A Wheeler Retreat

Friday, January 20th was destined to be a busy day in Washington. D.C. and the Wheelers in that region decided any place would be better than there. As most folks working in the District were excused from work on Inauguration Day, we decided they should come to Virginia Beach and sample the local fitness scene and hospitality.

Two arrived (the Brazilian and the Brass) just before noon on a rainy Friday and, after hugs and a quick tour of the house it was evident our Brazilian was rapidly approaching a dangerous state of hangry. With that information the first order of business was decided and we headed to CP Shuckers.

9Rounds was closed when they arrived but the reopened at 3:30 PM. So we signed them up for a trial class online, I dug out a couple extra pair of hand wraps and we headed out. Jeff was the Meg this time and walked the pair through the waiver and routine like the pro that he is.

The exercises were familiar, again, but challenging. By the time we each got to the speed bag I noticed that we all have the same trouble with getting the rhythm including, shocking as it may seem, the Brazilian. I pointed out to Jeff that we all came from UFC which has no formal speed-bag work. For my part, Jeff said I was improving enough after five or six classes to change it up a little. He had me throw a straight punch followed by a side hand. I had been doing side hands exclusively. the movement is on the sagittal plane and frontal axis but there's a slight pronation/supination (I've been reading my NASM book!) that occurs between contacts. The good news is, while I had improved on the speed-bag, this new move put me back in the same category as my teammates who had no practical speed-bag experience.

The station that challenged the guys the most was one of the earlier ones. It was at the double-ended bag but didn't involve the bag. The exercise was to take a weighted bar and perform ten standing chest presses above the bag and ten below the bag. After that ten press-jacks which are simply jumping jacks pressing the bar overhead. The bar press above and then below the shoulders activates the posterior deltoids. It's a difficult exercise because they are small muscles and there aren't many strong synergists that assist. I'd recommend for anyone who struggles with this exercise to add some prone or inclined reverse dumbbell flies and / or bent over flies. You should be doing overhead presses already. Go light, these are small muscles and they don't take much.

The overall review of the class was positive. We were all sweating like mobsters testifying in court for the first time. The question is always, "How can we get a good workout in just 30 minutes?" and the answer is 9Round.

Since 48 hours of straight fitness activities is impractical, our retreat required some extracurricular activities. So after a well earned shower and a few minutes rest we decided we were hungry again. P had seen Hot Tuna online and said it looked good and had live music and it was close by. She chose well.

The mojitos are great and the beer is local. The staff is extremely nice as well. The food was just as good. We were pacing ourselves, although I can say the mojitos were very easy to drink, just from the taste I had.

Once we were full and satisfied to remain so until breakfast we ventured back out into the rain to find another venue.

Froggies is my local go-to place, as it is for most locals, and I knew they'd have a band. This time we encountered a crowd, all of a certain age. The music was perfect for those of us with more than a few decades behind us but I doubt seriously that any of the songs were played in Brazil in the last 30 years. P was a good sport but we figured it was time to wander again.

Down to the soggy resort area by the boardwalk with no particular destination in mind. We enjoyed the drive and seeing the sights. I pointed out the "No swearing" signs along the streets and we discovered that our Brazilian learned English from watching Quentin Tarantino movies. She voiced her opinion but if no one files a complaint it's not really a crime, is it?

We stumbled, almost literally, on to Shaka's, a local live music venue. It looked popular so John paid for parking and we went in. Observing the folks wandering about the parking lot I speculated that even the Brazilian was older than most of the crowd.

We asked who was playing and a young, heavily pierced gentleman explained the musicality of the band. He did make a great case and clearly knew what he was talking about and was able to size me up enough to know what I'd understand. I'm not sure how he knew I played at the bass once upon a time, but I was sold, if flexible, to staying. The deal was made when the owner sized us up and said, "Tell you what, you boys pay and she gets in free." So that's how we ended up listening to a great jam band in a dark and smoky club on a rainy Friday night after a long drive and a good workout.

