How to Play Human Knot (A fun icebreaker game)

On top of promoting fun and play, group games are also a great way to help break the ice among new groups. If you want to further encourage teamwork while having your players get to know each other, you may consider a popular group game known as Human Knot.

Features of the Human Knot Game

 ★  Game Name Human Knot
 ★  Group size small and medium
 ★  Age any (8+)
 ★  Type active  
 ★  Skill balance
 ★  Place indoor and outdoor
 ★  Time up to 10 – 20 min
 ★  Preparation no
 ★  Materials no

The aim behind Human Knot

Your goal behind Human Knot is to untie yourselves as a group. This can be done by crossing each other, twirling around, crawling under the group’s hands, or however else you can think of. Ultimately, everyone in the group should end up untangled with a large circle in the middle.

Ideal Age and Group Sizes

Human Knot is ideally played between groups of 5 to 8 people. It may be too difficult to “untie” a human knot with larger groups, so if you have more players who would like to play this game, do consider splitting them into smaller teams instead.

You can play Human Knot with anyone aged 8 and up.

What to prepare to play Human Knot

You don’t have to prepare anything to play Human Knot as this is a game that only needs everyone’s teamwork to resolve. This is a great group game to foster better relationships and gets all your players thinking hard to solve problems.

Due to the nature of the game, you may want to group your players who are around the same height as each other. Do ensure that your players are also comfortable with holding hands with other players as they must remain in this position throughout the game.

How to Play Human Knot Group Game

To play Human Knot, you will first have to gather your players in a tight circle.

Step 1: Have everyone hold hands with the player opposite of them, even if it means they must overlap one another. With the other free hand, they must then grab another player. You will end up with a tight human knot.

Step 2: Once all your players have ended up in a knot, they must now work to untie themselves.

This can be done by having your players turn around or squat beneath the knot and walk about the room – basically, try any means they can to untangle themselves. The only rule is that they cannot let go of their teammate’s hands.

Human Knot is a great group game that will help foster stronger relationships among friends and promote teamwork. If you have several groups a knot, you can also make it competitive by declaring the first group to untangle themselves as the winner.