Respect Respect Birthday – Ziggy Stardust: The Most Interesting Pax in the World
QIC: Tonka
Date: 05.27.2022
PAX: Lamb Chop, Crash, Schlitz, Tonka
Our very own Ziggy Stardust recently joined the Double Respect Guild. Our main resource for sage wisdom, perfectly balanced beatdowns and carpooling (the latter being primarily for YHC) has not always lived in little ole Winston Salem. Nay, this Pax has literally traveled the globe leaving no stone unturned and no adventure unconquered. YHC offered the brave Pax of F3WS the chance to experience a living history of the most interesting Pax in the world. It’s only fitting that the National Weather Service had issued a Tornado Warning for the morning of his birthday beatdown. The storm provided the perfect backdrop for our trip through the decades of Ziggy’s life. Four death-defying, storm-chasing, adventure-starved Pax assembled like bright-eyed pupils endeavoring to walk a mile in Ziggy’s shoes. They soon learn Ziggy’s shoes are not for the faint of heart. 5:30 strikes. To the parking deck. We begin.
WRM
A little Broga in true Ziggy Stardust fashion:
DWD/UWD
Divebombers
UWD Spinal Twist Stretch
Etc. etc.
THANG
We embark on our emersion experience of Ziggy’s life beginning as a Wee Lad (10s-20s – aka HATE HATE HATE? in F3 terms) in smalltown, MS.
- You (reader) are likely more familiar with our hero’s time serving the great patrons of Pascagoula as their local flower delivery boy, BUUUT if my memory serves, Ziggy’s actual first job as a boy was a paper route.
- Can’t have a paper route without a bike – Freddie Merks x20
- Knowing that the 10-20s decade involves a lot of growth and challenge, the Pax were anxious to hear about the young man that Ziggy grew to be. We decided to superset his paper route bike with a dose of his time as a warehouse technician the summer he graduated high school. Ziggy’s responsibilities were to route overhead high wire by hand in a warehouse, atop a wooden ladder, whilst being hazed by the full-time operators. OSHA violations notwithstanding, Ziggy pushed on for most of a mind-numbing summer until the day disaster struck and he was swept from his ladder and plummeted 16FT to the concrete floor, temporarily disabling his arm.
- Thus – (High Wire) pull ups x20
- The Pax alternated between these two exercised with descending pullup reps by 2 each round for 10 rounds. (That is what we would have done were Lamb Chop not lickidy split with his arithmetic informing the Q that the Pax were seconds away from attempting 110 pullups for the first exercise of the workout…Which translates: we almost relived Ziggy’s teens for the better part of an hour. Yikes.)
- Omaha
- Pullups x10 – descend reps by 1 each round
- Freddie Merks x20 DC
There. Onward.
HATE HATE (20s)
No doubt traumatized emotionally and physically by his warehouse experience, a young, sharp Ziggy Stardust began his pursuit of higher education by enrolling in a post grad program rotation in India. This time of study and graduate work was wrought with trepidation. He was chased by children determined to soak him with color-dyed water, narrowly escaped a car bombing, and barely survived a 6-month long bout with a stomach illness that nearly killed him. All of this compiled with an ailing arm to boot! Time to stretch some legs.
- Pax laid single file along the direction of traffic on the first level of the parking deck. 6 inch hold across the board.
- The Pax at the rear of the line lunge walks to the front of the formation and assumes the 6 inch hold.
- REPEATO until arriving at the far side of the first level.
HATE (30s)
Ziggy took some time after India to regain his health and figure out his next career move. This transpired over the course of stints living and working in Germany, The Netherlands, Hawaii, DC, (among others) and most notably Japan! There he spent several years living and teaching Japanese students English and other subjects in a remote area of the island with no English speaking locals. During his tenure at this Japanese school, his students wrote, directed and published a documentary about, you guessed it…THEIR TEACHER. That’s right, Ziggy the movie star has been unassumingly walking amongst us keeping his fame secret and we have been none the wiser. The more you know. However, this life of fame and fortune has it’s drawbacks. Unlike American celebrities, he was responsible for his own pest control. Hence fighting insects of unprecedented size in his hut by stabbing them through the thorax with the point end of his chopsticks (Google Mr. Miyagi catching flies). To pay homage to this period in Ziggy’s journey, we Magic Schoolbussed ourselves into the form of these insects and spider crawled across the next level of the parking deck, flipping to our backs every 10 paces to emulate a kill by x30 dying cockroaches.
