You can click on any of these pictures to download an Adobe PDF file of the diagram formatted for printing on 8.5x11 paper.

The right hand picture is ‘parallel’ ocean waves. Calls like swing thru that involve just the four dancers in these formations are pretty ordinary. Calls like scootback or split circulate that require working with people in another wave are more interesting – you must identify who to do them with, despite the funny angles. It can be especially hard after, say, a swing thru – which you’ll tend to dance ‘normally’ and end up in a fairly straight wave. That makes the angles to the folks you’ll have to scoot back or circulate with even more extreme and more difficult to see.

The left hand picture (quarter tag again) has one wave in the middle. You can do most anything to that wave you can do to normal waves (swing thru, boys run, recycle, linear cycle, centers trade or hinge with each other or with ends, etc). Many of those must be modified for the six dancer formation. In particular for waves, “trades” of center or end dancers use the ‘move to the next position’ rule. “Hinges” of those same dancers are half a “trade”. “Cast ¾” are a “trade” plus a “hinge”. (A trade or hinge or cast ¾ of a center and the end he’s touching are normal.) Calls where the center wave interacts with the other dancers should work pretty much as normal, but the angles are a little funny, so you have to look carefully to figure out who to do the call with. <BACK NEXT >