Tag Games - How we love to connect.

Tag games help us to connect.

The essential impulse of all life is a will to connect rather than a drive to compete.

To connect means to become joined, united or to establish a rapport or relationship.

Children love to play 'tag' games, they wish for this connection with the other and are helped along by playing these games.  

Here are some fun 'tag' games for you to try.

Everybody's it!!!

Proclaim, "everybody's it!" in an open space and the participants begin trying to tag others, while avoiding getting tagged.

Decide beforehand if simultaneous tags result in: rock paper scissor game, winner free.

Once tagged, participants sit down, extend their arms, and try to tag those left running around. 

The variation in Ultimate Everybody's it is that when a ‘it’ player is tagged, all players that they have been tagged by ‘it’ become live players, they can get up and run again. 

For example, Johnny tags Kristina, Kristina sits down. If Johnny is then tagged by Peter, Johnny sits down and Kristina stands up and is free.

Bumper Tag

Just like regular tag but instead of tagging with your hands, you must tag with your hips. Be sure to remind all of the players that all that is needed is a little bump. Nobody should purposely be knocked to the ground. 

Cyclops tag

Everyone has to play with one hand covering an eye. 

Dr Octopus

Choose an "It" to be your octopus.

Then choose a doctor.

When you say, "Go," the children run from one side of the field or court to the other. If they are tagged by the octopus they sit down and are out until tagged by the doctor.

The game ends when everyone is tagged, including the doctor. The last person to be tagged is the new octopus. 

Tortoise Tag

A tag game that will wear your kids out!! Make really big boundaries.

One person is "it." This person has to chase the others. When he tags someone, that person must lay down with both hands and feet sticking straight up, like a Tortoise on its back. In order for the tortoise to come alive, four people must tag one limb each.

Once someone has been a tortoise three times (this is on the honor system), they are now "it". It's always possible to have multiple people being "it" and makes it crazier when you don't know who to run from!

Fainting Goat Tag

One person is chosen as the Shepard.

Whoever the Shepard touches becomes the new Shepard.

The "goats" can fall to the ground to avoid being tagged for up to 10 seconds. As long as they are on the ground, they are safe. The goat can't fall to the ground unless the Shepard is 10 feet away or closer.

This game is very tiring.

Help Tag

Pick two people to be "It". The rest of the group has two or three objects that are considered to be "base". If someone is tagged they go down to both knees and cannot talk or move at all. They can become unfrozen if given one of the base objects. 

Hospital Tag

The basic rules are the same as tag. 

One person is "Mr. Yuck" and the others run. When you get tagged you may cover your "wound" with one of your hands. When you get tagged a second time, you may cover your "wound with your other hand. The third time you get tagged, you are out. 

OR

We did the same thing except that whatever part you were tagged on went numb (i.e.-if your arm was tagged, you couldn't use it.) If you ran out of forearms, shoulders, and legs, you had to lie there, until someone tagged you. Then you were out of the game.

Otters and Clams Tag

Set up a flat playing area with boundaries big enough for the entire group to run in without causing injury. 

Choose three players to be otters. The rest of the players are clams. Tell the otters to count to 20 and then they start to chase after the clams. 

When one of the otters tags a clam the clam becomes frozen and shouts "Help the clam!" They remain frozen until 2 people stand around the clam joining hands and say "Free the clams!" This unfreezes the person and they are back in the game. 

Note: The otters cannot tag players who are unfreezing another player. That being said, players cannot stand with their arms linked around another player waiting because they do not want to be tagged. Game play must continue quickly.

Reverse Tag

First you choose who is it. Then the people that are NOT IT count to five while the the person that is IT Runs away. 

Then you go after "IT". Then when you tag him you become it then you have to run from everyone. 

(it is the same thing as regular tag but backwards!!)

Weaving and Sharing - A beautiful way to start the day

With strength and light

I stand

With warmth and breathe

I expand

Across 

The land,

And reach for another’s

Hand.

---------------------------------------------

Far and Wide

And at your side

Reach up high

Fill the sky

The sky so wide

It comes down

To your side.

--------------------------------------------

We give

We share

We learn to care

We do receive

And so do weave

A web of love

That we may grow

As bright on Earth

As stars above.

