Happy Hills -- No More Cowbell -- 10-9-21

[Matthew Deegan]

Backblast! --No More Cowbell-- 

Date: Saturday, 10/9/2021

AO: #ao_happy_hills

PAX: @Sunny, @Red, Boardwalk, @Kitten, Dribbles, Smokey, @Commando, @Bombay, @Q-Sack, L2, @Chairman

FNGs: 0

Q: @Dookie

Total: 12

Conditions: (NMS) Music producer Christopher Walken pleaded with musician Will Ferrell for more cowbell in that great SNL skit many years ago.  Well, on this day in the Gloom, an older female neighbor to Happy Hills requested the opposite.  During our Field of Dreams group work, a woman emerged from her back yard to complain about the Happy Noise that has reached her house every Saturday morning for the last month.  Sunny took the brunt of the woman's fury, and stood there bravely like a teacher who gets berated by a parent for not allowing her son to get a ticket to the Homecoming Dance.  I'm sure Sunny has no idea what that's like.  After the break in the action, the PAX completed the Thang in hushed tones and nixed the cowbell that was announcing each station transition.

In other news, the beatdown started and ended with Free Throws and Planking Shoulder Taps.  YHC was inspired by PuddNHead's carnival game at Gotham the previous morning.  However, the Happy Hills PAX fared no better than the men at Gotham, shooting 2 for 24 from the line (8%).  But it's OK, even Michael Jordan didn't make his JV team.

Despite the impromptu public comment session from a neighbor, much fun was had, especially during our Ring of Soakers and Homer to Marges.  We should stick to those, and leave basketball to Kihei Clark and Tony Bennett.

Thanks to Red and Q-Sack for the PLC, and thanks to Dribbles for leading us during Mary.

Warm-Up:

·     Side Straddle Hops

·     3rd Graders

·     Don Quixotes

·     Sun Gods

Thang 1:

– Free Throws & Planking Shoulder Taps

PAX form arc around 3-point-line; each PAX does planking alternating shoulder taps while 1 PAX shoots free throw.  A make means celebration and no additional exercise.  A miss comes with 3 burpees for all PAX.  There were many, many burpees.

-Mosey to back field of the park

Thang 2:

-- Field of Dreams Diamond

PAX forms 4 groups.  Time keeper is the 10 burpees at home plate.  After burpees are done, rotate to next base via Lunges and Bear Crawls.

Home -- Burpees

First Base -- LBCs

Second Base -- Mountain Climbers

Third Base -- Squat Jumps

*Mosey on path behind park, plank at a grassy spot

Thang 3:

-- Rings of Fire - first merkins, then soakers & homer to marge

*Medium / Hard run back to basketball court

Thang 4:

– Partner Suicides on basketball court, followed by more Free Throws & Plankiong shoulder taps

Mary, led by Dribbles:

·     World War Twos

·     Pickle Pounders

·     American Hammers

Announcements:

·      Sign up to take part in the Bridge Campus workout on Saturdays in Buckingham.

·      Sign up to Q.

Count-o-Rama

Name-O-Rama

Q took us out in a reflection about how point fingers outward at others can distract us from the inner work we ALL need to do to improve ourselves:

In the early 1900s, the English newspaper The Times of London asked famous authors of the time to write a response to this question: What’s wrong with the world?

The English writer and thinker G.K. Chesterton responded with a short, but profound statement.  He wrote back:

Dear Sir,

I am.

Yours, G.K. Chesterton

When I was thinking about his response, I don't think Chesterton was trying to beat himself up.  His message was a reminder of humility.  

"Who am I to judge what’s wrong with the world?” I imagine him asking himself when he received that request from the newspaper.  “There’s so much I still need to get right about myself.”  

It can be so easy to blame everything else and everyone else.  We see this play out in our politics:  It’s not my tribe that’s the problem; it’s the other tribe that can’t get their facts straight.  And it plays out at the individual level: deceiving yourself into believing that you’re better or that you alone can fix things.  The good news is that by recognizing that we all deceive ourselves sometimes, we can gain a humility that connects us to others, to every single person we meet, in fact.  As a result, the tribe mentality lessens and we set better conditions for unity, not division. 

It was an honor to lead,

Dookie