M30 — Box the Gnat
Teaching unit M30 of the CALLERLAB (New) Mainstream Suggested Teaching Order, effective
1 September 2026. Prerequisites: Facing Dancers,
Box the Gnat
At a glance
| Starting formation | Facing Dancers — one Boy and one Girl |
| Ending formation | Facing Dancers |
| Timing | 4 beats |
| Unit | M30 of 50 |
Animation
▶ Play this call — pause, step and scrub it: Watching the animations.
Dance action
"Dancers join and raise their right hands to make an arch; these hands remain connected throughout
the call. In one smooth motion dancers Pass Thru and turn around:
- The Woman turns left and goes under the arch.
- The Man turns right and walks forward around the Woman."
— CALLERLAB, Mainstream Dance Program Definitions, revised 29 March 2026.
What you do
Box the Gnat is a pass and a turn with your right hands joined the whole way through.
- Join right hands with the dancer facing you and raise them to make an arch, about eye level. Do not let go — the manual says these hands "remain connected throughout the call".
- Both walk forward, passing each other.
- The Girl turns left and walks under the arch.
- The Boy turns right and walks forward around her, keeping hold of her right hand.
- Stop, still facing. You are back where you started, but you are now facing the dancer who was in front of you — each of you is standing in the other's original spot.
The manual describes the finish precisely: "At the end of the call, each dancer will be standing in the other's original position and they will again be facing." Your right hands are still joined at the end, and the manual notes that "often the next call will begin with the joined right hands" — so expect the caller to go straight on.
Think of it as a Star Thru that puts you back facing your partner, or as a Pass Thru with a right-hand arch you never let go of.
Timing
4 beats — two bars of music. The whole call is one continuous movement: no pause between the pass and the turn. Because your hands stay joined, the two of you are moving around each other rather than past each other, and 4 beats is comfortable.
Styling
"The initial handhold in this call is like a handshake but less connected than palm-to-palm.
Throughout the call the dancers smoothly adjust this connection so that they end with the same
handhold. Hands should slide over one another easily while still providing some degree of security
and stabilization."
— CALLERLAB, Mainstream Dance Program Definitions, revised 29 March 2026.
A light grip. The hands turn and slide a little as you go round; a tight grip will jam the turn. The Ocean Wave Rule applies to Box the Gnat, and the manual warns that from a mini-wave the dancers "smoothly adjust handholds into the one described above" and may need to "back up slightly" first, depending on the regional wave handhold.
Restrictions
The manual gives the starting formation as "Facing Dancers, one Man and one Woman". Two Boys facing, or two Girls, is not Box the Gnat — the call needs the Boy-and-Girl pair so that one dancer goes under the arch and the other goes round. If the square has you facing a dancer of the same role, the caller will use a different call. See Mainstream restrictions.
Common faults
| What happens | Why | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| You let go of the right hand halfway round | Reaching for the pass as if it were Pass Thru | The right hands stay joined from start to finish |
| You finish beside your partner instead of facing them | Turning too far | Box the Gnat is a half turn each way: you end standing where the other dancer started, facing them |
| You both turn the same way and tangle | Turning by habit rather than by role | The Girl turns left and goes under; the Boy turns right and goes round |
| Your hands jam up | Too firm a grip | Use a handshake, not a clamp — the manual calls it "less connected than palm-to-palm" |
Where you meet it
Box the Gnat is taught in Class 8, the last of the three calls that teach you how to change a facing pair into something else. It appears often in singing calls, where a caller wants the two dancers back facing each other without losing the handhold, and it is the standard way into an Allemande Left from a Right and Left Grand.
Related calls
- Star Thru — the same arch and turn, but ending as a couple. See M18.
- Slide Thru — pass and turn with no hands at all. See M28.
- Pass Thru — the pass without the turn. See M7.
- California Twirl — the same arch action used to turn a couple around. See M27.
Also called / formerly
Box the Gnat has always been called Box the Gnat. The manual records one named variant you will meet: "Box the Gnat, Change Hands", in which the dancers change hands at the end — the manual's own example is "Box the Gnat, Change Hands; Allemande Left". Older callers say Men and Women or Gents and Ladies where this book says Boys and Girls.
Manual source: Mainstream Dance Program Definitions, revised 29 March 2026, page 21. Reproduced under the permission in sources and attribution.