This Is How I Play #4 –PDQM

Game: Today’s game was invented during one of the Philly jams. It is called PDQM. It doesn’t really stand for anything, just a combination of “Pretty Darn Quick” and “Quadrupedal Motion.” This game is a combination of PDQ and QM Tag.

Rules: All players must start the game on all fours. Any body configuration is acceptable, as long as all four limbs are touching the ground. The game begins like PDQ: each player counts off. No player may move until the player whose turn it is jumps into the air. The twist to this game is that the players must be on all fours. In order to tag someone out, you must tag someone’s hand with your hand, or their foot with your foot. When the player who is “it” is leaping, all other players may move to avoid or to tag someone else out.

Goal: To be the last player untagged.

Variation: Limb elimination. This is actually a pretty standard variant that we play by. If your left hand gets tagged, then you lose that hand, but you are still in the game. You only get “out” when you can no longer support yourself and a non-limb part of your body touches the ground (chest, butt, head, etc). If you lose two feet and a hand, you better hope you can balance on one hand.

Physical Benefits: This game combines the physical benefits of PDQ with QM tag. With the limb elimination modification, it force you to be able to balance in strange positions as well as move from strange positions with unusual restrictions. This game can tire you out more quickly than PDQ or QM tag, and it also is a lot of fun.

Other benefits: This game is an example of the creativity that can be applied to parkour and games. We had two games, and after some modifications to the rules, came up with an entirely new game. Creating games doesn’t have to be hard.

Homework: I want everyone to do this as a creativity exercise. Pick two games. Review the rules in your head quickly, and then figure out a way to combine them. The new game doesn’t have to work well, or be fun, and you don’t even have to play it! Just synthesize a set of rules for a new game from two pre-existing games. I want everyone who reads this to do this exercise three times, and then post the best game you come up with in the comments of this article. Your brain is just like a big muscle. The more you work it, the stronger it gets. The more you use your creativity, the more creative you get. So start exercising your creativity, and let me see what you come up with.

This Is How I Play: Introduction

This post is an introduction to a blog series I will be publishing over the next month called “This Is How I Play.” The inspiration for this comes from a book I'm reading, Exuberant Animal, by Frank Forencich. In one of his articles he claims that we “study and test, research and measure, drilling our knowledge down to the deepest levels, and then we wonder why people find exercise so dull and unattractive. We strip human movement down to the sterile elements of anatomy, physiology, and biomechanics and then complain that no one wants to participate.”

I don't agree with this quote 100%, especially for high level athletes, but I think that a lot of fitness programs (especially for school-aged children) should pay a lot of attention. If games were emphasized as the primary method of physical activity, it will not only be more effective but also will be a lot more enjoyable. And that's really the secret to a successful fitness program. If exercise can be made fun, then people will WANT to come back and participate again; they will enjoy and look forward to it.

I'm not talking about sports however – there's a huge difference between sports and games. Sports are fantastic – for athletes. But if you aren't an athlete, you probably aren't going to have many opportunities to play sport-games. Even when you do play a pickup game, there is often equipment, a large number of people, or a specific location necessary for that sport. In order for the game to be played all of these conditions must be met, and that is often very difficult to plan and organize. Then there's the potentially humiliating experience of picking teams and, once the game starts, not being passed to or truly included.

The kind of games I'm talking about are more free-form and creative. Things that really engage the imagination, and don't necessarily have a lot of rules. During this series, I'm going to be giving examples of a lot of different games. Some are games developed by the parkour community, some are games I've developed, and others are just random games that I've come across in my travels. For most of the games, I have also listed one or two variants or combinations, a way to develop a whole new game simply by changing the rules or mixing it with another game.

Creativity and imagination is fundamental to what makes us human, but many kids aren't given the opportunities to exercise their brains and their body together. Encourage your kids to create their own games to play, or you can use these games, or make up your own variations of these games to play! Most of these games can be played without any equipment and can be played by anyone, five to fifty five, skinny or heavy, male or female.