also: return · re-motion · back motion
Motion that goes one way and then comes back. The first half moves the defense and the second half attacks the space that moving created.
A player motions one way and then reverses, returning toward his original alignment before or at the snap. The offense is not trying to relocate him: it is trying to make the defense relocate and then attacking where it moved from.
Against a defense that adjusts by rule this is unusually effective, because rule-based adjustments happen twice and the second one happens under time pressure. Against a defense that does not adjust at all it does nothing, which makes it a good diagnostic as well as a play.
return, re-motionghost motion, orbit motion, jet motion and jet sweepReturn motion is one of the places the rules on direction of motion at the snap become live, since the player is reversing. That is worth checking in your own rulebook rather than assuming. It is not stated here for the reason given in the motion and shift entry.
Particularly effective at youth level, where defenses often adjust to the first movement and have no mechanism at all for the second.