New Games over the years

From the beginning we knew that we had a way of relating to each other, an idea of fun and inclusion that was different than the norm of all-out competition where the winner takes all, gets the accolades, and takes home the trophy. This is still the dominant theme in physical games. With New Games, the winner doesn’t matter and just helps start the next game while we keep on playing. Often times, people such as a little kid, older woman, or another unlikely candidate “win” a game when they had never had done so before, which is both surprising and moving for them.

New Games for everyone!

What it has lead to is doing New Games with all varieties of populations: older people, handicapped, autistic, prisoners, just to name a few that I’ve worked with personally. While the way the games are played is similar, we discovered that the way we present them and adapt them for the group is different. For instance, I might use a fairy tale to introduce “Zoom,” a game where the sound “zoom” is passed from person to person in a circle, to kindergarten children. For a business crowd, as I did recently in Geneva, Switzerland, I made it all about driving a sports car. Same game, different presentation and approach.

While presenting New Games, I also became aware of my own limitations. While planning my first 2 hour session for a senior citizens center in San Francisco, I came up with five games I was pretty sure they could do, another six I thought they might be able to do, and a whole lot of games I thought there was no way they could do. When they arrived, I was taken aback – not only were they old, some were in wheel chairs and others were missing limbs. I was not expecting that. I had no idea how I was going to get through two hours with this group. I went on to do the five “safe” games with no problems, but it only took twenty minutes. Then I tried the six “maybe” games, which also went well, but were done in another twenty five minutes. Now what?

The group was having fun and because I didn’t know what else to do, I tried the games that I didn’t think would work. Surprisingly (to me, anyway) they adapted the games themselves to suite their abilities, sometimes making suggestions so that everyone could all participate and enjoy the game. For example, when we played “Octopus,” which calls for running, they simply each went at their own speed, which in some cases meant slow walking. They still seemed to be having great fun. When one elderly man started wobbling and looked like walking was too big a challenge, without a word being said someone paired up with the man, giving him a hand of support. I came away realizing the limitations were more in my mind than theirs.

New Games now

In the last installment of this article, we will look at how New Games are relevant in the present.

New Games

New Games are one answer

Cooperative New Games are perfect for Christmas youth group games. Size or athleticism do not matter in New Games: all that’s needed is a desire to play. Therefore, not only can all ages and ability levels play the games, which will mean you don’t have to separate into various groups to participate in the games, but games can be adapted to Christmas themes and stories.

Christmas stories adapted to New Games

For instance, you can take the story of the 3 wise men and use the game of Sun Monarch with a little tweaking.  In this game, one person starts off in front of the group by saying a noun. Two other people come on either side of him/her and say a word that compliments that word or is completely the opposite meaning.

The starting person in this Christmas version could use the word “myrrh” to begin. Two people could then come up, stand on one side or the other of the original person and offer something like “frankincense,” “gold,” or maybe “manger,”  “Mary,” or “baby.” The original person who is in the middle will choose one of these and move off to the opposite side of  where the group is standing. The person who was not chosen repeats the word they gave originally. Then two people from the original group think of a word that relates to that word and repeat the process.

To make it challenging, you can have the group try to keep to terms that relate to the story. It might help to write up a list of words to refer to which can help get people going. Of course they can come up with words not on the list.

Many possibilities with New Games

This is merely one example of how a New Game can be adapted to be a Christmas youth group game. There are many other possibilities which take just a bit of imagination. Adapting a story can be a fun group activity in itself! Of course, just doing the games as they are promotes a feeling of closeness that enhances the holiday spirit, which may be more than enough.

Try it for yourself!

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New Games

Trust Games and Creative Play

In addition to the element of softwar, which has become a minor part of New Games, the concept of “creative play” came from a friend of Stewart’s named George Leonard, author of the book The Ultimate Athlete. What was involved here was placing a player “in an open environment and encouraged to use his/her imagination to devise new play forms.” The vitally significant part of this was “How we play the game may turn out to be more important than we imagine, for it signifies our way of being in the world.” Thus, players not only were able to change the games they were playing, even during the course of play, they were able to invent entirely new games.

The other significant addition to the New Games idea came from the human potential movement – Trust Games. In these activities, players had to give up control and literally trust other players to take care of them. And that is much more scary than it sounds. In the game of Trust Lift, for example, the group lifts a person above their heads and moves them around while in the air before lowering them. If you are the person being lifted, this is a frightening, exhilarating, and peaceful experience, all at once.

