Hey Steve,

I apologize for the confusion. An easy way to think of how to strum in this song is that the downstrokes occur on the beat (1, 2, 3, 4) and the upstrokes occur in between the beats (and of 1, and of 2, and of 3, and of 4).

I should have been more clear and explained that the down and 3 ups are the accents of the strumming pattern that is used throughout most of the song.

In the intro, those accents are different, because we are changing to that A shape and accenting it on the first beat of the next bar. So, yes you are correct, for that first bar of the intro, the accents are a down and 2 ups, then you switch to the A shape.

Make sense?

Lemme know,
Mike