The band playing was The Mantras and we think they opened for Treehouse, a reggae band. At this point, I'm a little ashamed to say, we were pretty boozed out so we ordered water and people watched.

P giggled at some of the folks dancing and staggering about and it was fun to see her enjoying herself. John and I genuinely liked the band. The venue wasn't too crowded, even if it was too loud to hold a conversation. The crowd looked happy and mellow and the air was full of various vapors but nothing offensive.

After a trip to the restroom and some more music we figured we'd made a good effort at the night and decided to head out. P was wearing her fuzzy, albino Sasquatch vest which is warm, soft and attractive. She tends to invite friends to touch it to see how soft it is which gives every man pause as he thinks about the safest place to touch. Women, apparently, have no such compunction since, as we walked by a group of young and mellow women, they started to pet P. They were gentle and seemed harmless and enthralled with the vest but nevertheless there were parts of P under the strange women's hands that are accessible by invitation only. It was a good WTF moment.

We slept, as a matter of course, and woke in the morning. After coffee and a check on Lisa it was clear our plans were changing. Lisa had been due to arrive on a bus at 12:30PM near the convention center. The plan was that three of us would hit 9Round again and go to breakfast. We'd hang out on the boardwalk and get Lisa in time for lunch. As it happens, Greyhound decided not to honor Lisa's ticket. She had bought the ticket and learned that the bus driver would only take a ticket printed from the kiosk in the bus terminal. The bus was scheduled to leave at 7AM and the bus terminal was not open until 10AM. She confirmed with Greyhound that she could get on the bus with her confirmation, as it were, and then print the ticket at a station further down the line. The driver did not get that memo. So, a cab ride to the bus station led only to a cab ride back home for Lisa. There she piled into her car, cursed about not getting a nap, hit the road and almost immediately got pulled over for speeding. Her spotless driving record and an abundance of tears got her off with nothing more than a finger wag, luckily.

The mess ended up being advantageous for the retreat since it meant she would be here before 9Rounds closed. We signed her up for her free trail at 11:30 and the three of us went to Doc Taylors for breakfast while she was in transit. The breakfast made us all glad we were having a cardio weekend.

Lisa arrived, making great time, and we wasted none getting to 9Rounds. Jenna and Frank were Meging at the time and the place was packed. I've not seen it that busy and I'm glad to see them doing well. It was crowded enough that a lot of us had to double up on the stations in order to get done by noon. It required some improvisation on the part of the instructors and they handled it masterfully. John and I started on station two and by the time we got to station nine I was steaming.

Lisa loved the class. She asked if anyone did two rounds. Jenna said it happens but it's not common. So that's Lisa's challenge to us next time. I suspect we can do it but it will go slow.

After a bit of discussion and debate we decided to shower, respectively, and wander the misty boardwalk. To brace ourselves for the weather we opened and emptied the bottle of really great champagne that Lisa sent ahead with specific instructions it was to be chilled and unopened until her arrival.

We ended up at Catch 31, not far from where we parked. Lisa had been there before and knew just want to order. We started with the seafood tower, which was a huge amount of raw or chilled seafood. It was from this tower that John tried his first raw oyster in some 50 years. The cocktail sauce and Tabasco are a bit of a cheat, I'll readily admit, but it makes it easier at the beginning. He'll be a shucker in no time.

Beyond the great tower there was steamed jumbo shrimp, seafood flatbread, and chowder or stew. Suffice to say we were well sated.

We also had our second bottle of champagne (Prosecco) which, I must add, is not even close to the record for this group. Our waitress was feisty and seemed like she would have been a great addition to our group. She was simply relaxed and seemed in on the joke.

Lisa talked about how much fun it would be to do an escape room and before we knew it John had us booked for a 6PM breakout. We figured we had enough time to take a quick stroll on the foggy beach, find the Ynot Italian gelato place and get back for a short nap before being handcuffed and blindfolded in a simulated hostage situation.

