The other day I was in a dance room for Musical improv (article this Monday) and we had to take are shows off and do the lesson in socks – this lead to a lot of conversations that took us all back to the school yard and I mentioned a game that was huge in our Primary School but no-one had heard of it. I was shocked! I thought it was a classic game that all kids / girls played at break times – obviously not. Just us. Talking about it actually made me miss it – let me welcome you to the world of Knife Forks Spoons – Cut It!

OK! Now it is nothing that you would exepct – it is not throwing of cutting things with cutlery instead it is a competitive game with handstands. Yup, you read that correctly. Handstands – the things you do with your hands on the floor and your legs in the air.

Now the rules are really really simple – you can have as many players as you want but the ‘competitors’ all stand in a line with a lot of space next to them (and at school we used to put our school jumpers on the floor in front of us so that we had ‘padding’). There will then be one judge that will stand in the front of all of the competitors and be the person that calls out.

Ok – so the idea is the judge at the front says ‘Knife Forks Spoons …..’ – now, this is where it may get a but complex. The word after Spoons can actually change. You only say Cut It if you want the competitors to do a standard handstand. There are more rules – we will come to that in a sec! After the person shouts out a direction like ‘Cut It’ The competitors then all do handstands at the same time and the person that stays the longest in the air is the winner and becomes the judge – it is as simple as that!

Now, I said in the last paragraph that there are different things that you can say after the word Spoons – well that would depend on the type of handstand that you wanted the competitors to do! There were a lot of different varieties – here are the ones that I remember:

Knife Forks Spoons……

Rubber: When in Handstand mode bend your legs so they are close to your body and look like you are kneeling upside down
Pencil: Point your toes and bring your legs close to each other
Ruler: Similar to Pencil but instead of pointing your toes make your feet flat
Genie: Similar to Rubber but you cross your legs like a genie instead
Pencil Sharpener: Similar to Genie but your crossed legs are sort of a cross over of legs to make a small hole.
Bridge: This is when you flip the whole way over in a handstand – some people could even flip all the way back (not me) and you called this something else (I can’t remember this one)
Crab: This is when you go all the way over and land in the bridge position and then walk like a crab.
Walking: When you go into handstand mode and start walking on your hands
Scissors: When you are in the air your legs are straight and you open and close your legs continuously like a pair of scissors
Jellyfish: I remember this being one of my favourites – its when you are in a handstand mode and you just wiggle your legs continuously and very wacky
One Handed: A difficult one – a one handed handstand.

I am so glad that a sock based floor made me remember this game as I have sooooo many fond memories playing it – I used to play it so so so much as it was the thing our Primary School did and it was so ridiculously fun that I want to actually play a game right now…..I do wonder if I can do all of these in my late twenties. I will try one day and report back.