Each person has to choose someone to be their Sword and another person to be their Shield. No one tells anyone who their Sword or Shield is. The Madrich starts the game by shouting "BEGIN". When the game starts, the person has to run and try and get his shield between his shield. But at the same time, everyone else is doing this and so it becomes a running around each other as everyone is tring to get their shield between them and their sword. The game continues until it looks like the Chanichim have had enough. To give you an idea, if there are 3 people: 1, 2 and 3. Person 1 has chosen 2 as their Shield and 3 as their sword. Person 2 has chosen Person 3 as their Shield and 1 as their Sword. Person 3 has chosen 1 as their Shield and 2 as their Sword. You can see that they are going to run around in one circle.