In anticipation of an impending and doubtlessly triumphant reopening of the The Fields of Vortex (next week?) YHC took it upon himself to dig up a Back Blast from the Past in a vainglorious attempt to unearth the most-vortexey Q of all Vortex Q’s. Spending multiple dozens of minutes deep in the archives was eye-opening. What IS The Vortex?
The Vortex is turf fields, but two together to make a square so it’s almost like it’s round. It’s a warm-up lap. It’s sprints and lining up in order of finish to pair for DORA. The Vortex is fieldwork, and traveling, and never stopping. It’s wheelbarrows and four corners and that one exercise where one guy lays on the ground and grabs the other guy’s ankles, and then the first guy kicks his legs up and the second guy catches them and throws them back down, and sometimes off to the side. It’s circuits on the playground, where pull-ups are the timer and someone’s doing dips.
The Vortex is perpetual motion. It’s hard, and it’s burpees.
There is no Q that captures it all, and every vortex Q is a Vortex Q. But YHC had a deadline, so he picked one anyway. Was it classic Assisi? A Nightshift knuckle-biter? No – the most vortexey* Q of all time, hereby dubiously denoted, is a surprisingly recent vintage:
April 23, 2019: Field Work. QIC: Subprime
Following in those pre-pandemic footsteps, here’s what went down:
Warm-up: SSH, Hillbillies, Overhead Claps, Mountain Climbers, and Slow Merkins. (All exposition and orientation concurrent with uncounted SSHing)
The Thang: Mosey to the practice field at the high school.
PAX move continuously back/forth along the shorter dimension of the field with a variety of motions, called out at inconvenient intervals by YHC: Bear Crawl, Lunge Walk, Run, Gorilla Hops, Traveling Burpees, Crawl Bear, Run.
A four-corners escalator beginning with 10 Burpees, followed by 10 Burpees + 20 Russian Hammers, and building with 30 Squats and 40 Mountain Climbers to the top. Maintaining historical accuracy, we lacked the time to de-escalate and finished with a single exercise at each corner (10, 20, 30, 40).
Travel back to the parking lot for a 90-second People’s Chair. Balls-to-Wall omitted for time (though that’s a great story).
Mary: wrap it up with some Hello Dolly, Heels to Heaven, and Shoulder Taps.
The Verdict? Yes, this was classic Vortex. But we didn’t have our classic fields. And there was no ankle-grabbing at all. No bits of rubber dirt, no pull-ups on the Wheel of Doom, no warm-up lap, and no DORA. But under the moonlight on the damp grass of a borrowed field, nine PAX bear crawling made a perfect, quintessential Vortex.
So the fields may be back next week (and word is that someone’s bringing donuts) but The Vortex has never stopped, because just like America and the F3 Nation and soylent green, The Vortex is people.
*certain restrictions and limitations apply: No partner carries or ankle grabbing of any kind. Playground excluded due to extended travel time w.r..t. high school fields.