Right, this is expected. I would think of a "gesture" as a series of points over time (relative to the starting point) - it is path dependent, so a clockwise ci

Right, this is expected. I would think of a "gesture" as a series of points over time (relative to the starting point) - it is path dependent, so a clockwise circle is recognized differently from a counter-clockwise circle. The paper (citation 11 for the $1 version) goes into more detail. One neat feature is rotation invariance, where you can draw a tilted version and still have it be recognized.