[terry@santafe.edu]

+ I learned to do seat out in front, seat out back then I learned seat
+ on stomach. A friend is trying to learn that trick and was having
+ problems, so he learned seat out in front first.

I learned stomach on seat first and found it awkward and then easy.

+ To learn seat on stomach, get next to a wall or volunteer. While on
+ your unicycle take the seat out (slowly) and put your stomach on the
+ seat. When learning it is advisable to keep one hand on the seat
+ while the other is flailing about for balance. When going a few
+ revolutions becomes easy try having both hands off the seat.

The guy who taught me (Jay Gilligan) made me keep both hands off the seat on the
first attempt. One important thing is to keep your head UP. This means bending
the neck back as far as you can. This will make the riding and balancing etc
much easier (more like normal uniing). Also, make sure that you have lots of
weight on the uni seat. Initially this will feel strange and your stomach
muscles may complain.

+ For more advanced tricks with seat on stomach try a figure eight
+ and for really advanced tricks try doing stairs (just kidding).

I will try this (steps) on Friday night, but maybe only a couple :-)

My question is, does anyone have any tips for learning to hop on the wheel?
How do you get into it from normal riding? I can't even get into it when
I'm just standing on the ground. I guess having a foot on a pedal makes it
less dangerous. It's shown on the video, but mine is in Australia somewhere
(hey Mark!).

Also, what about riding with the seat to the side? I find this much harder than
seat out front or back. I know that one tip is to try and stay as upright as
possible. I notice that the levels only require you to do this in a circle. When
I last tried it (almost a year ago), I couldn't help but go in circular
direction, and even then never made a full circle.

Here's another trick I have been thinking about and have almost done. Bunny hop
with your right leg in front. Bounce higher and higher and then whilst in the
air, do a half revolution and go into bunny hopping left foot forward. I think
this would look pretty good - especially if you could do it on every bounce.
Then it would appear that you were pedalling all the time but you wouldn't be
going anywhere.

Terry.