A Maypole is usually a very tall pole with many colored ribbons hanging from the top. Everyone dancing around the Maypole takes a ribbon and forms a circle around the pole. There need to be an even number of dancers. The idea here is to weave the colored ribbons around the tall pole so, every other person goes in the opposite direction around the pole... half the people go clockwise while th other half go counter clockwise.

As the dancers pass each other in the circle, they alternate going over one person and then under the ribbon of the next, then over the next person, then under the next person's ribbon until the ribbons are all nicely woven around the beautiful Maypole.