Pairs Compass Walk
Filed under: De-inhibitizers, Problem-Solving, Trust Exercises
Marvel at people’s amazing ability to completely lose their sense of direction.
At A Glance
A blind-folded person attempts to walk directly in a straight line towards a target about 50 metres away.
What You Need
- A wide, open but not necessarily flat space.
- Minimum of 2 people.
- 10 – 20 minutes.
What To Do
Ask your group to divide into pairs. To start, one person identifies a distant object from across the space – a tree, a rock, a door, etc – and announces the object to their partner. With their eyes completely closed (no peeking) they begin to move directly towards it. Their aim is to walk “straight” to the object, in pursuit of the lofty ideals of accurate distance and direction.
To ensure a safe arrival, the sighted partner follows the blinded silently from behind. They can not verbally or physically assist their partner, rather their role is to prevent them from encountering any “unplanned” obstacles by stopping them just short of a collision, ie they are a spotter.. To this end, it may seem to make more sense to protect one’s partner from the front or side, but in my experience, this practice tends to crookedly influence the blind person’s direction and is therefore not recommended.
This activity works best if the targets are at least 50 – 100 metres away. Instruct the “spotters” to observe and note the tendency for their partners to veer either left or right, and to what extent. The looks on people’s faces when they discover how far off they were from their target is worth bottling. Full circles are not uncommon.
Follow-up with a good-natured discussion about what helped and hindered the process of travelling to the target and the consequential development of trust. A typical result – if your compass says to go one way, and your gut feeling strongly suggests another, trust the compass!
Variations
- Ask two people (possibly with opposite biases) to walk hand in hand. In this case, their original partners will walk directly behind these two co-joined people and note and ensure their safe progress.
- See Group Compass Walk (No Props p149), where you bring your entire group together in an attempt to walk as a group “blind-folded” towards a common object.
Taken from ‘No Props: Great Games with No Equipment’
If you know of a cool variation to this activity, please add a comment…
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Hi, I'm Mark Collard.
This blog shares some of the most successful group games, team-building activities & programming tips I know.
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