This dodgeball variant we’ve noticed being promoted by a few sports and physical education instructors such as @edf.prof.marcos. and similar to Protect the President.
You need a relatively large group of around 15 to play and enough space, eg a large hall or outside.
Equipment:
Football/Soccer ball (or equivalent size dense foam ball). Something large and relatively easy to catch, when thrown has enough weight to travel rather than fall short and when it hits somebody is not going to hurt or hurt too much.
10 hoops (large, eg hulahoop size) or chalk to mark out rings for players to stand in.
Play
Arrange the 10 hoops in a large circle, so they are about 2 meters apart from each other.
Split the 15 players so there are 5 in the middle who become the ‘body and tail’ and the remaining 10 become ‘throwers’. The throwers each take up a position in one of the hoops while those who are body and tail make a straight line holding the shoulders of the person in front. The last person of this group is the ‘tail’.
The objective is for throwers to hit the ‘tail’ below the waist with the ball. Throwers can only throw from within their hoops and can not move outside of their hoops except to retrieve the ball, but they can throw between themselves.
The ‘body and tail’ can freely move within the circle of throwers, but need to keep together in a line hands on the shoulders of the one in front. It’s the job of the body to keep moving and turning to block throwers from being able to hit the tail.
If the tail person is hit, the thrower swaps with them. Alternatives are for the thrower to either become the new tail of the body and the person who was head now takes over the empty hoop and becomes a thrower, or in reverse such that the thrower becomes the new head of the body and the person who was the tail now takes over the empty hoop and becomes a thrower (see
and the person who was the respective tail or head, now becomes a thrower and takes over the hoop vacated as shown in the figure below (Figure of possible rotations of players).
