Steps

1. Ask a group of 10-16 individuals to face one another in a tight circle.

2. Each person holds out his/her right hand and grasps the right hand of someone else, as if they were shaking hands.

3. Next each person extends his/her left hand and grasps the hand of someone else, so that each person is holding two different hands.

4. This hand-in-hand configuration should come out equal.

5. The group is to try to unwind themselves from their tangled situation so that after much try-this, try-that squirming and contorting, a hand-in-hand circle is formed.

6. The physical hand-to-hand contact that you have with your partner cannot be broken in order to facilitate an unwinding movement. Sweaty palms may pivot on one another, but skin contact may not be lost. As a result of the initial grasping movements, and depending upon the number of participants, two or even three distinct people circles may be torn.

7. These circles are sometimes intertwined like Ballantine rings.

8. If the group has been struggling with a “knot” for longer that your session has time, offer an honorable out called Knot First Aid. Indicate that actual hands and arms knots do sometimes materialize in this jumble of anatomical parts and that it may become necessary to effect a cure by deciding, amongst the group, which grip needs knot first aid; i.e., which pair of hands should be separated and regrip.

Processing Issues