[Callers] A Question Re: Contra friendly squares

Among the "contra-friendly squares" suggested in John Sweeney's message of October 16 (full message below) are "Chippenham Square" by Colin Hume and "Geezy Peezy" by Larry Edelman. The opening moves of "Chippenham Square" are: A1: Heads right and left through; sides swing opposite and face the nearest head couple. "Geezy Peezy" begins with: Head two couples go forward and back, up to the middle and back like that Forward again with your opposite swing Face the sides and form a ring Circle left and keep in time *** My question is, have any of you ever seen something like this happen? The caller (whether you or someone else, and using whatever words) instructs, say, the head dancers to swing their opposites, face the nearest side couple, and circle with that side couple. In some square, one of the following misinterpretations occurs: 1. Instead of swinging in a spot directly in front of one of the side couples, a pair of head dancers swing either very near the gent's home place or very near the lady's home place. (And you believe that they aren't intentionally dancing offset from their theoretical position to avoid crowding but that they actually don't understand where they are supposed to be.) OR 2. Head dancers swing opposites, then fall back to home places. Then they go together with their *partners* to circle with whichever side couple they consider "nearest". OR 3. Somehow (whether or not you see exactly how it happens) dancers end up in a circle of five and a circle of three. I'm not asking whether you see such things happen in most squares most of the time. What I'd like to know is how many of you can recall seeing, even once, one of the misinterpretations described above, either while you were calling or while you were at a dance with someone else calling. My point in this message, and in my message of October 14 where I pointed out potential trouble spots in some of the squares suggested by Lind Leslie, is not to claim that the squares under discussion aren't contra friendly. My point is that even bits of choreography that aren't really difficult can take more care to teach efficiently and effectively when they are unfamiliar to many of the dancers present than when they are familiar to almost all. --Jim On Oct 16, 2016, at 8:00 AM, John Sweeney via Callers <callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> wrote: