1. In view of your group, start to rub your open palms together in front of you.
2. In response to your non-verbal urgings, invite your group to copy your moves.
3. Next, rub your hands more vigorously and then start to click your fingers.
4. Then use two fingers of one hand to clap into your opposite palm, before gradually morphing into full open-palmed clapping.
5. Crouch over and bending your knees, start to slap your palms onto your thighs.
6. Finally, while slapping your thighs vigorously, stamp one or both feet onto the floor/ground.
7. Once you have reached a crescendo, slowly reverse the motions until you are slowly rubbing your hands together again.

Video Transcript for Coming & Going of the Rain
presented by Nate Folan

(Group rubbing hands together to begin Coming & Going of the Rain)

(Group snapping fingers)

(Group clapping)

(Group stomping)

(Group clapping)

(Group snapping)

(Slowly snapping to conclude Coming & Going of the Rain)

This is such a cool exercise, so I tend to reserve it for only the most deserving groups. Have fun with it.

Start by attracting the attention of your group. And perhaps without notice or introduction, start to slowly rub your hands together in front of you.

As your group starts to catch on, they too will mimic your moves and within moments you will hear a large, collective rubbing sound.

After five to ten seconds of rubbing, transition from rubbing into clicking one of your fingers. Then click the fingers of both of your hands. Start slowly, and then gradually build up the pace of your clicks.

From here, use two fingers of one hand to clap into the palm of your other hand. Again, begin by clapping slowly, and then build up the pace, before involving three and then four finger claps, and then whole of hand clapping. Eventually, everyone in your group shall be clapping furiously.

To mimic the sound of really large raindrops, crouch over a little, bending your knees, and start to slap your thighs, one hand at a time, before slapping both hands at the same time.

Finally, reach a crescendo by stamping one and then both feet onto the ground/floor to simulate thunder.

Sit with this ‘rainstorm’ for a little while, and then slowly and again without notice, reverse all of your movements and sounds until you return to rubbing your hands together in front of you slowly again.

And that’s it.

Ahhh… you’ve got your group’s attention, they are focused, and ready to embrace what’s coming up next.

With each of the stages you progressively introduce, the key is to ‘morph’ into each one, rather than present each new stage abruptly. In a sense, as a new stage is introduced you will do a little of both the new and the old movements until one takes over the other.

There’s no right or wrong method to the coming & going of the rain, but imagine your moves mimicking the beats and strokes of the rain falling onto the ground. It starts with slow, soft beats, and then little drops, building to bigger and heavier drops, until finally the full fury of the storm is experienced. And then, slowly, the showers break up a little, and turn into lighter drops again, before finally disappearing altogether.

This is an ideal technique to use when seeking the attention of very large, noisy groups. I learned it during my eight seasons at summer camp and it works like a treat.

Just for fun, check out this YouTube video of a large choir performing an amazing thunder storm. – something to aspire to.

You could integrate Coming & Going of the Rain as part of a well-designed SEL program to promote and maintain healthy and supportive relationships in your group.

Specifically, this activity offers opportunities to explore and practice the following social & interpersonal skills:

Self-Awareness

• Identifying Emotions
• Experiencing Self-Efficacy

Self-Management

• Identifying & Managing Stress
• Demonstrating Self-Discipline & Self-Motivation

Social Awareness

• Understanding & Expressing Gratitude
• Appreciating Diversity

Relationship Skills

• Communicate & Listen Effectively
• Build Positive Relationships
• Work Collaboratively

Responsible Decision-Making

• Demonstrating Curiosity & Open-Mindedness
• Promoting Personal & Collective Well-Being

You can learn more about SEL and how it can support character education here.

Mindfulness

The connection and calm that often transcend a group as it participates in this exercise make it an ideal activity for programs that focus on mindfulness practices. As you lead the various actions, invite your group to block out all other distractions and tune in to the sounds and sensations of the passing rain cloud. This is especially true if you adopt the blindfold version described in the Variations tab.

Being present with yourself (reflective, introspective) and with others (listening, connecting, hearing) are essential components of health and wellness. There are few natural occurrences more spectacular and humbling than a powerful thunderstorm. It provides a vivid reminder of our relatively small place in the cosmos, our fragility and vulnerability. There is also a beauty and power to the storm that connects us to the random majesty of the natural world.

