Introduction
The military has a term - "situational awareness" - which is the ability to have an accurate and relevant picture of the battlefield.
Square dancers who require a significant awareness of what is going on in their square at all times, particularly important is an awareness of position in the square.
"Positional Awareness" requires detailed knowledge of the following:
A discussion of each of the four elements of positional awareness follows.
What Is the Starting Formation
Many Challenge dancers do not have an understanding of basic square dancing positions and movements. This paper is written to clarify dancer positioning for Challenge dancers. This is not the place to look for the definitions for these calls. The calls are defined by Callerlab up through C2. The Ceder Chests, published by Vic and Debbie Ceder, provide definitions for C1 through C3B calls and concepts. The Ceder web site provides online definitions with lots of diagrams and commentary. This web site is highly recommended.
Click below to reach these sites:
| Callerlab Web Site | |
| Ceder Web Site |
Some calls may start in a 2x4 shape like lines or columns and end in a 1x8 tidal formation. Others may start in a 2x4 shape and end up in a diamond or hourglass shape. Yet other calls may start in a diamond shape and end in a 1x8 shape.
All these calls have one characteristic - they only use 8 spots on the floor even though their shapes vary. Challenge dancing does, however, include calls that create extra (phantom) spaces. Depending on the call there may be 8 phantom spaces added. These calls may have their own specifc breathing situations. These are not discussed here.
Why must we breathe our squares:
Examples of the need for more space are provided in many examples in this paper.
Square dance calls are done in 8 dancer formations unless otherwise specified by the caller. Examples include Swing Thru and Peel Off.
When you square up the formation looks like this:
The Grid
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The dancers are actually standing inside of a 4x4 grid which makes the squared up set look like this. |  |
Notice that the 8 dancers are standing in a grid made up of 16 spaces, 4 on a side. This is a 4x4 grid, also called a 4x4 matrix or 16 matrix. A great many calls are done within this basic 4x4 grid although all of the spots in the grid are not always used by the starting and ending formations. For many calls, dancers may be standing on the spaces in the grid, for others they may be standing on lines in the grid.
The purpose of the grid is to provide dancers with a way of referencing themselves within the current formation setup.
A call may be generally done by 2, 4 or 8 dancers. Pass Thru is a 2 dancer call and uses 2 spots in the grid. If all 8 dancers in the square do a Pass Thru at the same time, each dancer only works with 1 other dancer even though all 8 dancers are moving. Likewise, Square Thru is a 4 dancer call. All 8 dancers in the square may do a Square Thru at the same time but the dancers work in 2 groups of 4 dancers.
The formation may change shape during the call. For example, the spots required for a Pass Thru are 1 dancer wide and 2 dancers high. Halfway through the call the spot arrangement changes to 1 dancer high by 2 dancers wide. Likewise, Pass the Ocean starts as a 4 dancer call that uses a spot grouping that is 2 dancers high by 2 dancers wide but changes to a groupling that is 1 dancer high by 4 dancers wide at the end of the call.
Pass Thru
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Square Thru
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Pass The Ocean
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You must always remember that you are always dancing in some kind of a formation setup. Sometimes it is a 4x4, sometimes 3x4, sometimes 2x4. There are many other form setups you will encounter in Challenge dancing.
The Formations
The six formations described below always work within the framework of the basic 4x4 grid.
Squared Up Set
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Parallel Lines
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This formation may have any of these dancer arrangements:
| Ocean Waves | Lines with 3 adjacent dancers facing in and the other dancer facing out |
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| Lines with all dancers facing out | Lines with 3 adjacent dancers facing out and the other dancer facing in |
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| Lines with all dancers facing in | Lines with 2 center dancers facing out while end dancers are facing in |
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| Lines with 2 adjacent dancers facing in and the other two adjacent dancers facing out |
Lines with 2 center dancers facing in while end dancers are facing out |
Columns
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Like parallel lines, the dancers may be in a variety of combinations of facing directions in the column.
| Right Hand Columns | Left Hand Columns | ||
| Beginning Double Pass Thru | Completed Double Pass Thru | ||
| Beginning 8 Chain Thru | Completed 8 Chain Thru | ||
| Several Other Arrangements |
Lines and columns are 2x4 or 8 matrix formations. There are only 8 spots used in these formations.
