Warm-ups Thread

[Forsythe]

Let's list warm-ups. You know how your group is about to warm-up right before a show and someone asks, anyone got any warm-ups and you draw a blank? Well, you do know some warm-ups, but the reason you're drawing a blank is because you're sick of "Go" or "George" or "Gaston" or "Fred Schneider" and you want to think of some other warm-up to do but you can't think of one. And don't you wish there was a place where you could go and find out about new warm-ups that are all the rage lately, like Fred Schneider seems to be these days?

Then how about using this thread as the place to list the warm-ups. Hopefully there won't be too many duplicates posted.


I'll start:

George.
how it works: this is a circle warm-up and one person is "George." The rest of the people are their own name to start out with. The people in the circle start off clapping or snapping their fingers in rhythm (tempo can be varied) and George always starts off the rounds. George will call out his name and then call out someone else's name. That person will then call out her name and in turn call out someone else's name. For example:
George: George, Justin.
Justin: Justin, Mary.
Mary: Mary, Kate.
Kate: Kate, Ashley.
Ashley: Ashley, Kate.
Kate: Kate, George.
and so on and so on until some messes up; like saying "Steve" when there isn't a Steve in the group. The person that messes up will then go to the lowest position in the circle. Let me explain this. Say you have 6 people in the circle and their names are: Mark, Justin, Mary, Kate, Ashley, and Roger. One of these people becomes "George." Let's say Mark starts off as George. That also means that now the name Mark isn't part of this warm-up. Now let's say that George is at the 12 o'clock position and going clockwise the order is: George, Justin, Mary, Kate, Ashley, and Roger. So say Mary made a mistake like saying "Mark" instead of "George." She now has to go to the lowest position in the circle. Let's say it's Roger's position. So Mary now stands where Roger was. Roger, Ashley, and Kate all shift over a spot in the circle.
Now see, it's the position in the circle that gets the name, not the particular person. So 12 o'clock will always be George, 2 o'clock will always be Justin, 4 o'clock will always be Mary, 6 o'clock will always be Kate, 8 o'clock will always be Ashley, and 10 o'clock will always be Roger. So now Mary is "Roger", Roger is now "Ashley", Ashley is now "Kate", and Kate is now "Mary." In this example, lowest position to highest position ("George") goes counter-clockwise. If "George" messes up, this person then all people get to move one position over and a new person gets to be "George."

There are also optional things to add on to it, like doing a "I've got my name back" dance if you return to your original starting position. As for what to do when there's a person in your group with the name George? I'm not sure, I guess use their last name? Ask George Eckhart about this, he'll know.

I hope I made that clear. It's much easier to explain in person than in print.

[Schoolyj]

Love it - but first - Jon, why do you hate Fred Schnieder so much?

A couple I like - they're variations of the same idea.

1. person stands in middle of circle - eveyone else endows/paints that person with character traits (these can be clothing, tattoos, accessories, attitudes, whatever) once a bunch of stuff has been laid on, the person says a sentence or quick monologue as the character that has been created.

2. person stands in the middle of circle and rotates around to each person in the circle. Each person says something about the person in the middle/character in the middle - like "You wish they never cancelled Friends" or "The only thing you wear in bed is your socks" or "Your name is Brian Nash, but you insist everyone call you B-Nasty." Whatever. The person/character in the middle then says yes and gives a justification of why that statement is true or something as that character: "I know that show was SO much like my life." "I've got really icky toe-nails." "Dudes, let's bounce this party is a sausage fest."

[Edison]

We usually do 2 or 3 warm-up games before playing, sometimes starting with an old favorite or trying a new one, then always end with Big Booty.
We've had a lot of fun over the years inventing new variations of Booty.

But one of the best group mind games we've been doing steadily for almost a year now is a sequence word-association game;

-Standing in a circle, one person begins by throwing a word at a random member. The recipient associates a different word (or words), and pass it to another. The pattern of connected words, phrases and thoughts passes randomly around and across the circle, normally about 20-25 passes around to establish a sequence, then ending at the person who began.
(Of course it's always encouraged add inflections or characterizations to your delivery, fun twists with the linked words/thoughts. Make it fun and stretch it).

The entire pattern then is repeated once or twice for speed and flow. All the added inflections remain and are usually heightened.

The pattern is then reversed and done likewise.


Beyond that, we would begin bouncing back and forth, forwards and backwards, creating playful sub-patterns to break each other or throw curves, zig-zagging direction then moving on (like a dj scratch), but always staying in sequence and keeping flow.

Things speed up quickly, the direction changes more often, and the inflections are exaggerated to a crazy degree.

At that point we feel very much on the same page and pretty energetic.

Highly recommended.