This activity requires accepting and participating in the metaphor of creating a storm. If a person is not present – eg creating distractions, not paying attention to the instructions and process – the activity will fail. The deeper lesson is that only as interdependent people can we most successfully weather a storm.

There are a number of elements to this activity that connect to health, wellness and mindfulness practice. Here are a few conversation starters that focus on mindfulness:

• Was it difficult to stay focused on what you felt on your back as opposed to what you heard going on around you? Why do you think that was? How does this relate to the competing demands for attention that you have during your day?
• How does staying focused on a particular goal contribute to health and wellness? Can you think of an example of where your attention was pulled away from what was best for you to be doing, or a goal you set for yourself?
• In order for this activity to work there needs to be a commitment on the part of everyone to follow the instructions. If this did not happen due to a deliberate act, or if someone just loses their focus how did this change the experience for you? Have these sorts of distractors happened in your own life when you have set a goal for yourself? How important is the support of others to your success in achieving wellness? Can you think of an example of how friends and family have either supported your health and wellness goals or distracted you from them?
• Thunderstorms provoke many different feelings in people. For some it is about the wonderful power of nature; it may be fear; for some, it is feeling that things are out of control; it may in a strange way stand for predictability – storms come, they build, they recede. How might these different views support the idea of health and wellness, and mindfulness, or conversely the lack of stability and confusion?

This is also a great activity that teaches about the present moment and how we can only experience it through our senses. You cannot hear in the future or past. You can do practice rounds with just sounds; rubbing hands, snapping fingers, and clapping before attempting this exercise.

– thanks to Richard Maizell for contributing some parts of the programming ideas above.

• Vary The Sounds: The sky’s the limit – introduce a variety of sounds from tongue-clicks, whistles, thigh-slaps, hoots and hollering! Just make it fun.
• Rain Circle: Ask your group to stand and form a tight circle, with each person facing the back of the person in front of them. With eyes closed, ask each person to mirror the identical stroke (they receive from the person behind them) onto the back of the person in front of them. As leader, start with slow, gentle strokes, and gradually build up the pace and intensity of the beats in an attempt to mimic the sound of a passing rainstorm.

Have you ever really listened to a thunderstorm? It begins way before the coming of the rain. First, there is a dead calm, a still so quiet that it seems like the air is unable to lift itself. Then comes a slight whisper of a wind which builds into a flag-snapping blast of air that, when gusting, can knock you off of your feet. A rumble of thunder is heard to the west. It rolls again, closer now. Then lightning flashes. It makes everyone’s face light up. You begin to automatically count between the booms and blasts, calculating the distance of the storm. Suddenly it is upon you; trees twist in on themselves, whipped by the wind; rain slices in hard sheets across the grass and pavement; thunder and lightning collapse into one continuous rage of fire and sound. Then, as the power seems like it will overwhelm us all, we sense a change. The rain starts to make more individual pats on the pavement, the wind allows the trees to unwind; the thunder rolls, but less often, and the lightning lights up a far-off place. It smells fresh and green. The sun takes a run at breaking through the departing storm. As a group, we are going to create a thunderstorm together. As we go through the experience, think about the importance of maintaining our togetherness in weathering the storms that will seek to overwhelm our group as we continue this journey…

Note, as this exercise can be introduced without any introduction or fanfare, you may not need any particular framing up front. But, having said that, it is true that you have to pick your group and your moment (which is just another way of saying that your group must be prepared.) For example, an audience expecting to be entertained will be more willing to follow your lead. Whereas, a group of teenagers unsure of where they fit in within the rest of their class are more likely to resist the urge to mimic you unless they think it’s cool to do so.

This exercise is best ‘framed’ when you want your group’s attention, but you don’t want to raise your voice (see Variations tab.)

It’s also a brilliant technique to open an event, especially if there is a lot of people buzzing with anticipation in the auditorium.

Coupled with one or more reflection strategies, here are some sample questions you could use to process your group’s experience after playing this soothing, audience-participation exercise:

• What did you first think when the activity started?
• What feelings did you experience as the activity progressed? Good, bad, otherwise?
• What was the impact of such an exercise on the group when the rain passed?

Fun & Interactive ‘Energiser’ Session

What You Need:
8+ people, 30 mins

• Fill Me In – innovative, active circle name-game
• Stop & Go – brilliant energiser that involves lots of mingling and observation skills
• Star Stretch – progressively challenging partner balance exercise
• Coming & Going of The Rain – delightful, sensitive exercise to conclude your program