Obstacle Course
Obstacle Course is a physical exercise in which players navigate a real or imagined series of obstacles using their bodies expressively. The exercise may be used to build physical confidence, practice environment work, or warm up the body before performance. It trains spatial awareness and encourages bold physical choices.
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Related Exercises
Scene / Character Walkabout
Scene/Character Walkabout is an exercise in which performers walk around the space embodying a character or exploring a scene's environment before any dialogue begins. The physical exploration establishes character through movement, posture, and spatial behavior. The exercise teaches players to build characters from the body outward rather than from dialogue inward.
Complete Bodies
Complete Bodies is a physicality exercise in which players practice using their entire body to communicate rather than relying primarily on face and hands. The exercise challenges performers to express emotional states, status, and character through the spine, torso, hips, and legs as well as through their more habitual expressive channels. It builds physical range and presence for scene work and performance.
Follow Your Nose
Follow Your Nose is a physical exploration exercise in which players literally lead with their nose as the point of initiation for all movement through the space. By designating a single body part as the physical driver, the exercise disrupts habitual movement patterns and develops kinesthetic awareness, physical specificity, and the discovery of how a small physical choice can alter an entire physical identity.
Exaggeration Circle
Exaggeration Circle is a physical exercise in which a gesture, movement, or sound is passed around a circle, growing progressively larger and more committed with each repetition. The first player initiates a small motion; each subsequent player exaggerates what they received slightly further, until the original gesture has transformed into its most physically extreme expression. The exercise develops range, commitment to physical offers, and the willingness to go beyond habitual comfort zones.
Character Walk
Character Walk is an exercise in which players move through the space while gradually adjusting their physicality to build a character from the feet up. Changes in gait, posture, tempo, and weight distribution produce distinct personas. The exercise demonstrates how physical choices generate character without any need for backstory or dialogue.
King Lizard
King Lizard is a physical status and transformation exercise in which participants alternate between embodying two extreme physical archetypes -- the king, characterized by elevated posture, expanded presence, and unhurried ease, and the lizard, characterized by a low center of gravity, darting speed, and close-to-the-ground alertness. The exercise uses the contrast between these two physical states to develop performers' range of physicalized status and presence.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). Obstacle Course. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/exercises/obstacle-course
The Improv Archive. "Obstacle Course." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/exercises/obstacle-course.
The Improv Archive. "Obstacle Course." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/exercises/obstacle-course. Accessed March 17, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.