosey for .33 miles.

Next we did traditional Tabata. Sumo Squat Jump 8 rounds 20 secs on 10 sec recovery. Then we did Staggered Merks 8 rounds 20 secs on 10 sec recovery. Seaman was excited about the Sumo Squats – he has been asking to round out his glutius maximus.

Then we ran a lap to the golf course side. . 25 miles.

Back for some more traditional TABATA. Here we did 8 rounds 20 Sec on 10 sec recover of Broad Jump Burpees and then we finished TABATA with Walking Plank.

Then we mosey’d to the FLAG. We arrived at 613 so we did 20 Russian Twists to get us to the 615 mark.

COT: A prayer for my mother who had a mini-stroke 2 weeks ago. I asked us to be aware of the people we take for granted and remind ourselves to appreciate them NOW. Watching my father care for my mother was eye opening and made me reflect on who we care for and how we care for them. Love your loved ones with real deliberateness this week. (and always but we always slide back into the routine don’t we…)

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With all the hate, YHC decided we needed more love, love of DownPainMents.  So after a quick disclaimer, The Thang focused on several things apparently new to Uptowners.  Spread the love, and Pain.

After a shortish (and unsuccessful) mosey to see if any tomatoes were setting out their yoga mats, COP1 at the bandstand:

• SSH 30xIC
• Imperial Squats 25xIC
• Peter Parkers 30xIC
• Parker Peters 25xIC
• Monkey Humpers 30xIC

YHC has realized for some time that Uptowners have a limited repertoire.  Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but other than YHC there were no old dogs here.  So COP2, that is, some Route 66 along the Alley of Death.  11 burpees at the bollards (Tclaps to Roots for correcting YHC on the name; YHC couldn’t even remember his own backblast last week for the vocabularistically challenged), mosey to first lamp post for 10 burpees, etc. all the way to the tenth lamp post by the Kiddie Fountain (I thought it was one of the several Popp fountains around town, but Reluctant Yankee contends it a Hyams fountain, which Google identifies as the fountain at the entrance of the amusement park in City Park; are there two?  Until the PAX can investigate or the Official Historian Tool can confirm, YHC will just call it the Kiddie Fountain) across Magazine for 1 burpee for a total of 66 burpees.  Quizzical mumblechatter asking YHC whether the PAX had to cross the street.  Year, dear, but look both ways first.  So Route 66 was apparently a first for The Birdcage.

Since the Kiddie Fountain (see above) has so many good, square edges, some merk-o-rama was in order: a quick 20 merkins in cadence followed by a quick ten derkins in cadence.  Now for COP3, apparently another first for Uptowners: some Dora: pair up for 100 Imperial Walkers, 200 Squats and 300 LBCs with alternating moseys to second lamp post and back.

Mosey back down the Alley of Death for a closing Circle of Mary for COP4:

• American Hammer 25xIC
• Flutter Kicks 25xIC
• Dying Cockroach 25xIC
• Dr. W 10xIC (apparently another Uptowner first; remember it PAX, you’ll feel it again, I promise)
• Hello Dolly 25xIC
• V Ups 10xIC

Tclaps for Tito’s Kotter.  A true HIM: he didn’t let his ankle rule the day.

Peace, Jingle Vader

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