I think we have to simply admit that the folk process has done its work in this 
case.  For years I have danced contras with yearns which went only one couple.  
So pervasive was it that when I wrote a dance with a variation on the move, I 
called it 'yearn to a gypsy'.  Note, I dance in the SE now, and danced in NE 
before.  So, when I called this dance in the PNW, many were confused by the 
appellation because to them, a yearn is two couples on.  I don't know that we 
will ever 'fix' the misunderstanding on this coast.  It's pretty entrenched.  
There is an alternate, I believe proposed by Bob Isaacs.  When going just one 
couple, he calls it a slice.  Slice sounds a little sharp to me, and I wish we 
could simply yearn one place or two.  I changed the name of the move in my 
dance to Swirl to a Gypsy, so my PNW friends will not be confused.  
Cheers,
Andrea

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 14, 2012, at 6:59 PM, Rich Goss <[email protected]> wrote:

> My understanding is that the yearn progresses to the second couple.  The 
> original George Walker version did just that.   His description is that as 
> you pass the first couple you "yearn" to dance with them, but you don't.  
> Hence the term.  
> 
> On Dec 14, 2012, at 1:37 PM, Alan Winston <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I posted a dance description once with "Yearn" in it for a single sideways 
>> Becket progression, and I
>> was told that was incorrect, that  "Yearn" meant forward on the diagonal to 
>> next couple and then back
>> on the diagonal to finish opposite the *next* couple,  progressing two 
>> places.  (I'm not saying "double
>> progression" because that's, in my view, a feature of the whole dance 
>> choreography, and if you had
>> choreography that backed you up one place and then you progressed forward 
>> two, you might have a single
>> progression dance with this progress two places move in it.)
>> 
>> I've seen a couple of people post recently with Yearn for what looks to me 
>> like progressing one place.
>> 
>> What do you folks think Yearn means?  What do your dancers think?
>> 
>> -- Alan
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