If you ever want to jump start the creative juices of your coaching staff, I highly recommend this improv game borrowed from the old TV Show “Whose Line is it Anyway?”.
This game is great when you get a new piece of equipment that coaches haven’t figured out how to use yet. Or for an old piece of equipment that only gets used in the same 3 ways over and over. It’s also good for coaches to practice thinking quickly on their feet and having a good laugh.
A couple months ago I played it with my staff when it came to our “donut mat” (which probably has many names across the gymnastics universe, see photo below).
Here’s how it went.
- Split into two teams
- Teams got 2 minutes to write down all the ways they could think of to use a donut mat
- Rock, paper, scissors determined who went first
- Teams took turns, each demonstrating one way to use the donut mat
- With no repeating allowed, continue until one team has no more ideas (and technically the other team wins at this point).
Easy peasy! You can do it with anything — pool noodles, bean bags, basic blocks, teddy bears, etc.
I made a little video compilation of all the donut mat ideas my staff came up with — some are better than others, but it sure was fun to see them try new things! Here is the video:
Enjoy!!! 🙂
