Jay, Left Jay, Back-to-Front Jay, etc.

In the modern terminology for these concepts, one direction is given, and it tells the people in the center 1x4 which outside pairs they work with. The outside pairs notice which center people have chosen them, and they work with those same people, so that the virtual 2x2's are consistent. The direction does not apply to the outsides. The people in the center 1x4 who work with a given pair of outsides may be adjacent or not.

\syhDBDs{b4w,g1n,b1s,g2w} \syhDBDs{g4s,b3e,b4s,g1w}
4 2 1 3 1 3 2 4 4 2 3 1 4 2 1 3
before Right Jay Sidetrack after


The older terms such as "Back-to-Front Jay" had the dancers pick out whatever distorted 2x2 setup would result in the given facing directions. From a 3/4 tag, for example, Back-to-Front Jay (or, equivalently, Front-to-Back Jay) would be the same as Front Jay. This is because the outsides had their backs into the 2x2 in any case, so the centers need to be facing into the 2x2. The term "Front-to-Front Jay" was never used — it was just "Jay". The "Jay" concept is of course still commonly used.