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In the middle of the circle, one person (the spotter) should stand at one end facing away from the centre and another one, two or three individuals should stand at the other end. Place a small percussion instrument immediately behind the spotter.
The idea is for the two (or three) individuals to sneak up on the person who is facing away from them without being spotted moving – if the person turns and catches them moving, they return to their chair. If they turn and are stationary the spotter turns back again.
The remaining drummers should play their Bass notes each time one of the people sneaking up moves. The aim is to grab the percussion instrument without being spotted.
If they succeed they take it back to their chair and can use it in the next exercise.
What motivated you to play this game? How do these things relate to motivations in other areas of your life? What stopped your progress? What type of things reduce your motivation to move forward in your life? How can teamwork influence motivation?
Put percussion on every second chair if available.
Teach the group how to count down to STOP (4,3,2,1 Stop) and then have a count of silence for seven beats (count the silence out aloud 2,3,4,5,6,7,8) before returning to play – practice a few times. Once this is perfected each person has to move to a new chair in the silence and try to resume playing on the one.
Avoid competition – don’t take chairs away
Start by discussing the concept of harmony - what do people understand by that word? From their own experience what gets in the way of inter-personal harmony and what facilitates it?
The challenge of this exercise is to each play their own thing but still harmonise with each other. They must start all together playing their own thing, with their heads down, (it will sound wild & disconnected), then slowly raise their heads modify their rhythms to connect with each other in harmony – same volume, same tempo, and leaving space for each to be heard.
Before starting you may decide to warn the group not to try and “force people into your rhythm”. If you decide not to warn them, this can often happen, and serves as an interesting discussion point, in relation to this theme - is it really harmony when we force people to our will?
Discuss: the steps they took to find a harmonious connection in relation to the steps people might need to take to connect well with others.
You can also do this exercise using one strike of the Bass note each on their drum.
If you have enough of them, pull out the tonal chimes, otherwise use any other resonating instrument (the longer the resonance the better - if you are using drums you may want to practice getting a good resonating Bass note prior to starting). Introduce the exercise by saying that "We are discussing communication and we all know how important listening is to good communication. This is a listening exercise! I am going to ask you to play one note on your instrument in succession”. “That is, one person plays, the next listens to it and then plays their own etc.”. Play one note each around the circle – don’t initially ask for people to wait for the resonance to stop but each time ask them to listen more closely before coming in. See how long it takes before they are listening to the full resonance.
Discuss the challenges of listening well; what gets in the way (barriers) and what helps, and how this impacts relationships. Who here feels they are not listened to well by other people around them? Who here has been found guilty of not listening well to other people? What are some of the consequences of poor listening skills? What are some of the skills of good listening? How can mindfulness help improve our listening skills?
Say: ‘In this exercise we can each enter the rhythm at our own choosing. We choose what we will play and the time we decide to join those already playing, if we join at all, and we will examine what things influence that timing. Remember – you choose! You don’t have to play at all if you don’t want to.’
Starts a rhythm from the rhythm catalogue (Chapter 10) at a relatively fast tempo, adding an additional challenge to joining in with the rhythm.
Repeat this exercise if people were intimidated by the speed of the rhythm, and this time begin with a slower rhythm.
Discuss differences in motivation between people and between different circumstances, for example the two different tempos. What sort of things motivate you generally? What about motivating you out of your comfort zone – what might do that? How important is success to motivation? What about the support you get from others – can that help motivate you? What doesn’t work? How might you use this knowledge to help motivate someone else who needed to shift their personal situation?