Shoo Fing Pow!

November 17, 2015

SHOO FING POW!
Theatre exercises and games are the perfect way to coordinate and energise a team that has to step into the present and work together. We love Shoo Fing Pow! and play this game before rehearsals to help us get more present and better connected to each other, as well as more connected to our physicality.

 

This exercise is a sharing of chi, a way of seeing just how energy can move around a group, how it can influence and contribute to increased energy – and once you’re into the swing of it (literally) it’s focused fun as well!

 

How to Play
Stand in a circle. The first person starts by ‘shooing’ an imaginary ball of energy (think chi gong) to the person next to them. Their arms swinging to ‘throw’ the energy towards their neighbour whilst saying loudly ‘SHOO!’.

 

The neighbour then repeats this to their neighbour and the ‘energy ball’ moves from person to person around the circle – until – there’s mutiny in the ranks and someone decides to send the energy back in the other direction. With an upstretched arm (like a tennis player’s serve) the person catches the ball of energy, throws it up and over back to the person that sent it to them, with a very audible ‘FING!’ and large arm movement.

 

From then on, the SHOO! or FING! continues to move around the circle changing directions as people decide to change the flow. After SHOOing and FINGing has been going on for a while, someone might decide to throw in another option – ‘POW!’. This is when a player decides to direct the energy towards a person, not either side of them, but across the circle. With a ‘POW!’ (reminiscent of a Batman comic noise bubble) the player punches the air in front of them, towards the person they’re sending the energy to. That person can then choose to ‘manage’ that energy with a SHOO! or FING! or POW! and on it goes.

 

This exercise looks deceptively simple but it is challenging at first – and if someone hesitates or gets the action + expression wrong, the game starts again. Fun and focused, it’s a great, albeit kinda noisy, start to an excellent team meeting! And what’s wrong with a bit of noise and energy anyway?!

 

BatmanPow


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