Lifting a Player
Lifting a Player is a physical trust and group support exercise in which one participant is physically lifted and held by the rest of the ensemble. The exercise requires the group to coordinate a shared physical act of genuine care and bearing of weight, making the abstract principle of group support literal and embodied. It is used in applied improv to build physical trust, team cohesion, and the willingness to be both a source of support and a recipient of it.
Structure
Setup
The facilitator explains the exercise clearly and ensures all participants understand the safety requirements: the group must communicate clearly, coordinate the lift together, and support the participant fully. The person being lifted lies flat or stands at rest while the group positions around them.
Progression
The group lifts the designated participant together on a counted signal, holding the person at a comfortable height for a brief period. The person being lifted is instructed to release physical control and trust the group to hold them.
The lift is held for a few seconds, then the person is lowered carefully and gently on a coordinated count. Each group member takes a turn being lifted across the exercise.
Conclusion
The exercise ends when all participants have been lifted and held. The facilitator leads a brief debrief before continuing.
How to Teach It
Objectives
Lifting a Player targets physical trust, the willingness to be supported by others, and the group experience of bearing genuine collective weight. It makes the improv principle of ensemble support concrete by requiring physical coordination, communication, and mutual care.
How to Explain It
"We're going to lift each person in this room. When it's your turn, let go. Don't help us -- just trust the group to hold you. When you're lifting, you're part of a team that has to work together. If one person checks out, everyone feels it."
Scaffolding
Establish clear safety guidelines before beginning. Start with participants who are physically comfortable with the exercise before including those who may have physical limitations or anxiety about being lifted. Offer alternatives (seated support, group lean) for participants for whom a full lift is not appropriate.
Common Pitfalls
The person being lifted frequently cannot fully release physical control, subtly helping the lift in ways that prevent them from genuinely experiencing being held. Coach the lifted participant to notice and release this tendency. Additionally, lifters sometimes distribute attention unevenly, leaving one side under-supported.
In Applied Settings
Learning Objectives
Lifting a Player trains participants in the physical and psychological experience of both supporting others and being supported by them. The exercise makes group trust bodily rather than conceptual -- participants experience what genuine collective support feels like from both sides, and they experience what it costs to be the person who relies on a team to hold them.
Workplace Transfer
The metaphor of support is used frequently in organizational settings, but the experience of actually being held -- of releasing control and trusting that others will bear your weight -- is rare and difficult to produce through conversation alone. The exercise creates a direct physical analog to the organizational moment in which a leader must delegate, a team member must ask for help, or a group must coordinate care for a colleague under pressure. The debrief connects this embodied experience to specific organizational contexts where the dynamics of support and bearing weight appear.
Facilitation Context
Lifting a Player is used in team-building workshops, leadership development programs, and organizational culture sessions where trust, psychological safety, and mutual support are primary themes. It requires a facilitator who is comfortable managing physical activity safely and who can hold the group's attention during safety briefings without undermining the emotional quality of the exercise. Groups of six to twenty participants work well. Physical considerations for participants must be assessed and accommodated before the exercise begins.
Debrief Framing
After the exercise, ask: What was it like to be lifted? What did it take to let go? What did it feel like to lift someone else? When in your work do you need to rely on others to hold something for you -- and how easy or difficult is that? When are you one of the people doing the lifting? The debrief should help participants name the specific conditions under which they find it difficult to ask for support, and connect those conditions to real team dynamics.
Skills Developed
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Related Exercises
Free Falling
Free Falling is a trust exercise in which one player falls backward and is caught by a partner or by the group. The falling player surrenders physical control entirely, trusting that the group will support them. The exercise develops trust, physical vulnerability, and the experience of genuine dependence on others -- a state that most professional and social contexts actively discourage.
Circle Sitting
Circle Sitting is a trust exercise in which players stand in a tight circle, turn to face the same direction, and simultaneously sit on the knees of the person behind them. When successful, the entire group supports each other in a freestanding circle of seated bodies. The exercise demonstrates the power of collective trust and cooperation.
Friendly Hands
Friendly Hands is a trust and connection exercise in which players reach out to shake hands or make physical contact with as many people as possible in a short time. The exercise breaks the physical barrier between participants and establishes a baseline of comfortable touch. It warms up the group's willingness to engage physically.
Positive Chair Exercise
Positive Chair Exercise is a supportive exercise in which each player sits in a designated chair while the rest of the group shares genuine compliments or positive observations about that person. The exercise builds ensemble trust, counters the vulnerability of performance, and establishes a culture of mutual support within the group.
Trust Exercise
Trust Exercise is an ensemble warm-up in which players practice physical vulnerability and mutual support through structured trust-fall and trust-lift configurations. One player allows their body to be caught, supported, or passed by the group, developing the physical and psychological openness that ensemble ensemble work requires. The exercise builds ensemble cohesion by making reliance on others literal and concrete.
Millipede
Millipede is a physical ensemble exercise in which a line of players moves together as a single connected organism, typically with hands on the shoulders or waist of the person ahead. The group must coordinate speed, direction, and stops without verbal communication. The exercise builds physical trust and nonverbal group sensitivity.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Lifting a Player. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/lifting-a-player
The Improv Archive. "Lifting a Player." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/lifting-a-player.
The Improv Archive. "Lifting a Player." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/lifting-a-player. Accessed March 17, 2026.
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