exercise · all tools
Columbian Hypnosis
One player holds an open hand a few inches from their partner's face and moves it slowly; the partner keeps their face at exactly that distance, so the hand leads the whole body wherever it goes. Roles swap after a few minutes. The source notes it is as much an exercise for the leader, who has to keep the follow possible.
- A hand held close to the face, controlling where the whole body goes — the experience of being led is the content, and for some people that is not comfortable
- The leader can hurt someone by moving faster or lower than the follower can manage; the source's note that this is also an exercise for the leader is the safety instruction
Practical
- Time
- — min
- Group
- ?–∞ · pairs
- Settings
- in-person
- Mechanisms
- somatic-awareness, perspective-taking, feedback-mirroring
- Change scope
- state → skill · repeatable
Instructions
- Where
- improvencyclopedia.org/games/Columbian_Hypnosis.html — Improv Encyclopedia, open
- Availability
- Open online — published at the link, free to read
Source link checked 1 Sep 2026 — reachable
This directory describes and points home; the instructions stay with the people who made them.
Origin
Augusto Boal — Theatre of the Oppressed
Improv Encyclopedia attributes this to Augusto Boal's Games for Actors and Non-Actors, where it appears as one of the foundational exercises in the Theatre of the Oppressed sequence. In Boal's own use it is explicitly about power — one person's movement dictating another's — and is a way into that conversation rather than only a warm-up. That framing belongs with the tool: this is the first Theatre of the Oppressed record in this directory, and the attribution travels with it.
In this directory via Improv Encyclopedia
status: checked · added 2026-08-31