Team Building Exercise: Capture the Dragon

Purpose

This is a fun outdoor activity ideal for team building. It is also useful for young children as it is cooperative and competitive. It’s the kind of team leading exercise that leads to a memorable experience.

Objective

Form a chain of people by holding hands and aim to become the last dragon remaining after all other dragons have been eliminated or tagged.

What You Need

• A scarf for each group of 4 or 5.
• It is best if you have at least three groups competing, so you need a minimum of 12 people for this exercise.
• An area with a lot of space so people can easily walk around. Outdoors with grass is the most ideal.

Setup

• Divide the delegates to groups of 4 or 5.
• Give one scarf to each group.
• Ask each group to form a chain by holding hands. They should hold hands or link elbows. They must remain attached at all times.
• Each connected chain is considered a dragon with a head and a tail. One person at one end must place a scarf in his or her pocket which would resemble the tail of the dragon. It should be easy to grab the scarf to take it so it cannot be tied to body.
• The objective for each team is that the head of their dragon must grab the scarf from the tail of another dragon while their own dragon remains intact. Once a scarf has been taken, the scarf-less dragon is eliminated and is immobilised. The members of the dead dragon should remain standing where it died.
• If any point in a chain is broken, the tail cannot move, only the head can. A dragon cannot go after another dragon until it has reconnected its body.
• The game continues until only one dragon is left which is declared the winner.
• Follow with a quick discussion.

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 5 minutes

Activity: 30 minutes

Group Feedback: 5 minutes

Discussion

Was there a particular effective strategy that the winning team used to win? If you had a chance to play the game again, what would you do differently?