ARCO
Course contents

Concepts

CONCEPT

Entry, development and exit

A creative ideology, not a rule: every combo can be split in three — the entry, the development and the exit — regardless of how many movements it has. It's something that works for me and I share it for exploration. Each part can be one or several movements, or the three can be a composition of three, as in week 1: fakie gazelle (entry), push into the heel press (development), collapse into the 180 (exit).

Why it matters

Thinking in roles instead of quantity frees the combo's design: you don't limit it to 2, 3 or 10 movements, but to whatever you consider at that moment the entry, the development and the exit. It is the tool for building your own combos and for reading other people's.

How to feel it

While skating the combo, name each stretch by its role: 'I'm entering', 'I'm developing', 'I'm exiting'. If you don't know what a stretch is, the combo isn't designed yet.

Common mistakes

  • Limiting the combo to a fixed number of movements instead of thinking it in parts.
  • Designing the entry and the development and leaving the exit to chance.

CONCEPT

Trajectory

The sustained direction in which all the movements of a combo are done. It can be a straight line — like a mabrouk or grapevine in slalom — or a wide curve, like the week 1 combo. What matters is that it is a single one and that it is decided before entering.

Why it matters

Trajectory is what turns a list of movements into a combo: if every movement goes in its own direction, the flow breaks and the rhythm cuts. Holding the line — straight or curved — is what reads as fluidity.

How to feel it

Picture the full line drawn on the floor before starting and skate on it. If at some point you feel you are 'correcting' the direction, the trajectory broke right there.

Common mistakes

  • Correcting toward the straight line after a movement that exits on a curve.
  • Entering the combo without having decided the direction it will live on.