2 cents on levels 5 & 6

[Bill Gilbertson]

Well maybe a quarter's worth, after I see how much I wrote.

I believe that the USA version of the skill levels more accurately reflects the
difficulty of the 2 skills.

To answer the questions posted earlier (not sure I got the order right)

a. I can hop on the wheel
b. I can wheel walk
c. I learned to hop on the wheel first
d. I think wheel walking is easier for most people

e. I don't do either very well. I am now much more consistent at wheel walking
than hopping on the wheel even tho I passed IUF level 5 about 3 years ago and
IUF level 6 about a year ago.

Most people passing a skill level can perform one or more skills from a higher
level. We could argue minor relative skill differences all day and never get
concurence. I don't think thats relevant.

The issue, as I see it, is that when a large number of riders can do all the
skills in a level but one, and can do all of the skills in the next level, and
may be the one after that, then something is wrong with the order of the skills
used to measure the progress of a unicyclist.

Many times under the old version, I have seen riders pass both levels 5 and
level 6 in the same night. This is because the hopping on the wheel was the only
thing holding them back.

Before the skill levels where changed it seemed like every USA rider was stuck
in level 4. There were only 2 level 5 riders! There significantly more riders in
levels 6 and 7 and even level 8 had more riders than level 5. (Maybe ABC can
supply the real before and after numbers here.)

At the USA meeting last year, there were 3 times as many attendees as in the
past. Most came because of this single issue and wanted it changed. As I recall,
there were only three people who spoke against the USA making the change: Ken
Fuchs was uni-laterally (no pun intended) against such a change. John Foss and I
wanted it to go through the IUF first. We were not convincing. The attendies had
the evidence that change was required and were not patient enought to wait
another year (the issue had already been open at least a year). The vote was
over whelming, maybe 30 or 40 to 3!

Wheel walking is common place. Hopping on the wheel is rare. I only know of 5
USA women who can do it: Margarita Ruiz - World Std Skill Champion Constance
Cotter - Several World Championships Amy Edwards Dana Schneider Kris Donohoo -
You will being seeing much of this new young rider If there are others I forgot
or don't know I apologise. My point is that there are very few. Yet there are
dozens that can wheel walk.

Our current world freestyle champion, Abby Cernkovich, could not hop on the
wheel last year. I expect she can do it now! If she can't, she will be leaving a
huge opening for another to take away her USA title this year.

Ken Fuch's proposition that hopping on the wheel compares to hopping on a pogo
stick demeans the effort countless unicyclists have expended attempting to learn
this skill. I learned to hop on a pogo stick in 2 minutes. It took me a thousand
tries and a whole box of BandAids before I accidentially performed the complete
hopping on the wheel even once. And another 500 to do it the second time. I am
slower than most but I don't know anyone who learned it easily.

I do not like to see the IUF and the USA diverge. I believe we (USA members)
screwed up by not driving this to the IUF before making our change. However, the
change is right for unicycling.

I hope the IUF agrees to make the change.

Bill Gilbertson USA member and rider since 1988
Past TCUC club president USA/IUF level 6 Old
(44) and vocal tho Meyers Briggs says I am an
extreme introvert And coincidentially (sp?)
another professional computer geek

[Ken Fuchs]

Bill Gilbertson wrote:

>The issue, as I see it, is that when a large number of riders can do all the
>skills in a level but one, and can do all of the skills in the next level, and
>may be the one after that, then something is wrong with the order of the skills
>used to measure the progress of a unicyclist.

I wasn't aware that the purpose of the Skill Levels was measuring the progress
of a rider. However, some clubs have decided to allow club members to do certain
things only after they have passed certain skill levels. I thought the purpose
of the Skills Levels was to gauge one's own progress, not to qualify for club
prizes. Yes, some clubs actually bribe their members to pass skill levels.

>Many times under the old version, I have seen riders pass both levels 5 and
>level 6 in the same night. This is because the hopping on the wheel was the
>only thing holding them back.

If 100% of the unicyclists passing IUF level 5, immediately pass IUF level 6,
that may simply mean they learned the skills in both levels 5 and 6
simultaneously, so it is quite natural that they would pass both levels in
the same day.

What I strongly suspect is happening is unicyclists want to learn to wheel walk
regardless of what skill level it is in and don't want to learn hopping on the
wheel, perhaps because they are only doing it to pass a certain skill level. Of
those that do learn to hop on the wheel, after they pass the corresponding skill
level, what percentage stop doing it entirely?

>Before the skill levels where changed it seemed like every USA rider was stuck
>in level 4. There were only 2 level 5 riders! There significantly more riders
>in levels 6 and 7 and even level 8 had more riders than level 5. (Maybe ABC can
>supply the real before and after numbers here.)

