Full Circle

It is an honor to post this message from Full Circle, our brother, on this day, 6 May 2020, National Nurses Day. Thank you, Fullest of All Circles, for your work as a Nurse, Nurse Manager, and Operating Room Staff, at North Shore University Hospital, Manhasset, New York. We appreciate you very much. You have our support in any way we can provide for the launch of F3 Long Island, The first AO in the Empire State of New York. – Dos Equis, F3 Princeton

We are living in unprecedented times, and you owe it to yourself to do things that make you better. Use this time to build yourself up, and it’s so much better with brothers around you who are working on the same thing. 

Full Circle

From Full Circle:

I hope this email finds you healthy, safe, and well during this historic time. I want to share some of what’s been happening with me in the last few months, and the last few years. 

You may or may not remember how unhappy and unmotivated I was several years ago. In my desperation, I reached out to a former missionary, now personal trainer named Russ who lives in Utah with his young family. This was the message I sent him on January 23, 2016:

“I need some help, since I saw you last I have made poor food and exercise choices and have just broke 300lbs. I am pretty tired of living this way and I am always inspired by your posts and the work I see you doing with others. I was wondering how we could work something out so that I could get your help, even though I am in NY and you are in Utah. I don’t know what you charge or what type of services you provide, but anything would help I am sure. I just need to take my health back, and I can’t seem to do it on my own.”

I was a defeated man, drowning and flailing for a life line. Over the next 9 months, via weekly phone meetings and email, Russ gave me the nutritional tools and exercise plans that I needed to succeed, but unlike his other clients, I never once met with him face to face. 

In September 2016, I saw 199lbs on the scale for the first time in 18 years and it felt amazing. I knew I put in the work and earned it, but something was still missing. I didn’t really know what it was though, but I knew that I did have it once and the void was real. 

I traded in my gym membership for running shoes, a kettlebell, and the workshop portion of my basement, really an 8×8 area big enough to do some body weight exercises, and plugged along. While I was listening to the Art of Manliness podcast I heard episode 324 on July 26 2017. There, two guys I never met started talking about me. They referred to me as a sad clown, and they said that the remedy to my sad clown syndrome could be summed up into a single letter, F, repeated 3 times. 

These men explained that F3 is a national network of free, peer-led workouts for men. F3’s mission is to plant, grow and serve small workout groups for men for the invigoration of male community leadership.

The three Fs stand for Fitness, Fellowship and Faith — the last of which is defined as not one specific religion or faith system, but simply a belief in something outside oneself.

F3 workouts …

  • Are free of charge
  • Are open to all men
  • Are held outdoors, rain or shine, heat or cold
  • Are led by men who participate in the workout in a rotating fashion, with no training or certification necessary
  • End with a Circle of Trust

Men of all fitness levels are welcome to F3 workouts which have no requirement for membership other than that you show up at the appointed time and place and follow what the workout leader (the “Q” in F3 lingo) does.

The F3 Credo is: Leave no man behind, but leave no man where you found him.

A LIGHT WENT ON. This was the thing I was missing, I felt the void within me calling out. I jumped onto the website and found the nearest F3 group was in Allentown PA, my heart sunk a little. I knew that whatever this F3 thing was, it was the missing puzzle piece I had been searching for, not in a religious sense, but in a comradery and brotherhood sense. I filed this info away for a future date. 

Over the next 2.5 years I would check in on the website periodically but alas, F3 wasn’t getting any closer. 

January 2020:  On a whim I checked in on the F3 nation website,  to my surprise there was an AO (F3 for workout group) in Princeton, NJ only 90 minutes away. I reached out for some contact info, so I wouldn’t be the weirdo who drove 1.5 hours to sit in a parking lot at a park, in the dark, only to have no one show up. 

On Chinese New Year (25 January 2020), I posted for a Chinese New Year themed workout, Q’d by Black Hole, a Princeton guy. It was dark, cold, and TOTALLY worth the trip. At the end of the workout, I was dubbed and would forever more be known in the Gloom as “Full Circle.” we went out afterwards and had some great conversations, and I couldn’t help but wish I had this every week. 

Since that day I realized that if I wanted a crew of High Impact Men like the Princeton guys, I would have to put in some work. 

Don’t know if you’ll fit in… You do.

Don’t know if you can hack the workout… Who cares, it’s about the journey.

Worried you’ll embarrass yourself… Come on you’ve met me haven’t you?

What do you have to lose… Your Sad Clown Syndrome. 

Our official launch date is July 4th, 2020. But you don’t have to wait around till then….. 

Come post from home, 8 am every Saturday morning at our Virtual AO, The Fight Club. 

Reach out to me for ZOOM ID and password.

We are living in unprecedented times, and you owe it to yourself to do things that make you better. Use this time to build yourself up, and it’s so much better with brothers around you who are working on the same thing. 

See you in the Gloom

Full Circle 

George T. Waszkiewicz, RN, BSN
GeorgeWazu@gmail.com

2 thoughts on “Full Circle

  1. Beautiful post and awesome story Circ. You’ll be surrounded by HIMs before you know it. It’ll take some time and you’ll have ups and downs but as you already know, the journey is worth it.

    – Pierogi

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: