The Rhythm and Story Exercise
Rhythm and Story is a simple and entertaining game that has each person go around taking turns adding words to create a story.
A group of people stand in a circle, with everyone facing the center. Choose a person who will start the round.
He or she starts to clap a relatively slow rhythm (slap both legs on the first beat, then clap hands on second beat, thumbs-up on left hand for third beat, and thumbs-up on right hand on fourth beat, and repeat the four beat cycle). Everyone in the circle matches the rhythm set by the leader.
The leader starts a sentence by saying any word on the one beat (for example, he or she could say the word “Big” as he or she slaps their legs on beat one). The next person in the circle must continue the story by adding the next word in the sentence by the first beat of the next rhythm cycle (for example, the 2nd person could say “dogs,” so the sentence is now “Big dogs..”).
The third person in the circle must continue the story by adding the 3rd word in the sentence at the right time (for example, the person could say the word “eat,” making the current sentence “Big dogs eat..”). The next person in line must continue the sentence. Each word must make logical and grammatical sense when added to the sentence.
If a person wants to end the sentence, he or she says a punctuation word, such as “period” or “exclamation point” or “question mark.” At this point, the next person in the circle starts the new sentence.
The topics of this publication: integration, interactions, memory, foster relationships, disinhibition, distension
