Cross Circle

Synonyms

Name Game, Shriner’s Warm-up

Introduction

This warm up will help us all get moving, listening and learn a few names. Let’s form a large circle.

Description

This exercise is complicated to learn. It is started by one person (called person Eh) who randomly picks another person out of the circle (called person Bee) and gets their attention by stating their name “hey Bee”. Once person Bee acknowledges that their name has been called person Eh starts to walk towards them. You think that this is silly and that person Eh is going to crash into person Bee who is standing in the circle. Well person Bee calls out to another person in the circle (let\\\’s say person See). And when See acknowledges Bee then Bee can start walking. So Eh and Bee are moving across the circle (hence the name) at the same time. See does the same to Dee. By now Eh should be stationed in what used be Bee\\\’s spot. Eh will wait patiently, listening, but not moving until she is called on by someone else in the circle. Complicated, yes, Impossible, No. Walk through it slowly at first and it will start to make sense.

Gimmicks

People cannot move until they say the name of the person that they have chosen. This forces people to learn names fast. If the group is big enough you can have more than one cycle going at once. More than one person can be moving at the same time. Therefore two separate cycles are crossing the circle.

Variations

It can be done with just pointing and no names. Even more attention would be required to do this warm-up with just eye contact. Once this warm-up is mastered more it can be combined with Word At A Time Story. Combining the story with two continuous cycles that creates two simultaneous stories. There are few people that I have met that can keep track of both stories at once.

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