Thinking about joining the circus!

[Crazy Stares]

I've only been riding a month, I can ride forwards and maneuver very well, and freemount about 90% of the time, but I'm still learning to idle and haven't started riding backwards yet.

Obviously I will have to be a lot better for the circus, but what kinds of things would you recommend learning? Particular tricks that are usually specific to a circus act?

Or you can just wish me encouragement, that's fine too!

[Jeremy R]

Look up the international unicycle foundation levels. Be at least an 8.

[johnfoss]

Nonsense. You don't need to do a lot of hard tricks to be in a circus, you need to have a good act. You might want to start with finding examples of circus acts that already exist or have existed; this will give you some ideas of things you'd like to consider for an act of your own.

Remember, even a one ring circus has most of the audience pretty far away from you. Whatever you do, it can't be based on crankflips or other hard-to-see tricks. You need to do lots of big stuff too!

[MuniOrBust]

IUF Skill Levels

[Emile.m]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

Whatever you do, it can't be based on crankflips or other hard-to-see tricks. You need to do lots of big stuff too!

False all the way.

[johnfoss]

Originally Posted by Emile.m

False all the way.

Have you seen any circus acts based on small (hard to see from a distance) unicycle tricks? I've seen a lot of Cirque du Soleil, and barely any unicycle tricks at all...

[fluxusmaximus]

*WARNING: General comment*

I agree in part with John. I've just caught my first Cirque du Soleil show and one of the things that struck me quite a bit was that much of what went on with the fire poi segment was lost to most of the crowd. I had front row seats and the leg wraps and elaborate poi tricks are almost impossible to spot to the untrained eye - everything looks the same.

That said, I disagree that you don't need to know a lot of hard tricks to make the circus. Skill always impresses and you need to impress to get the job to begin with, no? Your job might require little more than unicycling a giraffe but showing that you can do so much more are probably necessary to distance yourself from others. In my experience doing gigs, I've often got people asking if I can do a certain trick that they've seen somewhere. Being able to do that always earns you more credibility.

By the way, crankflips can be a big trick. There is however no difference between a 360 crankflip and a 1080 crankflip to the average non-unicyclist.

[Emile.m]

Originally Posted by johnfoss

Have you seen any circus acts based on small (hard to see from a distance) unicycle tricks? I've seen a lot of Cirque du Soleil, and barely any unicycle tricks at all...

Yes. And I've done some too.

It depens on the size of the scene, distance, etc.

Well, unicycle tricks in the Cirque du Soleil havn't been really developped, and Cirque du Soleil is not all after all!

You should see one of Joachim Ciocca's act, it's incredible and there's alot of trick.

And I think you have miss Québec's 400th anniversery, because there was Kazuhiro Shimoyama with his partner doing a freestyle act. Aswell as Julien, Vine, Hugo and I doing trials (if that counts as 'tricks').

YouTube - Cirque du Soleil - 400e Québec

-Émile