This is a fun, fast, physical warm-up that’s good for building awareness and responsiveness.

Important Safety Tip: Always use a mimed knife.

To begin, everyone stands in a circle. One person throws a knife to someone else. As they throw it, they make a “Shhhhhht!” sound like a knife blade whizzing through the air.

The receiver claps their hands together to stop the knife from killing them, and to let us know they caught it. They then throw the knife to someone else in the circle.

You can practice your mime skills to make the knife as real as possible: unfold the blade from its switchblade handle before throwing, for instance.

The pace should be fairly fast. If you have a large group, you can add more knives.

Once the first knife has gone around the circle a few times, the Director/Coach taps someone on the shoulder and hands them a second knife. Once both knives have been thrown around the circle, add a third. Finally, you can add an armful of puppies to the mix. Be careful not to let the puppies get knifed.

The knives and puppies get passed around for a few minutes, then the Director stops everyone and asks who has each item by a show of hands.