do-si-dos

In its basic square dance form, a do-si-do figure is pretty simple: the couple pass each other to the right, then–without turning–move left past each others’ backs (hence the name) and then back up and right into their original places. Whenever I have stumbled through a square dance, the dancer's path was a rough oval.

If you take the notion of two canoes ‘circling’ each other without pivoting, you can extrapolate quite a number of variations. You can change the path from oval to rectangular, diamond, closest possible path (the cosy variant) or any other arbitrary shape that doesn’t result in a collision.

You can also involve more than two canoes. As you increase the number of boats, the path must get bigger and rounder, but you can still use polygons if you plan them carefully.

You can also make up a do-si-do figure-eight with a bit of planning or you can fake it with two overlapping do-si-dos for two. I suppose you could have the boats going different speeds...

AND SO-ON

See also the pages of duets and trios and quartets, group pivots, files and ranks.

These figures represent generic types rather than specific instances. Though they make excellent studies for practising your paddling, the real interest lies in what you can do by varying and connecting these and other formations in a dance.

Ratings: simple (for a competent style paddler) ; challenging ; really hard