A lot has been said over the past couple of years about square breathing and the importance of keeping it in mind when one is dancing. Still, I see two kinds of situations where dancers continue to have problems with it - and in the second situation many callers also have trouble. The first class of problems shows up when there are phantoms involved and the call is a shape-changer. In fact, while we breathe during calls that are not shape changers (in calls like TRANSFER THE COLUMN, for instance), it's usually pretty easy to end up on the footprints we started on, and it doesn't usually require much thought. The thinking comes when we deal with shape changers, and it becomes more complicated when there are phantoms involved.

Let's consider the case of right-handed triple boxes where the center box has all the phantoms, and the real people are all in the outer boxes (at C2 we can get there from right-handed waves with the girls in the middle, and doing TRUCK).

Look at how many phantoms are between the boxes of real people in the first box: four. Look at the configuration of the phantoms: a box. Look at the total matrix: a 2x6, with twelve spots in it. There are two phantom spaces between the mini-waves of real people. Now lets do TRIPLE BOXES, 1/4 THRU. It's an easy call from there, especially since no one has to work with phantoms, but look what happens at the end if we don't breathe as shown in the second box.

Look at all that space between the lines! How many phantoms are in there? The same four as before. But now they're in a line parallel to the two real lines, and so there's only one phantom space there - and we have to breathe to make that happen as shown in the third box.

If the next call is TRAILERS PRESS AHEAD we have to know that the trailers meet in a wave in the middle, rather than forming blocks (which is what they might try to do if we hadn't breathed in).

The key is to look at the matrix: we started with a twelve-spot matrix, and 1/4 THRU is not a space invader (a call such as LOOP or PRESS, that explicitly creates or destroys phantom positions), so we must end with a twelve-spot matrix only now it's a 3x4 instead of a 2x6.

Let's look at a similar problem with the C3A concept of SPLIT PHANTOM COLUMNS.

If the real people start in a left-handed column, we have two side-by-side right-handed split phantom columns shown in the first box. If the call is SPLIT PHANTOM COLUMNS, INVERT 1/4 the first dancers in each column must peel away from the centers of their phantom columns, which is toward the real center of the set. The other dancers must do 1/2 of a circulate and also must breathe out to make room for the two dancers who are now coming between them, and we end with an H setup shown in the second box. It's very easy for those other dancers to forget that, but there's someone coming in to remind them and wedge them apart. Do you see?

So let's look at a slight variant that's actually much harder: SPLIT PHANTOM COLUMNS, CROSS INVERT 1/4.

Now the first dancers in each column trail to their right, across the centers of their phantom columns as shown in the first box. But it's the same situation as before; there's a phantom trailing into the middle from each side (so two phantoms altogether), and the remaining columns of three must still breathe apart to make room for the phantoms, and the result shown in the right box is that there are two phantom spots in between the columns of three. This adjustment is very difficult to remember to make; be careful! (There's also a phantom spot between the column of three and the lone outside dancer who trailed off, so don't forget that one either.)

Think about a similar situation if, from a right-handed column (figure 3a), we call SPLIT PHANTOM LINES, ALL EIGHT COUNTER ROTATE 1/4.

Each box is the center box of its split phantom line, so each box has to counter rotate 1/4 and breathe out, and we end up (figure 3b) in triple boxes with all the real people in the outer boxes.

The second class of breathing problems, and the one that gives callers, as well as dancers, trouble, appears when we play with "do your part" stuff - in particular when we have the ends do their part of some shape-changing calls. We'll look at the two most common examples here.

First, let's watch the ends (the circles in figure 4a on the next page) as everyone does CAST A SHADOW.

The ends 1/2 zoom, cast off 3/4, and spread. Notice where they end up: they are ends of lines. That's because as part of doing the call they had to breathe; before the spread they were far apart in the front-to-back direction (arrows in figure 4c), but when they finished they had to close the gap there to make lines with the others.

Now what happens if, from the same starting position, we leave the centers alone and have only the ends of CAST A SHADOW.

They must do exactly the same thing that they would have done if we'd done the whole call - including the breathing. That means that we end in a t-bone (figure 4d) with the ends as ends of lines - we do not end in butterfly footprints! Look at it another way: in order to make distorted figures such as O's or butterflies or blocks we have to use space-invading calls (calls like PRESS, LOOP, TRUCK, SQUEEZE, and SHOVE OFF) or we have to invoke concepts such as TRIPLE BOXES or SPLIT PHANTOM LINES that add phantoms to our formation.

We've done nothing of that sort here, so since we started in an 8-spot matrix we must finish in an 8-spot matrix. We may change the shape of the matrix, but we may not add matrix spots unless there's a valid reason for doing so and having specified dancers do their parts of a normal call like CAST A SHADOW does not add spots to the matrix.

Let's consider the same thing with (from a column) ENDS DO YOUR PART OF FILE TO A LINE. The definition of FILE TO A LINE has the ends spread while the centers phantom column circulate twice (leaving us in lines far apart), and then everyone breathes to end in lines close together. By definition, the call FILE TO A LINE does not add matrix positions - the breathing is done as part of the call.

So, again, when the ends do their part, they spread but they also breathe, so they end as ends of lines, not in butterfly spots. If we want to get a butterfly we have to use a space-invading call - for instance, if the ends are boys holding right hands we can call ENDS TRUCK to get a butterfly. Or we could say ENDS DO THE SECOND HALF OF SQUEEZE if we want the ends to spread apart without making any breathing adjustments.

Unfortunately, the fact is that many callers will use one of these calls and expect you to end in butterfly spots. What's a dancer to do? Well, you can protest vehemently and break your square down, annoy the caller, and feel virtuous because you're right. Or you can be prepared: now that you know the right answer, you can go to the right spots but be ready to adjust when you hear the next call. Clearly, if the next call is "in your butterfly...", it's simple to deal with it. Of course, if the next call is "split phantom columns..." there's more of a problem. You can get to know which callers expect what, and put your "Caller Jones" hat on when you're dancing to Caller Jones, and that helps.

Ideally, as more dancers and more callers become aware of the intricacies of square breathing, and as more callers use computer programs to verify their choreography, things will become more consistent and we can just do what's right and know that it's what the caller wants.