A quick thought on "backwards becket", which is the starting formation of
one of my dances as well - i tend to think of it as "becket indecent"
since that regularizes the term with other formation terms, implying lady
on the gent's left. The basic list of course - proper, improper, indecent,
improper-progressed, becket, becket-right (or CCW)... and then our friendly
distant outlier, the backwards becket.
I'd theorize one reason Bill's dance "Weeks on the Road" folk-processed
to
start in normal becket is that "backwards becket" isn't a widely recognized
formation.
I run into the issue that - because becket-CCW dances are much less common
than becket-CW (though more common now thanks to some great dances from
Cary Ravitz and Heather Carmichael to name a couple) dancers zone out as
soon as i say "circle one place to the..." [AUTOPILOT kicks in, dancers
assume left]. Have found a variety of strategies to combat this, such as
circling them to the left three places, or spelling R-i-g-h-t so there's no
chance they, by some trick of perception, hear "left".
Bringing these points up because a) i believe that formations, like certain
moves, suffer from lack of use when general unfamiliarity on the dancers'
part creates situations where dancers go on autopilot and b) while callers
share common and frequently-used strategies for setting up / teaching /
introducing the more standard moves and formations, there's a less uniform
vocabulary and/or lack of shared strategies for the outliers...
just a thought, from someone who likes anti-becket (oh, crap, there's
ANOTHER way of saying becket-right) and reversed (or "mirrored") courtesy
turns (see what i'm saying about vocabulary?) and such... which are in no
wise more difficult than their normative counterparts, but confuse dancers
who don't encounter them often.