Principles

Why does it happen?

The Predator defines the stance; Parallels and Trees put it to turn along a curve (on two feet and on one); Gazelles and Lions chain those turns into transitions. Each new movement is literally the previous one plus one ingredient: the curve, the one-foot balance, or the direction change at the climax.

How was it detected?

The whole series is built on this logic: each video opens by recalling which stage is next and what is reused from the previous one — Trees are 'everything we already learned in the parallels but applied to one foot', and Lions reuse the circles left ready from the gazelles.

Implications

Your practice plan orders itself: don't advance a stage until the previous one feels comfortable on both sides. And when a stage-3 movement fails, the cause almost always lives in stage 1 or 2 — go back there instead of repeating the broken trick.

Why does it happen?

Open means shoulders matching the aperture of hips and legs, without torsion; closed means the torso rotated relative to the legs. That relationship doesn't change from Predator to Lion: if you enter open you exit open, if you enter closed you exit closed — what defines the name is your posture relative to the starting leg, not the edge.

How was it detected?

The first video announces it as the key to the whole series, and the Gazelles and Lions videos confirm it by naming each variation after its entry movement.

Implications

Learn the open/closed pair once, in the Predator, standing and without skates. From then on every new movement is just 2 concepts × 2 directions × 2 sides, and the official nomenclature (FOP, FCG, BOL…) becomes transparent.

Why does it happen?

Without skates the body can play without risk: close the eyes, move the weight, feel the footprint and the torsions. That awareness gets installed, and the wheels only add the glide — the gesture already exists.

How was it detected?

The Predator, Parallels and Lions videos open with an explicit no-skates block before the rolling practice; Gazelles is the exception that proves the rule: it no longer analyzes it 'because we already reviewed all of that in the earlier bases'.

Implications

Every practice session can start in shoes: stance, weight, torsions, tail. Five minutes on the floor save entire sessions of trial and error on wheels, and double as an ankle warm-up.

Why does it happen?

The style's whole vocabulary — turns, gazelles, lions — is generated by changing edges and transferring weight while the wheels keep rolling. The gazelle itself was born that way: a transition discovered without jumping and without pivoting, only with the change of the edges.

How was it detected?

The Parallels video establishes it as the fundamental's quality rule ('may neither your toes nor your heels ever lift'), and the historical context in Gazelles shows the entire style was born from that constraint.

Implications

Use it as a quality test in every practice: if a turn only comes out by pivoting, it isn't yours yet — go down one stage and review edges and weight transfer. The constraint is not aesthetic: it is the source of the flow.