Buck buck, also known as Johnny on a Pony, is a popular team game that has been played for many years. Source: Bill Cosby. Although the rules may vary, the general objective of buck buck is the same. The group divides into two teams. In this game, strong and heavy team members are a premium. One buck buck team lines up in the following way: the first bends over and wraps his/her arms around a tree or similar object. The next person bends over and hugs the first one around the waist. the remaining team members do the same one after the other to form a "horse". The other team takes turns shouting "buck buck number 1(2, 3,...) coming!" then with a running start, jumping onto the back of the "horse". Each team member stays on the horse while subsequent jumpers accumulate. The object of buck buck is for the team that is jumping to "break" the horse by collapsing the bottom team under them. Rules may vary but generally the objective of the jumping team is to collapse the "horse" team under them, and the objective of the "horse" team is to remain standing long enough for any member of the jumping team to touch the ground. It can be hard for the "horse team" if they start to collapse because it is in the interest of the team riding them to keep their feet up off the ground for as long as possible to make sure their team doesn't lose so they tend to ride the crumpled horse all the way to the ground making no effort to ease the impact of the collapse on the bottom team. If the jumping team is successful in collapsing the "horse," they get to jump again. If the "horse" remains standing long enough for a member of the jumping team to touch the ground, then they switch sides for the next round. There is some strategy involved both in forming the horse (deciding where your weaker players go in the line) and in the order in which team members jump onto the horse. In terms of the jumpers, sometimes the rules require that when they land, they can't move forward or backwards on the "horse." Sometimes the rules permit this. In any event, it can create a large heap of jumpers in one spot so while you want some good jumpers to go first so they can get as far forward as possible when they land, it is also important to save some good jumpers for near the end when they may have to jump and land atop a heap of several teammembers. An ideal jump should land with as much impact as possible (perferably on the smallest and weakest parts of the "horse")to weaken the "horse" but balanced and steady enough that it does not topple over the other riders. Some rules allow jumpers who are in a position to do so to bounce while they are waiting for the next jumper to jump to help weaken the "horse". While this is generally a good strategy, it must only be done in a balanced position since in very deep pileups, it can be very easy to topple over the jumping team and the "horse" should try to exploit any perceived imbalance of the riders to get them to fall over before they are able to collapse the bottom team. This is a great game to do at large social gatherings such as concerts, etc. where its easy to attract interest and potential players. The more players, the more interesting it is. It is also a popular inter-intra fraternity college game as it is easy to find a large source of willing participants of different sizes for large buck buck tournaments.

Video of Buck Buck being played Children's games | Physical-skill games | Drinking games

Tournaments

It is very popular to play where there are several teams, such as between college fraternities, because it is well-suited to a Round-robin tournament. In these cases, there are usually decided two winning teams by the end of the day's tournament: Winning down (horse) team, and winning jumping team. Normally, it is decided that teams will play each other in sets of three rounds. For each set, one of the two competing teams is choosen to be the first team to jump in the set, with a coin-toss or other similar method. Then normal rules apply. Whichever team is able to be the jumping team 2 or more times in the set of three rounds wins that set. At the end of the tournament, whichever team has had the best tactics / techniques to collapse the most "horse" teams over the course of the tournament is the winning "JUMPER" team for the tournament; and also, whichever team has managed to withstand the most jumping teams without collapsing over the cumulative course of the day's tournament is the winning "HORSE" team.