Unusual applications: hop

I find that one of the best ways to learn a call well is to dig into unusual applications. Perhaps surprisingly I don't say this because it allows you to encounter those applications before they are called (which would typically give you an edge), but because it makes you focus so much on the call that it drills it into your head. After writing this entry, I'll probably never forget hop again!

For reference, the definition of "<anyone> hop" from Callerlab is "Starting formation - Any applicable non T-Bone 2 x 2 (usually Facing Couples). Designated dancers Walk as others Dodge; all Hinge. Ends in a Wave or Inverted Line. Anyone Hop is a 2-part call."

Basic C3A familiarizes us with the two most standard applications of hop: from facing couples and from a miniwave box. (The latter already feels "less standard" to me, maybe because of the partner hinge, maybe because the leaders can't see what's going on.)

When introducing variations, first I thought about whether more or fewer than two of the four people could be asked to hop, i.e. "everyone hop" or "no one hop". It wouldn't make sense for a leader to be told to hop, so "everyone hop" can only be done from facing couples (pass thru and hinge), but "no one hop" can be done from any box (half sashay and hinge). The flow may be terrible, but on Phantom Columnist we mostly care about legality!

Finally I came to the weirdest variation I could think of that was still symmetric: from facing couples, having one side of the box hop. This seems questionable because it will cause collisions and they must be resolved partway through the call (but we do that with other calls, e.g. many varieties of tally ho). If heads are facing sides and  "heads hop" is called, the sides will half sashay and collide to right hands with the new head they are facing, on their original plane. The fact that this puts all four dancers in the spots of two dancers originally means many cases will get some offset. In particular, from lines facing the walk and dodge + collision will put dancers in a 100% offset parallelogram and then the hinge will put them in clumps.

 3B>   4G<

 1G>   2B<

 4B>   3G<

 2G>   1B<

heads hop

  .     .    2B^   3BV

  .     .    4G^   1GV

 3G^   2GV    .     .

 1B^   4BV    .     .

From an eight chain thru, if the ends are told to hop, the call ends in nice parallel waves instead of the tidal wave that would result from the typical application of hop! I would then expect centers hop from an eight chain to end with the real dancers in outside phantom boxes.

 3GV   4BV

 3B^   4G^

 2GV   1BV

 2B^   1G^

ends hop	centers hop
4G>   3B>  3G<   4B<  2B>   1G>  1B<   2G<	3B>   4G>  4B<   3G<   .     .   .     .   .     .   .     .  1G>   2B>  2G<   1B<

And what about, from lines facing, "ends hop"? The centers would slide over to the end spots and the ends would pass thru, each colliding with a center and taking right hands. Then all would hinge to end in outside phantom lines. Meanwhile if it were "centers hop," the collision (and hinge) would put everyone in normal waves.

 4BV   3BV   3GV   4GV

 2G^   1G^   1B^   2B^

ends hop	centers hop
2G>    .     .    2B>  3B<    .     .    3G<  1G>    .     .    1B>  4B<    .     .    4G<	1G>   1B>  4B<   4G<  2G>   2B>  3B<   3G<

Coming to a caller near you? Probably not, but it's fun to explore weird behavior of even simple calls.