King Workout

Weather: 27/Cloudy/3MPH wind

WARM UP:

• 12 Side Straddle Hops (4ct)
• 12 Cherry Pickers (4ct)
• 12 Abe Vigodas (6 forward/6 backward; 4ct)

TRANSPORT TO FOOTBALL FIELD:

All PAX snag coupon save QiC who arrived with 100# kettlebell. Transport from Coupon Cabana to football field with coupon and kettlebell. Once PAX with kettlebell starts to fail, 1) another PAX was encouraged to swap weight or 2) PAX with kettlebell was encouraged to ask for help.

WORKOUT (Rx):

Arrive at football field to perform 2 exercises with coupons/kettlebell.

• Blockies: 29 reps to celebrate the year MLK was born (1929)
• Squats: 68 reps to remember when he was assassinated (1968)
• 4 rounds: to commemorate the almost 4 decades he was alive

Each PAX worked individually to complete 4 rounds of 29 blockies followed by 68 coupon squats and then a lap around the football field. Each PAX was advised to be aware of the PAX with the 100# kettlebell so that the weight and reps could be distributed as equally and equitably as possible.

CLOSING THOUGHTS:

I used the time to explain that here we are in 2021 with a hate crime which took place in “progressive” Oak Park at LIVE Cafe where a brick with a letter wrapped around it which read “No n***ers on the ballot” was thrown at a Black/female owned cafe. I asked if anyone completed all 4 rounds, and no one did. I failed to highlight that point which was supposed to circle back to MLK and posing the question “Do you think what MLK was trying to accomplish as been accomplished?” It hasn’t. One need only look back to a couple weeks ago when a coward threw a brick with a disgusting message at a window. I failed to highlight that it has only been since 2015–6 years ago–that South Carolina FINALLY removed the Confederate Flag from atop its statehouse. Instead I highlighted the following:

• A PAX can view this particular workout as just a workout.
• That the kettlebell and that there was only one represented an unfair experience for a certain PAX.
• The kettlebell represented the weight we should all bear instead of just one PAX or ethnicity and that the coupon represented more privilege.
• One reality is that we all did the same exercises and that it might seem “equal.” What’s accurate is that the reality was different for whomever had the kettlebell. It was encouraged to consider someone else’s reality as different despite seeming similar or equal. Black America and white America are contained in the same America…but vastly different.

I failed to communicate that the exercises chosen were deliberate. The blockies were chosen to symbolize men and women told to get down on the ground during Civil Rights protests/riots in the past and even today. The squats represented the sit-ins performed by college students in the Civil Rights Era.