How this book is organised

You are reading the start of the book. This page explains the rest of it, so you can navigate without reading it in order.

The five kinds of page

The rule that holds it together: a word is explained in exactly one place, and every other page links to that place instead of repeating it. When a call page says "from Facing Dancers", that link is where Facing Dancers is defined.

This is why the call pages are short. They are not trying to be a self-contained encyclopaedia; they are trying to tell you how to dance one call, and hand you the vocabulary to do it.

The call card

Every call page has the same sections in the same order:

At a glance — the starting formation, ending formation, timing, and the teaching unit. Animation — the call danced, from its starting formation to its ending one. Dance action — CALLERLAB's own definition, quoted. What you do — plain-language instructions. Timing — the beats, and what they mean. Styling — how it should look. Restrictions — where the call may not be used, when the manual says so. Common faults — what beginners get wrong, and the fix. Where you meet it — the classes that teach it. Related calls — links. Also called / formerly — the other words you will hear.

Conventions explains the figures and the notation.

The teaching unit numbers

You will see headings like M18 — Star Thru. That is unit 18 of the official CALLERLAB (New) Mainstream Suggested Teaching Order, effective 1 September 2026.

The teaching order is the spine of this book. It is not an alphabetical list or a list by difficulty: it is the sequence the Mainstream Committee recommends for teaching, in which each unit assumes only what came before. The 50 units are grouped into twelve classes in 05-course.

Some units are families with lettered parts — unit M1 is the Circle Family, with parts (a), (b) and (c). Each part gets its own call card on the same page.

Animations, and honesty about them

Most calls in this book are shown moving, so that you can see where everyone goes instead of working it out from words. Each one can be paused, dragged backwards and forwards, and jumped to its start or its end — Watching the animations explains the controls, the colours and the numbers.

That does have one consequence you will notice: a few calls have no animation. Those pages say so rather than leaving a blank space, because a blank space would tell you nothing about whether the animation was missing or you were. The animations index lists them together.

A moving picture is also shown only where it agrees with the 2026 definitions. An animation of an older version of a call would be worse than none, so where the two disagree the picture is withheld and the page says what the definition is.

Next

• the words first → Naming the dancers
• the calls first → M1 Circle Family
• the course first → Course overview