Frame

“One day I was walking along when I met an old man. It turns out he wasn’t just some old man, but a real Samurai. He taught me how to control my energy, and pass it around a circle. I’m about to teach you this ancient Samurai secret…”

A quick energizer that works great in a smaller group. Spread enthusiasm (or at least silliness!) to some of the less engaged participants.

Setup

Organize participants into a standing circle

Objectives

1. To pass the “Ball of Energy” around the circle, using the correct Samurai moves.
2. Put more energy into the Ball with each move.

Rules/Instructions

• “Whenever Samurai get together, they have a specific way of greeting eachother…”
  • demonstrate Samurai UNITE! (see below)
• “Now I’ll show you the most basic way to pass energy around the circle. Remember to always pass it across your heart, and to add energy each time!”
  • demonstrate HA! (see below) and practice with the group for a minute.
• “Believe it or not, there’s a way to reverse the flow of energy…”
  • demonstrate soooo and practice soooo and HA!
• “Finally, there’s one more secret Samurai move to learn. If the energy is stuck on one side of the circle, you can send it across with a Hadouken!”
  • demonstrate Hadouken.
• “When someone sends a Hadouken your way, you can choose to accept or reject it…”
  • demonstrate Yeahhh and No no no!
• “Now we’re going to work together as a team to pass the energy around our circle, adding to it so that by the end, we’re all feeling excited and energized. Let’s go!”
• Invite a student to do Samurai UNITE and start playing Samurai. Encourage the group to try all the moves and go as long as they can without messing up. If they do mess up, have someone UNITE the samurai and start over.

Samurai Moves

• Samurai UNITE!
  • One samurai shouts, “Samurai UNITE!”
  • Everyone claps their hands together in front of them (like you’re about to pray), bows, and says, “ahhhhhh”
• HA!
  • “Chop” your hand down across your chest (always over your heart) towards a person next to you and shout, “HA!” (fourth tone).
  • Use this move to pass the energy to the person next to you.
  • You must pass the energy across your heart, continuing in the same direction it came from.
• soooo!
  • Hold up your hand and say, “soooo!” (first tone)
  • The energy is reflected back to the person who just passed it to you with a HA!
  • You must let the energy cross your heart (i.e. if it came from your left, you have to raise your right hand)
  • You can’t “sooo” a “sooo”
• Hadouken!
  • Make DIRECT eye contact with someone across from you in the circle.
  • Do the following motion and shout, “HADOUKEN! (hi-DOO-ken!):
• Yeah…/no no no!
  • If someone does a Hadouken on you, you can either accept or reject it.
  • Yeahhh
    • reach out and take the energy while saying, “yeahhh”
    • keep the energy moving with a HA! to one of your neighbors
  • No no no!
    • wave your finger and say, “no no no!”
    • the person who sent the Hadouken has to pick a new target, or use a HA! instead

Debrief

• PVC and being comfortable acting silly
• How do our energy levels affect the group?

Notes

• You can turn Samurai into a challenge by eliminating people as they mess up, but it can be better to encourage the group to work together a team. If you play elimination-style, you’ll probably notice the least enthusiastic students get out first and have to sit around watching the rest of the group. Keeping everyone involved helps raise the energy of the whole.
• If you have a big group, split into multiple Samurai circles. Elimination works better here; when someone messes up, they move to another circle and keep playing.

Tags

energizer, icebreaker, no materials,