New Games over the years

In part 5, we look at some places New Games has gone since its beginnings….

New Games

In part 3 I talked about the emergence of the game ‘Slaughter’, an energetic game that included the use of 4 balls.

Another game that came out of that day was competition Earthball, which was similar to soccer, except that the ball was 6 feet in diameter, canvas and rubber, and painted like a globe. After the ball was inflated, without choosing teams Stewart announced that “There are two kinds of people in the world: those who want to push the Earth over the row of flags at that end of the field, and those who want to push it over the fence at the other end. Go to it.” There was ample competition as ball moved back and forth on the field, but curiously, as the ball approached a goal, players from the winning side would start to help the losers. After an hour there was still no score – there seemed to be an agreement just to keep playing hard. And just for fun.

Out of Stewart’s experiences with these games, he conceived of “softwar,” the notion that players could create their competitive games to meet their needs. He defined softwar as “conflict which is regionalized (to prevent injury to the uninterested), refereed (to permit fairness and certainty of a win-lose outcome), and cushioned (weaponry regulated for maximum contact and minimum injury).”

While Stewart claimed there wasn’t much difference between softwar and sport, there were several important points of departure: players agreed at the beginning of the game that if someone yelled “Stop” that all players within ear shot immediately stop, thus preventing injury; at any point a player didn’t want to continue because they were tired or the game was too rough for them, they could simply choose to leave the playing area. These features are generally not true of sport.

New Games

Where did New Games come from?

In brief, New Games started as an idea of Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, in reaction to the Vietnam War. He felt that combat was getting abstract and remote. Stewart was looking for ways for people to channel and express their aggressive tendencies in ways that wouldn’t harm others. When the War Resisters League at San Francisco State College requested him to put on an event to demonstrate the uselessness of war, Stewart chose to create an event which, instead of preaching to the choir, would get people to understand war by experiencing the source of it within themselves. The name of the event? World War IV. (The prospect of WW III looked like it would be an earth destroying nuclear war, so Stewart skipped that to the next phase.)

What Stewart saw in 1966 were peaceniks and war resisters who were against warfare in all forms, including competitive games. But he felt that these pacifists were out of touch with their own bodies and feelings in an unhealthy way. “Consequently, they were starting to project a heaviness on a personal level that was just as bad as the heaviness we were projecting in Vietnam,” he said. He was looking for a game “which would fairly intense physical interaction between players.” Stewart chose the most offensive name imaginable for his game: Slaughter.

This was the beginning of Soft War.

Slaughter was played on a large wrestling mat with players on their knees, without shoes, watches, belts, and other such items to minimize injuries. The game had two levels: to get one of four balls into one of two of the opposition’s movable goals to win; to eliminate opposing players by getting them off the mat, which rendered them “dead.” It was absolutely impossible to keep from becoming involved. What players found was an intense, energetic game with a great deal of body contact. There were no serious injuries, and, to the surprise of the players, it was fun.

Earthball

Read part 3, the phenomenal Earthball, what it stands for, and the games it facilitates…

New Games

What are New Games?

For some of us, cooperative New Games never went away. We just kept right on doing them since their introduction in the early 1970’s. For others who have come along since then, they may still not know what New Games are. “Oh, you mean computer games.” Um. No. “Oh, you mean non-competitive games.” Still, no. Simply stated, New Games are cooperative group interactive games that are played just for fun, even when there is competition.

Since it doesn’t matter who wins, we can include everyone, those of all ages, sizes, abilities, and both genders. You can be slow, very large or very small, young or old, not very coordinated, in a wheelchair or almost anything else and still be able to join. Even expert athletes enjoy these games because for a change, they can relax and just enjoy playing for the sheer joy of it instead of worrying about winning. Even while trying to win. New Games are one of the few physical activities that whole families can do.

Still don’t get it? No problem. Think of it this way, the games are icebreakers, energizers, and team builders, ways to get a group to relax and get to know each other in new ways. The games look similar to children’s games, but with subtle differences. Player’s jokes and suggestions are incorporated into the games. Winning isn’t everything. It’s only one element of the games, and not the most important element. Having fun and including everyone are more important, to start. We take care of each other so that no one gets hurt and it’s enjoyable for all. Mainly, the idea is to have fun and include everyone who wants to join. We sometimes change the rules so everyone has a chance to enjoy the game and be able to participate fully. That doesn’t mean the games are trivial. I’ll address that at the end of this article.

Where did New Games come from?

Read part 2, to learn how New Games developed and what it can do for your groups…

New Games