The Human Knot has been used for years as a team building activity or icebreaker with new groups of people. I have seen it work well in professional settings as well as with kids on a playground. The key is to have about 5-20 people to play. If you have 20 or more people, you may want to create multiple groups and make it a competition to see which team can untangle the fastest. For the sake of reviewing the rules, let’s assume you have just one team.
Rules:
1. Have the team gather around in a circle so that each person is standing closely to the person to their right and left.
2. Ask everyone to put their right hand in the circle. Now ask them to hold the right hand of someone else in the circle who is not a person standing immediately next to them.
3. Do the same for the left hand. Have each person take their left hand and hold the left hand of another person. Make sure each player is holding the hands of two different people and neither person is immediately next to them.
4. Now set a timer for 10-20 minutes, depending on your availability, to deliver a sense of urgency for the participants.
5. Explain that people cannot release their hands but they may need to bend, twist, turn, duck under or step over other hands to untangle their human knot. People can communicate and give directions any way they find helpful.
6. Start the timer and tell everyone to GO! The goal is to untangle the knot into a circle.
Variations:
1. As stated above, you can create separate teams and make this a competition.
2. Silent Knot: the team must untangle without any talking. They can move their heads or nod but cannot use their voices.
3. Director: only one person may speak. The team can decide before the timer starts who will be the director. In this variation, the director may be entangled or may be standing outside the circle and not holding any hands.
4. Blindfold: half the team is blindfolded and must rely on the directions of other team members to know what to do.
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