Diamonds
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The position of the points of the diamonds are not well-defined but may safely be assumed to be the ends of parallel lines. The centers are very often in an ocean wave but may be in some other line-type formation in some cases. Diamonds use a 4x4 or 16 matrix formation. Diamonds are 8 dancer formations with only 8 spots for the dancers to use. Diamonds have the following setups:
| Normal | Funny | |
| Facing | Several other arrangements |
Hourglass
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This formation is like a diamond for the points but the center four are in a diamond. Hourglassses use a 4x4 or 16 matrix formation. Hourglasses are 8 dancer formations with only 8 spots for the dancers to use. Hourglasses have the following setups:
| Normal | Funny | |
| Facing | Several other arrangements |
N/4 Tags
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These formations use a 3x4 or 12 matrix formation but only occupy 8 spots in the matrix. There is a similar family of calls called 1/4 Line, 3/4 Line and Generalized n/4 Line where the dancers in the center are in a 2-faced line instead of a wave.
There are many more formations available. Diagrams for these are shown in the Ceder Chest definition books and also in the The Big Five definition book by Bill Davis and John Sybalsky.
A dancer needs to know almost instantly where he or she is in the starting formation.
Possible Starting Positions
| Gender | Position in Wave/Line | |
| Belle or Beau | Center | |
| Couple number | End | |
| Head or Side | Position in 2x4 matrix | |
| Facing Position - In or Out | Leader | |
| Location of Current Partner | Trailer | |
| Position in Column - 1, 2, 3 or 4 | Center | |
| Line Type | Diamonds | |
| Two-faced, facing in/out, ocean wave, inverted, 3-1 | Position in diamond - point, end, center | |
| Position in Tidal Formation | Type of diamond - Normal, Point-to-Point | |
| End Wave | Interlocked, Facing, Funny | |
| Center Wave | Wave Makeup - Left or Right-Handed | |
| Current Partner | Column Makeup - Right, Left, Magic | |
| Triple Wave (includes phantoms) | Block Formations | |
| Triple Trade/Hinge Partner | Current Partner in Block | |
| Very Centers | Who is in Other Block | |
| Very Centers of each Line/Wave | Leader or Trailer in Block | |
| Once Removed Formations | Location of Diagonal | |
| Wave/Line | Location of Diagonal | |
| Position in Wave/Line | Block Formation | |
| Offset of Line/Wave | Staggered Formation | |
| Members of each Once Removed group | Big Block Formation | |
| Position in Box | Parallelogram/Offset Lines | |
| Leader | Concentric/Cross Concentric Formations | |
| Trailer | End | |
| Triple Box | Line | |
| Center/End Box | Column |
It is an unwritten rule that formations must be as small as possible in keeping with the rules of the call. That is, for example, lines must be straight and not spaced far apart.
Normal formations include only 8 positions for the dancers as in, for example, lines, waves, columns, diamonds, hourglasses tidal and quarter tag type formations. These formations have different shapes but only provide for 8 positions for the dancers. Concepts like triple boxes and parallelograms actually 4 extra spots that the dancers must be concerned with when doing these concepts. Split Phantom lines and columns provide for 16 spots for the dancers to work in. No matter what the call or concept, dancers must end up with the appropriate formation in terms of the number of spots used. Callers will always specify the concept so that dancers will know how many spots there are.
Many 8 dancer calls take place within the boundary of the squared-up set - a 4 by 4 grid but they only use 8 specific spots and none of the other spots in the grid.
For example, waves, lines and columns take their 8 spots in a 2x4 shape. Diamonds and hourglasses take 8 spots in diamond or hourglass shapes. Movements in these calls take place within these formation, for example, Circulates. Some calls move the dancers from 2x4 shpes to diamond, hourglass or tidal line shapes.
There are formations that don't have tight grouping like lines, waves and columns but still only have 8 spots. These include but are not limited to Staggers, "O's" Blocks and Butterflies. Just because these formation take up a lot of space doesn't mean that the dancers can use that space.
What Is The Definition Of The Call?
The dancer must know the call definitions and know where to be during the call. This requires an awareness of the various starting and ending formations for the call. It is also required to know the parts of each call. There are more than 125 calls with agreed-upon parts. There are additional calls where only the first part is agreed upon.
The Ceder web site provides list of calls with parts including calls with well-defined FIRST parts and calls with well-defined LAST parts. These may be found by clicking on these links:
| Calls with parts | |
| Calls with well-defined FIRST parts | |
| Calls with well-defined LAST parts |
Dancers must be prepared to execute the definition of the call from many different starting positions as indicated in the Possible Starting POsitions table above.
Where Am I While The Mechanics of the Call Are Being Done
What is meant by "the mechanics of the call"? Let's look at a simple call - Hinge.