That's just what happened. a few hours after lunch, we were given instructions and led back through a hallway to a door. We were told that we would be blindfolded and the four of us would be led in, conga line fashion, to the room.

Once in the room we were each led to a place and instructed to back up to a bench and sit. We did and then the handcuffs were on us. It wasn't disconcerting since our instructor said the chains attached to the cuffs were only connected to the bench by a magnet (but we were to ignore that, since it's just for legal and safety issues) and most Saturday nights should involve handcuffs anyway.

I'll not go through the clues but I'll say there are a lot of steps to complete in under an hour to succeed. We were told that only 23% of the folks get out of this one and we did not increase that number at all. We were only about two clues away from getting out but we had a lot of hints. We also had a couple of times where our game master stopped the clock to come in and deal with a malfunction. In one case he had to cut a lock off using bolt cutters.

In the end we had a great time, learned a bit about ourselves and our team's dynamics and got to spend a few minutes in handcuffs.

Next we headed East towards the beach. It didn't take long to decide to hit Murphy's since they have live music and it is the same Murphy's they have in Alexandria.

The food was unremarkable and our waitress didn't have a lot of answers at the ready ("What do you mean. 'Irish" whiskey?") But we managed to get to a point where acceptable food and drink were showing up on the regular.

Dan Bunch and a fiddler he called McLovin' were the entertainers and they were great. Dan drank approximately 1.5 Guinness for each song he sang. He never missed a beat though and took our requests. He even worked hard to get Lisa up to the stage for the unicorn song. I'll say I was a little shocked she declined. It was a great time full of song, Irish whiskey and coffee, Guinness and cider.

Sleep came easily to this bunch. I was a bit worried John and I would have to carry the girls in but the speed bumps in the neighborhood woke them right up. Sleeping arrangements were made and so ended the final full day.

We had been trying to figure out a class to do since the night before but it wasn't until morning, after Lisa made a few phone calls, that we decided to go to the new UFC gym here and do their DUT class.

The gym is spectacular. No ring, just a clean octagon. They have plenty of merchandise and decent weight equipment. Once we signed in with Meg (Mandy this time) we stowed our stuff in the cubbies and grabbed a trigger point roller, as instructed.

The class started on the red astro-turf marked out for various exercises. We did a few minutes on the roller which was tough for me only because it's been a long time since I've used one. It makes a difference. Then we went and chose a plate weight we'd use for the exercises. I was a little lost when I was told to get a 10 until I saw everything was marked in kilograms. I'm still not sure how much it weighed. Maybe as much as a couple of two liter sodas. Not a lot.

We warmed up with running, lunges, side passes and a variety of torture. It was an effective warmup.

The exercises were varied and not at all easy. She started us on body weight exercises like squats and such. The exercises with the weights were creative. They varied from toe taps on the plate to wall sits to around the worlds, she called halos. Good shoulder workout. Her Roman twists were modified and called rainbows. Same concept as the Roman but with straight arms and higher arcs.

The last ten minutes was stretching and she did a good job hitting various yoga poses and stretches. So in the end, with the rollers, the warmup and then the stretching you're working hard for about 40 minutes. It's effective and I know I felt it the rest of the day. If you're in the area and looking for a gym like this, check out UFC.

After we took our selfie and dried off a little we headed to Sunrise Cafe, which is a little diner John spotted on N Great Neck. We got right in and the food came quick. Not as quick as we would have liked, but quick. We were starving by the time we ate. The food was good and we felt like we cheated death, and that's always a good feeling.

And just like that the retreat came to an end. Showers were taken, cars were loaded, hugs were exchanged and roads were hit. Everyone made it home without incident and the heaviest weather stayed behind them.

There were a lot of good lessons in this retreat but maybe the most important one is that a group of friends who understand and accept each other will enjoy any activity they do together. I was a little concerned about making plans and having things ready but this reminded me that it's not only me. There are four great minds and spirits and together we can make more happen than we could alone. There's a life lesson in there somewhere.