MABA: Fall down. Get back up. Together.
Dredd dives in on the joy of shared suffering.
Make America Burpee Again (MABA) is a nationwide CSAUP in which each of us is committing to doing 3,100 burpees in 31 days. Fall down. Get back up. Together. With more than 350 HCs, we will do more than 1 million burpees in January … that is, assuming all y’all live up to your commitments, which, mighty HIMs that you are, won’t be a problem. Right?
Sign up to join us here. It’s not too late. You can either get caught up or pro-rate your goal. Log your burpees here. Forward this to friends. SYITG.
Dredd on shared suffering
If I could go back in time and tell my younger self one thing, it would be, “do hard things.” I had no idea how much joy being miserable would bring me. I recently interviewed F3 co-founder Dredd for a story in Boston College’s alumni magazine. We talked about many topics, but this exchange about shared suffering stuck with me most.
ME: I participated with you and 80 others in GrowRuck Naperville. We hiked through a river at night in the rain, each carrying 30-pound backpacks, plus we lugged around heavy rocks, sandbags, etc. Yet we all somehow thought that was fun. What the hell is the matter with us?
Dredd: Maybe the question is, what the hell’s the matter with us for not already knowing that’s true? Doing something past the point you normally would, overcoming an obstacle, is a joyful experience. Not just happy. But joyful.
My middle daughter was 5 when she learned to swim. She was afraid of the diving board. She would go out to the edge, then walk back. Again and again. One day, she says, Daddy, this is the day.
She goes to the edge and gets that same look was on her face. I’m in the water looking up. You can do it. Before you know it, there’s 10 fathers, all encouraging her, you can do it.
Finally, I saw her mentally cross the border. She closed her eyes and jumped. She lands, pops back up. Pure, unmitigated joy on her face. She jumps out, runs over, does it again. I stopped counting at 300. That’s in the human heart.
The man on the right is GMO, our Nantan in St. Louis. So is the man on the left, allegedly. GMO makes a habit of visiting as many St. Louis AOs as he can. A year or so ago, he came out to our AO which, at the time, was struggling. We went to coffeeteria afterward. So much love radiated out of him that I swear my coffee tasted better because of it. After GMO left, I felt like a metal shaving after someone removed a magnet. I’ll never forget this: Rootworm looked at me, shook his head and said, “that guy. Man.” I just nodded my head. All of our PAX have similar stories of being in the presence of this incredible HIM.
Two Whys
“I decided to sign up for MABA after a little encouragement from one of my pax, Chilipepper. In F3 SunCoast, he is Mr. Burpee. He is always pushing, trying to make all of us better in all aspects of F3.
“I also have been motivated by the passing of my mom on December 15th. Ever since my dad passed away in 2018, 3 days before Father’s Day, my sister had been taking care of my mom who had been dealing with Parkinson’s for many years. My dad took care of her until cancer took his life too soon. My mom ended up in a nursing home, and when COVID hit I went 8 months without being able to see her. During those 8 months her health drastically declined, and in the weeks prior to her passing, she started refusing to eat and drink. My parents were never the most health-conscious people, and sometimes I think if they were then maybe things would have been different.
“I found F3 SunCoast in late June of 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, and it has changed my life so much. It had pushed me to workout a whole lot more than I used to, which was next to never, and I am eating healthier and feeling better physically, mentally and spiritually. In the last few weeks I have signed up for MABA and for a GROWRUCK event in May. I want to continue to push myself to be better not just for me but for my family.” —Adam Chrisman, F3 Pyro, SunCoast
“I’m doing the burpee challenge for two reasons: 1. To do something hard to lead the charge for the region I lead (I’m a Nantan) and to see what I’m made of (I’m the type of guy that needs goals). 2. To do something hard with another PAX who I EH’d for months and just started F3 two weeks ago (McKraken).
“Little did I know that I’d be confirmed positive with covid just 2 days before the challenge started. Now the burpees help keep me moving during this long quarantine! The virus also makes me a little more winded than normal. I tell our PAX that there’s no reason to skip this challenge... If I can do it with covid they can without it! LOL!
“Our region is just two months old and we have 6 of our 27 PAX doing it.” —Rusty Richards, F3 Backstage, Tri-County, Minier, Illinois
MABA in the craziest place competition
I don’t want to say PAX at The Last Stop are obsessed with Make America Burpee Again ... but I saw CFIT at church at 8 p.m. Sunday ; we were picking up our daughters from youth group. He said he was a few burpees shy of 400 after three days. (BTW, “a few burpees shy of 400” would make a great F3 idiom.) So he did 25 burpees right then and there. This was on top of the 150 he did at the beatdown earlier that day. In what weird place have you done burpees? Send in photo/video proof. Whoever submits proof of themself doing a burpee in the weirdest place wins a MABA t-shirt. It has to be in the course of MABA.
In the next newsletter: a glimpse at the running total, a Theodore Roosevelt F3 story, and more Whys. Send your why, or your inspiration, or the PAX who keeps you going to Matt Crossman (F3 Ralph) at mcrossman98@gmail.com.