Brain Injury From Heading The Ball In Soccer-- Natural Health Blog

Brain Injury From Heading The Ball In Soccer-- Natural Health Blog

An excellent article.

Spacial Dynamics Institute Training Programs

Play : A Shaping of Space

Play is what lifts people out of the mundane. Play is a catalyst. The beneficial effects of getting just a little true play can spread through our lives, actually making us more productive and happier in everything we do. Joy and play is the answer to the question, How does anything new ever come about? - JEAN PIAGET

Play is essential for the human being. It is fundamental and a foundational element of movement that shapes us. We develop behaviors, thoughts, strategies, movement habits, and ways of being by playing. It gives us fresh insights into who we are and provides a desire to experience connections. As I watch children playing, I see them excitedly learning about the world and how their friends interact. Through play, they seem to perceive the emotional state of others and learn to adopt an appropriate response; developing healthy friendships.  

In his Book entitled Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, Stuart Brown, MD, talks about 'play personalities' and how as we grow older, we start to have strong preferences for certain types of play over others. Most of us possess a mix of these categories.


The eight personality types are:

1. The Joker -- makes people laugh, plays practical jokes.

2. The Kinesthete -- loves to move, dance, swim, play sports.

3. The Explorer -- goes to new places, meets new people, seeks out new experiences (physically or mentally).

4. The Competitor -- loves all forms of competition, has fun keeping score.

5. The Director -- enjoys planning and executing events and experiences, like throwing parties, organizing outings, and leading.

6. The Collector -- loves the thrill of collecting, whether objects or experiences.

7. The Artist/Creator -- finds joy in making things, fixing things, decorating, working with his or her hands.

8. The Storyteller -- loves to use imagination to create and absorb stories, in novels, movies, plays, performances.

What play personality do you see yourself as? 


If you have children, what play characteristics do you see in them? 


As you get older, do you feel guilty about play?


How do you stay active and maintain your productivity?


Some of us are lucky and have children, which allows us to play. Our aptitude for play keeps us vital as learners. If you spend time with children, that are allowed to free play, you can see how they flexibly adapt to the changing play and are inventing new solutions with a sense of enthusiasm and exhilaration. Play creates joyful memories, and engaging relationships that last a life time.


Link to The American Journal of Play® for more information. The American Journal of Play includes material that synthesizes and puts into perspective major themes of play scholarship; summarizes emerging areas of play research; presents significant new research about play; illuminates the important role of play in learning and human development throughout the life cycle; examines the interrelationship of play to other aspects of human endeavor; explicates social, cultural, educational, and public policy issues related to play; and explores cultural history through the world of play.

Jean Coté about the roots of high performance

More on play to come.

As you move, so you will become.

                                                         

As you move, so you will become.

Fitness and movement courses, workshops and trainings abound, each looking for the optimum physical performance. But the physical outlook only is incomplete. A Spacial Dynamics® approach to movement takes the idea of space not been a void but something that is alive and when used with the physical body produces a unity. We work with this different quality of movement in a variety of settings to being about the change of healthy movement, ideal movement, and new movement possibilities within the physical body. These spacial movements are the bridges to our thinking, emotions, habits, and image of ourselves.

Todays work and “thought” patterns mainly have to do with gravity. A gesture of “ you must”. “You must go to college”, “You must follow the rules”. Don’t get me wrong following rules is a good idea and gravity is an important force, without it we could not stand and live our lives. Gravity is just one of the forces that surround us. It is a purely physical force and it sometimes get our bodies to stagnate or become stuck in a movement pattern that it is hard to let go! In the work of Spacial Dynamics® we use other forces to help us stand and move. We ask the body to give us another gesture to work with the “must” that gravity allows us to use. A movement quality of “you may”, an invitation in connection with gravity. This “may” invitation is a force of levity, a drawing of oneself out to the periphery. It is like that feeling of standing in the sun after a cloudy morning, feeling the warmth of the sun and expanded feeling of your being. By activating an invitation we create a spacial gesture that the physical learns to follow, then arises the human experience: A feeling of new possibilities, a rejoining and rejoicing of the whole.

It is these “relationship of forces” that lie at the heart of Spacial Dynamics® practice, whether it is during a workout, performance or our everyday activities. It is as if we are in a conversation with our body, its form and function, and the world of motion.