Origin of skills

[Jack Halpern]

>From previous letters we traced the origin of the 2-wheeler to Jack Halpern. He
>picked up the idea from somebody else (anybody knows who) built a 2-wheeler and
>mastered it.

Correct. If you have the old issues of the USA newsletter, I think there is a
diagram of a three-wheeler with an internal chain, and also a two-wheeler...?
Anyway, its reading the old USA newsletters that gave me the idea to try...

>The Kick-up mount was thought up by the same Jack Halpern, who had problems
>with it. He discussed it with Daniel Dumeng who was able to do it with minor
>adjustments. Jack then mastered it the same date.

Correct.

We shouldn't forget coasting, probably first done by the Swede I described in my
previous posting.

Jack Halpern IUF Vice President
P.S. Alberto, will you please sign your messages?

[unifoss@CERF.NET]

Jack Halpern wrote:
>We shouldn't forget coasting, probably first done by the Swede I described in
>my previous posting.

That was Joakim Malm, who demonstrated coasting to Jack when he visited Sweden
in 1980. If you have the Miyata book, his picture is on page 4, where he is
named as the inventor of the "Swedish style of unicycling." This has long since
become part of the "international" style, but at the time involved skills which
were only possible, or much easier, with the lightweight Miyata and it's plastic
saddle. Skills that may be credited to him include dragging the seat (front and
back), and bouncing the seat on the floor; tricks which would be very bad for
non-bumpered saddles.

I credit Joakim with coasting, but again, others may have done it before him.

John Foss, President International Unicycling Federation unifoss@cerfnet.com