Mirrors

Listening, Connection, working on discovery rather than imposition/invention 

Applied: Adjusting your communication to match your audience. 

Adapted From Ted's blog

This game also needs students to find a single partner. Partners should face each other and establish a boundary line between them. That boundary serves as the surface plane of the mirror. At your signal, students should do their best to exactly match the movement of the other in the mirror. Have one student (student A) start leading and then, after a few minutes, switch leadership to student B. Switch back and forth a few times with diminishing periods and eventually let them share leadership. As with Fork and Knife, this game is best played without talking.

Coaching Notes:

If you find students having trouble keeping up with their partners, strongly suggest that they slow down—the point is to move in synch with each other, as images in a mirror would.

Encourage students to experiment. What happens if they vary their facial expressions as well as their gestures? What if they move away from the mirror? Or get down on the ground?

Optional: Playing music in the background can help set the mood and get the players more into a non-verbal space. Experiment with types of music: more meditative, soothing tones will slow the group down, more energetic and upbeat rhythms may call out bolder configurations.

Follow the follower
Call out switch and partners switch who is leading and who is following
Gradually increase frequency of "switch" command until its not known who is leading

Debrief
Alan Alda video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_Fw3i95HnE

Who was leading? Who was following? How could you tell? What could she do differently to help partner? Slow down. Simple. patterns. Body language. yes, this is not a contest! Your focus should be on helping the other person. What can you do to help the other person get it? Slow it down even more...

Know your goal. What is your goal? Is it to trick them and let them know how smart you are?

Knowing your audience. Are they with you? if not, what do you need to do differently to get them with you?

Coaching (will relate to trust, public speaking)
1. Slow down
2. Make it logical - give time for transitions
3. Pay attention to partner, focus - they are your responsibility

Focus on other removes fear b/c you are caring for the other. How to apply to public speaking?

Variations
Exaggerated Mirror - The partner exaggerates the motions/sounds of the other. Very fun & silly. I've used it in debrief to discuss listening & how it feels to when your communication is distorted. 

Add sound: Once in a follow-the-follower mode (no explicit leader/follower), encourage the pair to add sound as they move and to follow that sound along with the movement.  Sometimes the sound emerges naturally, sometimes it creeps out.  Either way, once it's there, don't ever fall back into silence.  Just as stillness makes it difficult to follow the natural movement of the mirroring, so too does silence make it difficult to follow the natural movement of the sound mirroring.  Sound encourages breathing, connecting sound and motion, and heightening/crescendo.  For some people, sound is a much easier thing to explore and grow than movement; for others, vice versa.   Coaching note: stress the importance of eye contact, and encourage any pairs that are not looking at each other to do so.  It helps strengthen the feedback loop of energy and investment.  

Transitions

Transition into ball toss. Now step apart from your partner...same principles apply