Should we now fiddle with the Skill Levels so we get a nice bell curve centered
on level 1? If hopping on wheel was really holding back riders, now there should
be a large number of riders stuck at USA level 5, right? However, I suspect that
wheel walking is now holding back large numbers of riders to level 4. I don't
see that anything has been gained by the change.

>At the USA meeting last year, there were 3 times as many attendees as in
>the past. Most came because of this single issue and wanted it changed. As
>I recall, there were only three people who spoke against the USA making
>the change:

I don't recall seeing any more people at the USA General Membership last year
than any year before and even if there were 3 times as many people because of
this single issue, its not a good reason to attend and is a negative indication
about the concern members have about all issues affecting the USA.

I know there were more than 3 people speaking against the change and about the
same number speaking for the change. That's not really relevant, since it was
the vote that counted.

> Ken Fuchs was uni-laterally (no pun intended) against such a change.

1% of my motivation was due to my being against the change. However, 99% of my
motivation was against the way the USA, Inc. was planning to make the change, at
the General Membership meeting, without allowing the USA Rules Committee or the
IUF Rules Committee and other national unicycling unions to have their say.

> John Foss and I wanted it to go through the IUF first. We were not
> convincing. The attendees had the evidence that change was required and were
> not patient enought to wait another year (the issue had already been open at
> least a year). The vote was over whelming, maybe 30 or 40 to 3!

As IUF Secretary-Treasurer, I never heard anything about this issue until the
actual motion to make the change was made at last year's USA General
Membership meeting.

>Wheel walking is common place. Hopping on the wheel is rare. I only know of 5
>USA women who can do it: Margarita Ruiz - World Std Skill Champion Constance
>Cotter - Several World Championships Amy Edwards Dana Schneider Kris Donohoo -
>You will being seeing much of this new young rider If there are others I forgot
>or don't know I apologize. My point is that there are very few. Yet there are
>dozens that can wheel walk.
>
>Our current world freestyle champion, Abby Cernkovich, could not hop on the
>wheel last year. I expect she can do it now! If she can't, she will be leaving
>a huge opening for another to take away her USA title this year.

>From the above, are we to understand that women unicyclists find
hopping on the wheel difficult. The best of the men can not only hop on the
wheel, but do many variations of hopping on the wheel, some nearly twice as
difficult as merely hopping on the wheel. I guess we can conclude from the above
that the men are much better at hopping on the wheel. So using just the women,
makes the sample invalid, leading to an invalid conclusion.

No comparison to wheel walking is made, so the above argument by Mr. Gilbertson
is doubly invalid.

>Ken Fuchs' proposition that hopping on the wheel compares to hopping on a pogo
>stick demeans the effort countless unicyclists have expended attempting to
>learn this skill. I learned to hop on a pogo stick in 2 minutes.

No, I'm simply stating the truth. Anybody who has done a little pogo stick, can
simply just jump onto a unicycle tire, squeezing the frame with his feet and
holding the seat with his hands as he hops effortless on the unicycle like a
pogo stick. It is a bit more difficult than on a pogo stick which was designed
for the purpose, but a person who can't ride a unicycle normally, can hop on the
wheel easily.

>It took me a thousand tries and a whole box of BandAids before I accidentally
>performed the complete hopping on the wheel even once. And another 500 to do
>it the second time. I am slower than most but I don't know anyone who learned
>it easily.

What is being described above is not just hopping on the wheel, but the
transition to it and back from it as well. This is where the true difficulty of
"hopping on the wheel" is and why it should be a level 5 skill.

>I do not like to see the IUF and the USA diverge. I believe we (USA members)
>screwed up by not driving this to the IUF before making our change. However,
>the change is right for unicycling.

Agreed. Now let's see if the USA, Inc. will admit to its mistake at the next
General Membership meeting.

It strikes me as very odd that only USA, Inc. members have spoken out in favour
of this change. It seems to have become a USA vs. everyone else issue and the
USA, Inc. has no one to blame except itself. It has created a division within
the USA, Inc. as well.

It is just this sort of trivial differences which could destroy unicycling for
us all, if we let it. At the beginning, these differences could have been
resolved with honest communication, with a minimum of fuss. The longer we allow
these differences to keep us apart and increase in size, the more effort and
communication it will take to resolve them. (As you can guess, I'm no longer
just talking about a Skill Levels issue, but every issue that drives us apart
and weakens us.)

Unicyclists shouldn't waste time and energy fighting each other. We should
reserve that time and energy for promoting unicycling and making alliances with
those who were formly against unicycling, such some insurance companies and
associated athletic facilities.

Sincerely,

Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com