- Peter Parker Crawls x10 paces
- Dying Cockroaches x30
- REPEATO until reach next level
AYE (40s)
Here is where we reach a black hole in Ziggy Stardust’s timeline…no one really knows where he was or what he was doing. Some have speculated that he changed his name and spent these years traveling Europe: Budapest, France, Great Britain, Austria, Switzerland, etc. Others say this was his stint in Quebec public broadcast radio. Still others are certain this was his cultural immersion experience living with a host family in Mexico. While I know all of those things to be true – My belief is that these fateful years were the beginning of his double life with the Central Intelligence Agency, partaking in international espionage and preventing and instigating wars across the globe while we live our every day lives unawares of his impact on our way of life. I really shouldn’t be writing this on a public website in case this divulging would put his identity at risk, but I feel like the F3 alias would be pretty foolproof at protecting his true identity, and if all else fails, I have a feeling that Ziggy could protect himself.
- James Bonds x40 (WWII sit up w/ feet elevated – turn finger guns forward, left, then right. Repeat)
- Backpedal wind sprints to the next level (because a true spy has to watch his own back)
RESPECT (50s)
This is the time period when all of you (and YHC) met our famed Ziggy Stardust. After retiring(?) from the CIA, Ziggy became a professor of International Politics at Wake Forest, a position he still holds today. Our former(?) spy transitioned quite well into a mentor and character-grooming wise sage – pouring into his students and the lucky ones of our humble community (the likes of YHC). This new time period has brought new adventures that his past(?) life in the CIA couldn’t provide. One of these such adventures has been officiating MULTIPLE weddings. He is in fact an ordained minister…and can assist the Pax of F3WS with any of their wedding needs. Knowing if Ziggy were present at the beatdown, he technically COULD have married off the whole lot of us, the Pax got real friendly with some partner work. The exercises were a call back to the return plain trip home from his HATE HATE years in India. Ziggy flew home in a wheelchair with a life-threatening stomach illness for 23 hours. Let that sink in.
- PARTNER 1: Pulsing Airplanes (Supermans’) x50
- PARTNER 2: Wall Sits
- Once partner 1 completes reps, switch places
- Mosey to next level
RESPECT RESPECT (60s)
All that (and a whole lot that we didn’t have time to cover of Ziggy Stardust’s life) brings us to present day. Our man has leveled up to the elite class of RESPECT RESPECT where he spends most of his mornings waking up YHC and dragging him to F3 workouts like the loving and patient fatherly figure that he is. The Pax didn’t appreciate the difficulty of this task, so we did some discovery. Ziggy uses many methods to stir YHC from his deep slumber. Those include but are not limited to: rocks in YHC’s window, bribing YHC’s M to “assist” me out of bed, slamming car doors, etc. This morning we settle for the jumping up and down tactic (jump squats) and “wake ups” to impersonate YHC (aka burpees).
- Jump Squats x60
- Burpees x60
WAIT – YHC only wakes up 1/3 of the time (even after all that ruckus)
- Jump Squats x60
- Burpees x60 x20
Jail break back to start.
MARY
Alphabet Abs – 6 inch hold while Pax use their feet to spell the letters (uppercase) called.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
H-B-D
Z-I-G-G-Y
TIME.
COT
YHC shared some words of appreciation for the man that we know as Ziggy Stardust. He has been such a solid friend and mentor to me and many others in this group. He’s humble, authentic, wise, quick to listen and quick to lend a hand. We’re lucky to have him and are better because of him. T-claps to our friend for being a newly christened Respect Respect. You’ve earned it my friend.
NMM
Lamb chops quick mathematics saved the Pax from blowing a tire on the first exercise of the morning. Those pullups would have exploded the rest of the workout and we wouldn’t have made it past Ziggy’s 30s.
Schlitz did not particularly enjoy the callback to Ziggy’s 6-month illness in a wheelchair on a day-long international flight – letting out groans of pain at the wall sit. Either that or he really got into the spirit of the tribute and started living the actual events…*shivers*
Lamb Chop also demonstrated to the Pax how not-flexible his shoulders are by laying on his back and attempting to raise his arms straight over his head. They made it past a 90 deg angle, but not by much. Bless you man.
Crash commented that he now has a calling card for COTs. He imitates the sounds of a car screeching to avoid a … well, you know, crash. It was certainly a fitting soundbite for our parking garage AO this morning.
I can confidently say all the men present enjoyed our journey through the life and times of Ziggy Stardust this morning. Each Pax had at least one guffawed, mouth-agape, “He did what?!” moment this morning. You’ll have to pull on Ziggy’s ear to get the rest of the stories.
Enjoyed it men!
Happy birthday Ziggy,
Tonka