Hinge is defined as one half of a partner trade. It looks like this when considering only two dancers
Hinge
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The Hinging movement is done around (or centered on) the center point between the two dancers. There are three different hinges:
Another Hinge
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The Hinging movement is done around (or centered on) the center point between the two dancers.
When this call is done from a column or a tidal wave, something else happens. Look at the example above which starts in left-hand columns, goes to a tidal formation and then returns to a column. In the first case the dancers must breathe the resulting tidal formation to gain space to dance. When Hinge is called from the tidal formation and the Hinge is done according to the mechanics of the definition, extra space results in the next diagram. At this point the formation must be breathed in to restore the 2x4 formation. This is what is meant by the mechanics of the call leaving the dancers in other than the correct ending formation. This is common with many calls and must be recognized.
Many call definitions only provide rules for 4 dancers. Yet, after doing the call according to the definition, the dancers are not standing where they must be at the end of the call. This will be discussed later in this paper.
There is a difference between doing the movements specified in the definitions and then ending up in the required formation with the required spacing after the movements of the call are done. In most cases the definitions specify one starting formation for the call (when there may be several) and do not specify the ending formation. An example is Crossfire which ends in columns except where the starting formation is an inverted line with the centers facing out. In this case, the ending formation is a 1/4 Tag formation. Many definitions state the starting formation as "any allowable formation".
Just about every dancer knows about head walls and side walls in the dance hall. Yet many dancers end up facing off at some angle. An additional often-seen problem is the dancer who just plain doesn't know or understand the definition of the call and keeps going past the required end spot in the formation.
It was mentioned earlier that there are required ending formations for each call. For example, Pass the Ocean ends in parallel ocean waves. What isn't stated anywhere is that formations may change shape and spacing during call execution. This constant adjustment of formation and spacing is called square breathing. Look at this example:
Switch To A Diamond
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Switch to a diamond starts in lines or waves and ends in diamonds. Lines and waves are 2x4 matrix formations. A diamond is a 4x4 matrix formation. As well as doing the mechanics of the call according to the definition, that is, going to the correct spots on the floor, the dancers have to spread the formation to give everyone spaces to stand when the call is over. This is shown here:
Now here is where it gets interesting. If we now flip the diamond (actually each diamond separately) according to the definition, the dancers are now in parallel lines or waves. But having done the mechanics of the call correctly, the lines are far apart, not close together. But the call is supposed to end in a parallel line/wave formation with no space between the lines. We have to breathe the lines together to form the required 2x4 ending formation. This is shown here.
Flip The Diamond
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The breathing is sometimes done as we do the mechanics of the call and is sometimes done after the mechanics of the call are done, as shown for Flip the Diamond (above) and the following three calls:
Turn To A Line
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Step And Fold
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Peel Off From Columns
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If Peel Off is done from two-faced lines, the call looks like this:
Peel Off From Lines
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Here we didn't end up in parallel lines but ended in a tidal formation. In the case the mechanics of the call put us in the correct formation - no breathing was required after the mechanics are done. However we had to breathe during the call to provide space for dancing. The original formation was a 2x4 matrix and the final formation was a 1x8 matrix. We started with 8 spots and we ended with 8 spots.
The problem arises with calls whose definitions specify two or four dancers for the call but fail to specify the the ending position of each two or four dancer group in relation to the other four dancer group.
Examples of this are:
Single Wheel
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This is a two dancer call which starts in a 2x4 formation for the entire square but only concerns each dancer pair for the mechanics of the call. After the mechanics are finished, the dancers must breathe the formation to return to a 2x4 formation.
And
Swing Thru
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Each dancer must be aware of the timing of the call so that the dancer does not get ahead or behind the other dancers in the square during the execution of the call. A common timing error occurs when doing Wheel the Ocean. The Wheeling belle needs time to do the wheel action before doing the Crossing action. Often the original in-facing belle will dart across the formation before the original outfacing belle has completed the Wheeling action. The infacing belle must wait before moving. Otherwise, this results in confusion for everyone.
Wheel The Ocean
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Another example of the need for accurate timing is Plenty. After the Step and Fold, the dancers doing the Step and Fold must wait until the other dancers finish their Counter Rotate. At this point, the remainder of the call may be done.
Plenty
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There are many other positioning and timing problems with other calls that appear frequently. These are important and dancers must be aware that these problems may occur.
Conclusions
Dancers cannot perform satisfactorily unless they understand the assertions made here. Callers have the ultimate responsibility to ensure that the dancers have the knowledge and skills to understand and perform in accordance with these assertions.