“I was using your site looking for games for youth group and I remembered a game we used to play in scouts. It is probably somewhere on your site but I couldn’t find it in my quick browse. It is called “Barrel and Stick”. It is a reasonably violent game and got banned several times during my time at scouts but in all that time no-one was injured.”
Sent in by Ian Gilmour
Fairly simple, you have a barrel (water container etc) and on top of it you put a pole about 3 meters in length and of substantial diameter. This is what we used to play with as it has a bit more weight and it is harder to knock over; you could have a stick of any size. Then everybody gets in a circle and links up using monkey grip. The rules are simple: if you knock the stick off the barrel you are out or if you break the link the two people who broke are out. You keep playing until there is only one left. So the gameplay is pretty much, everyone starts centred around the barrel & stick and then you start pulling people towards it (e.g. one side of the circle pulls the other side into the barrel and stick) causing the people being pulled into the barrel and stick, to have to jump over the barrel & stick or knock the stick off and be deemed out. Every time someone gets out or, you get too far away from the barrel, you re-centre the circle around the barrel and let people wipe any sweat off their hands and arms. Best played on grass as there are often people falling over.
You can choose whichever grip you want, bearing in mind that breaking your grip is part of the game (or at least trying not to). Monkey Grip referred to here is possibly the Jiu Jitsu Gable Grip.
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1 comment
We love this game, and your evaluation is exactly correct. It’s a bit violent, but no one has ever gotten seriously hurt, so we played it several times. For our hand grips, we were able to buy a box of defective nylon leggings (without feet or panty) and roll them up into a donut. They are indestructible.