Rope-a-dope
This is a full body game that will test your stability, proprioception and cunning. Get yourself a rope about 10 feet long and square off with your partner. Each person will grab the rope at about the one third position; this leaves about 3 feet of rope between the two of you. You can grab the rope with either hand or both, it makes no difference.
Now stand on one foot. The object of the game is to get your partner off balance. If you hop or step down with the other foot, you’ve lost the match and you'll have to start over. The basic strategy is to use some combination of pulling–as in tug of war–and letting slack slide through your hands. This makes it a yin-yang challenge.
Obviously, you can only do the slide trick so many times before you run out of rope, so you'll have to be wary; if you let the rope slide to the end, you’ll run out of options. Similarly, you should try to reel in slack whenever you can. As you will soon discover, strength doesn’t help much in this game; speed, abdominal function and whole-body coordination make the difference. Be sure to switch partners frequently. Everyone seems to have their own strategy and surprises.
variation: hip-hop rope-a-dope
In the traditional variation, players are stationary on one foot, trying to maintain balance and composure. If you hop or step down with the other foot, you lose the game.
In this variation, we open it up to hopping. It's the same game of pulling and yielding, but now you can hop as much as you want. If you fall or step down with the other foot, you lose. As you'll soon discover, this variation is far more dynamic and robust than the more meditative traditional version. Now you can move around the room, apply a lot more force and play with momentum.
A good way to structure this practice is to start with the regular version. Make sure that your players have mastered the fundamentals of stability and get settled into their bodies. Once everyone has got the main idea and a sense of rapport, move on to the more dynamic version.
