Chrissy brings up some good points about the cast off. It's interesting that I found a definition of gate on a web site that was maintained by an English country dance leader. That definition mentions that the person backing up in a gate makes a smaller circle. And, I'm informed by dance master Jim Morrison that the gate probably evolved from cast off. If the person backing up does make a smaller circle, is the pivot point closer to the person backing up?? One dancer who used to dance in Nelson in '69 mentioned that during a cast off, the men never touched! Tom