Air Letters
Write your name in the air. Now with your elbow. Now with your hip.
Everyone writes their own name in the air, and you keep changing which body part they have to write it with. It starts as a stretch and turns into the room laughing at itself, which is the actual point — it loosens people up without ever asking anyone to perform.
Everybody up, and give yourself some space. Write your own name in the air with your finger, nice and big. I'm going to keep changing what you write it with. Just keep writing your name.
A seated room needs to move and stretch, and you want something with no thinking in it at all.
Props: None
Run this when…
If none of these is your room, pick another.Straight after a long seated stretch
First thing in the morning
A two-minute reset between sections
How to run it
Written to be glanced at mid-room, not memorised.
- Everyone stands with enough room to swing an arm.
- "Write your name in the air with your finger. Big letters."
- Once they are going, change the body part: elbow, then shoulder, then hip.
- Give each one a few seconds only. The change is the game.
- Finish on the whole body, which is where the room laughs.
- Straight into whatever is next while they are still standing.
Running it well
Only the host sees these. Participants never do.
- Do it yourself, fully committed, the entire time. A facilitator half-doing this gets a room half-doing it.
- Bigger is funnier and looser. Keep saying make it bigger rather than naming new body parts faster.
- Nobody is watching anybody else, and saying so once at the start gets the self-conscious people moving.
Watch out for
Space, safety and the traps worth knowing before you start.
- Arms swing wide. Check nobody is within reach of a screen, a mug or another person.
- Hips and shoulders are a real stretch for some people. Say that any version of the movement counts, and mean it.
Seated version
“Everybody stand up” is not a neutral instruction. Offer this alongside, not instead.
Every letter is written from the chair — finger, then elbow, then shoulder, then head. It works seated almost unchanged, which is unusual for a stretch.
On a video call
The cards work as they are. This is what changes about how you call it.
Unchanged, and one of the few that is genuinely no worse on a call. Ask everyone to sit back so their arms are in frame, and say big letters twice — a camera crops at the elbows and people write small. The whole-body round becomes shoulders and head, which is funnier in a grid than it is in a room.
Run it yourself
Free for thirty days, no card. Put it on the projector and step through it — nobody in the room needs a phone.
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- Where
- Remote or in person
- Props
- None
- Big screen
- Required
- Teams
- Individual only