I belong to a Men's TEAM (as distinct from a "group") in Los Angeles called Warrior Dogs.

We are affiliated with MDI (Men's Divisions International: www.mdionline.org). In MDI, the organization is as follows: International > Regional (I'm in the Southwest Region) > Divisional (I'm in the Rawhide Men's Division) > Team (I'm in the Warrior Dogs Team). Currently, our division has about 40 men, and changes size regularly. In the 4 years I've been on my team, the team has varied between 6 and 12 men, and the division has varied between 30 and 80 men.

MDI members are graduates of the Sterling Men's Weekend (www.higherpurpose.com) or the Legacy Discovery Event (which is put on by MDI). Each MDI member, after completing one of these two initiation events, joins a special program called the "Point Team Prorgram," which lasts between 8 and 10 weeks, and prepares the new men to be on an MDI team together. They are trained by two senior men of the division, and this program is their initiation into the division itself.

We meet weekly, and one of those weekly meetings in every month is a Division Meeting, where all the teams of the division meet at one time. Our meetings typically include a physical exercise of some type, such as football, soccer, wrestling, boxing, jogging, beach volleyball, etc.... We usually have some form of ritual or group exercise to reveal truth, confront each other on important issues we don't easily recognize, or acknowledge ourselves or other men for accomplishments. We always do a "check in" to see where every man is at, and find out if any men need the support of the circle. We always do a little "business," which includes things like scheduling future meetings, planning special events, etc. Periodically we hold a community service event, where we do things like feeding/clothing the homeless, providing meals to AIDS patients, providing entertainment for kids at Children's Hospital, putting on a big holiday party for America's veterans, etc....

We have periodic Divisional or Regional retreats lasting 24-48 hours in the wilderness, which are called a "Rhino." You can see a photo from one of these in my profile.

If any men out there are interested in finding out more about us, regardless of where you live, please contact me. I know people in other cities and states if you are not in Los Angeles. Part of our Code of Honor includes: Embrace All Men. If you are interested in attending one of our meetings and seeing if our organization might be for you, please send me a private message and I will put you in contact with someone in your area, or invite you to one of our meetings is you are in Los Angeles.

I was part of the Sterling's men's group. I went through the Men's weekend about 8 years ago or so. I actually just wanted to join a men's group but had to go through the weekend to do it. I am glad I did in that it was hard. It felt like in some small way (big at the time) I was being initiated into manhood. I was never in the military so I never went through boot camp.

Being in the men's group felt like boot camp in that I didn't sleep much. I was making it to meetings and sometimes we wouldn't get home until 1 am. I was sleepy at work and remember one time I almost fell asleep at the wheel in rush hour. Not good. We did a lot of volunteer work and I learned about leading. Whenver I feel like I can't do something because of lack of sleep, I fall back on that experience and think I can do it. I now also like to sleep so I think twice about doing things like that.

We also had weekends with up to a couple hundred men. I never camped as a kid so it was good to get out in nature. It pushed me quite a bit and I learned a lot.

I recently almost went to an open house of a Men's group but realized I wasn't ready. I like having this forum to talk about these things.