Everyone walks around the room as a group. Encourage people to walk towards empty space or through the doorways that open up between other bodies as they walk. This is helpful to avoid walking in a pattern (or the whole group walking in a circle).

Then tell them that as a group, they will all stop at the same time and then begin walking again at the same time and so on.

Coaching Notes

1) It will usually happen at first that individuals will decide to stop and then it'll take the rest of the group some time to catch on and stop. That's alright. In fact, it'll sharpen the focus of the rest of the group. But eventually, the spirit of it is that the stop will magically land upon the group. It won't really be any one person's decision. The group will just feel it. Encourage this to happen by encouraging them to breathe and to allow the stop to happen. Del Close would talk about the "bony finger of group mind" which is hard to distinguish from the "bony finger of ego." Learning to distinguish the taps of those fingers on your shoulder is the continual work of the improviser.

2) Groups can get stuck in a pattern, usually unconsciously. That may be walking for 12 steps and then stopping for a count of 4. Encourage them to break out of such a pattern by breathing.

3) It's helpful to give this a good amount of time (maybe 10 minutes), until the group feels settled and focused and connected.

Variations

1) Once the group has the stop/start down, add "jump" as another option.

For Corporate settings: "After some flow has been established, as they continue walking, have each player raise a hand when they think of something. All other players stop and share their names and handshake with someone near them."

2) Vary how many people are walking at the same time
2 people walking at a time
4 people at a time
7 people at a time
12 people at a time
1 person not walking
2 people not walking
8 people not walking
11 people not walking

etc.

3) Allow people to talk!
All sorts of stuff will come out.

Online

Walk = gently move hand back and forth across the screen

Potential Build
move into Brownian Motion (switching "modes")

Debrief ideas (applied)
some people are the first to change
Some people keep doing the same thing
continuous improvement
leadership can't be top down

Save time and effort designing your workshops

Save time and effort
designing your workshops