Independence Day is here, and an F3 workout is a great way to start it off, and so thought 11 PAX at The Big House. YHC is not as good with the history lessons as the one and only Professor Skynard, but talk of the history of today and some of our founders did come up in the mumble chatter, interspersed with many an F-bomb as Marky Mark pointed out. To his point we had history and F-bombs, and the only two things in the world YHC loves more than those two things, Lunges and Freedom!
Warmup:
SSH x 20 IC
Mountain Climber x 15 IC
WMH
Imperial Walker IC x 10
The Thang:
A Jacob’s ladder is a great way to star off a regular day, but Independence Day calls for a Jefferson Ladder. Full disclosure, they are in fact the same thing, one just has a much more appropriate, and badass name (even though, as pointed out by Bright Idea, he likely didn’t actually kill any British). It also has a more punishing mode of travel.
The PAX took a short stroll to the grass traffic circle and lined up at one end for the ladder, which would be a 1/10 Jefferson ladder of Diamond Merkins and Jump Squats. The wrinkle is the mode of travel. In honor of a great, albeit fictional, American (though he was portrayed by a great supporter of our military and a phenomenal patriot, the incomparable Gary Sinise) the mode of travel was the Lt. Dan.
About 2/3 of the way through the travel was changed to running to allow time for other exercises.
With the modification time was left for a little bit more. The PAX lined up along the wall and assumed the Dirkin position. The following commenced:
10 Dirkins
Run to the opposite side wall
20 Irkins
Bernie Sanders back
Rinse and Repeat 2 times total
To the great dismay of the PAX time was left on the clock. Instead of just taking a knee and running it out, YHC thought that a more appropriate approach would be to grind it out with a burpee ladder. The ladder went up to 5 before Mary was called for.
Mary:
American Hammer IC x 50
CoT:
Announcements:
Let’s all be safe as we celebrate the greatest of all holidays.
BoM:
A great deal can be said about American Independence, and many more intelligent and more eloquent have said it better than YHC, so better to allow them to say it.
YHC read this quote at the BoM:
“The flames kindled on the 4th of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.” A letter from Jefferson to John Adams September 12 1821
It’s important to remember the wide reaching impact, both geographically and over a long period of time, that the colonies declaration of independence, and taking up of arms, had. They weren’t the first to come up with the idea, but they were willing to stake their lives on it. They became attached to the idea of American Independence, it was success or death with no middle ground. This inspired generations of revolutionaries the world over to stand up and fight against seemingly insurmountable odds to know sweet freedom, or die fighting for it. We should all keep that in mind as we go about our celebrations.
YHC paraphrased the below as well, lest we think our celebrations of today should be trivial:
I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” A letter from John Adams to Abigail Adams July 2 1776.
Should you want to read some of the other words YHC found and read while thinking about Independence Day, here are the ones I didn’t have time to read out this morning:
“Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.” A letter from Thomas Jefferson to Roger Weightman June 24 1826
“I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation’s destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.” A speech by Frederick Douglas July 5 1852
“We find it hard to believe that liberty could ever be lost in this country. But it can be lost, and it will be, if the time ever comes when these documents are regarded not as the supreme expression of our profound belief, but merely as curiosities in glass cases.” President Harry Truman Addressing the National Archives December 15 1952
Its promise not only of liberty “to the people of this country, but hope to the world . . . [hope] that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.” President Abraham Lincoln Address at Independence Hall, Philadelphia February 22 1861
Thus, in a very real sense, you and I are the executors of the testament handed down by those who gathered in this historic hall 186 years ago today. For they gathered to affix their names to a document which was, above all else, a document not of rhetoric but of bold decision. It was, it is true, a document of protest–but protests had been made before. It set forth their grievances with eloquence–but such eloquence had been heard before. But what distinguished this paper from all the others was the final irrevocable decision that it took–to assert the independence of free States in place of colonies, and to commit to that goal their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
Today, 186 years later, that Declaration whose yellowing parchment and fading, almost illegible lines I saw in the past week in the National Archives in Washington is still a revolutionary document. To read it today is to hear a trumpet call. For that Declaration unleashed not merely a revolution against the British, but a revolution in human affairs. Its authors were highly conscious of its worldwide implications. And George Washington declared that liberty and self-government everywhere were, in his words, “finally staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”
The theory of independence is as old as man himself, and it was not invented in this hall. But it was in this hall that the theory became a practice; that the word went out to all, in Thomas Jefferson’s phrase, that “the God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” President John F Kennedy Address at Independence Hall Philadelphia July 4 1962