New rider age 39

[SilentRider]

Congratulation! You really made a great improvement after a month of hard practice.

[GILD]

Good job mate, good job. You've got those half-idles nailed.
You're doing them all with your left foot down.
Try n learn the "other side" as soon as you can.
That exercise gives you awesome control over the uni, doing it on both sides, simply makes it four times better.
We're unicyclists, not mathematicians.

As what we do gets more difficult, we tend to start old habits again, looking down being one of them.
In those videos, looking down won you a UPD on the multiple semi-idles and a spectacularly less-effective-than-usual freemount.
(Nice catch on cradling the trumpet, btw.)

Great progress and a fabulous bit of "showing off" with the trumpet.

What exactly is that instrument called?
Soprano Trumpet?

[Darth Elevator]

Originally Posted by GILD

...looking down being one of them....What exactly is that instrument called?

Thanks, as always, for the great feedback to help me notice things that I didn't, such as looking down.

It's called a pocket trumpet. It has the same length of tubing as regular trumpet, but it's all coiled up into a smaller space, and has a slightly smaller bell, thus making it much smaller and therefore easier to cradle in an emergency.

Originally Posted by SilentRider

Congratulation! You really made a great improvement after a month of hard practice.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by jojoxie

Darth Poppins at 40secs And yes you did

LOL!

[Darth Elevator]

Originally Posted by SilentRider

Wonder if it was much easier on 24" instead of 20"?

I rode the brand new 20" a few times last week. Overall, I found the 24-inch easier to ride, except in one respect: free mounting. I found that I could almost effortlessly free mount on the 20-inch almost every single attempt. It seemed that the 20-incher would just hold there for forever, giving me plenty of time to get situated on the pedals and take off. But other than that, I find the 24-incher to be easier to do everything else on. I'm not sure how much stock you should put in my anecdotal comparison, but there's my feedback for what it's worth. For all I know, the 24-inch may be easier for me to ride simply because I have much more seat time on it than the 20.

Interestingly enough, one of my daughters has been switching back and forth for fun between an 18-inch and a 20-inch. She can do much crisper, tighter turns on the 18-inch but she can go more distance with less effort on the bigger uni.

[GILD]

Originally Posted by Darth Elevator

It's called a pocket trumpet. It has the same length of tubing as regular trumpet, but it's all coiled up into a smaller space, and has a slightly smaller bell, thus making it much smaller and therefore easier to cradle in an emergency.

That's interesting about the tubing length.
I've always known that if you straighten out a French horn,




The French horn player gets very upset.

[Darth Elevator]

Originally Posted by gild

....the french horn player gets very upset.

lol!

[Juni]

Well done on your progress mate!

I had fun watching your second video playing on the trumpet!

Also liked the fact you don't let rain stop you riding!

Your daughter seems to be doing really well too.

Keep it up mate!

[Darth Elevator]

Thanks, Juni. How's your foot?

[Juni]

Originally Posted by Darth Elevator

Thanks, Juni. How's your foot?

My foot is coming along nicely (wearing a normal shoe today)

just gotta wait a few weeks now for my cast off my hand...Still i should be out riding again in a week or so

Thanks for asking

[syver]

Originally Posted by Darth Elevator

Thanks, Juni. Your avatar pic is hilarious.

I wish that I could do that, I have been trying for about 4 weeks now and I am able to go about 10 feet. How did you get so good?

[Darth Elevator]

Originally Posted by syver

I wish that I could do that, I have been trying for about 4 weeks now and I am able to go about 10 feet. How did you get so good?

Here are a few things that I did. Maybe some of them will help you.

--I practiced for about an hour a day the first couple weeks, in about 15-20 minute sessions.

--I would start each attempt leaning evenly on both chairs and I focused those first few days on pushing cleanly off straight ahead, without falling off slightly to either side (easier said than done ).

--I had someone stand on the side of me and tell me what the seat post was doing on each attempt (since once I started riding I instantly became oblivious to everything else on the planet except not smashing my body into the concrete ).

--I shot video of these feeble attempts and then tried watching them to see what I was doing wrong. If I haven't deleted them already, I'll post a a few so you can see how silly I looked.

--I made it my goal to get to the edge of the concrete patio (about 12 feet away) and onto the grass.

--Once I finally made it, I then focused on consistency -- by seeing how many times out of 10 I could get to the grass. Once I was getting that far consistently, I switched to the driveway.

--Once I made it to the bottom of the driveway a single time, I then tried for consistency by keeping track of my success rate, as I had done at the previous level. Earlier on this thread, you'll see my one-week video with two runs down the driveway. Those were the best two runs of the night -- of about 20 that we filmed and about 100 total attempts. And, yes, I have many outtakes that are guaranteed to make you laugh.

--I also posted the video here and the feedback I got from GILD and others was extremely helpful. I think the feedback from experienced riders is key, if you're able to get it. I searched for a local unicycle club or hangout but still have yet to find it, so I'll continue to rely on feedback and tips from forum members here.

--I conceptualized the many failed attempts at each level as not something to be frustrated by, but merely as the "price I had to pay" to earn a good run. Doing 15-20 sessions helped me not get discouraged or two tired and let my subconscious mind mull things over for a few hours in between practices.

--Once I got the driveway consistently, I went to a nice, big parking lot so I could practice longer rides just going wherever the unicycle took me, without having to worry about direction.

--Once I got longer rides of 300+ feet consistently, I started trying to subtly shift my weight to steer straighter and also tried slightly pushing a little harder on one pedal than another. I eventually started throwing some hip leverage into it. My first U-turn came completely out of the blue when I thought, I want to do a U-turn and it just happened like magic. Mind you, it was a humongous U-turn like a semi-truck makes, but it was a U-turn nevertheless.

--By chance, when I was at about the 10-day mark, we had a family party. I hopped on the unicycle in the parking lot outside the restaurant, just to show people that I could ride a little bit without breaking my neck. My nephew had a tennis ball and asked if I could catch it from the unicycle. I said, why not? I missed the first couple, but then started consistently catching them. It took my mind off of concentrating so intently on the unicycle and the balancing kind of became more natural. I remember feeling what a huge breakthrough that felt like. Instead of overthinking it and causing an unplanned dismount (a self-fulfilling prophesy, so to speak), I just started having fun.

Maybe some of that will be helpful. At the very least, I'll post a couple of my suckiest moments to help inspire you to keep trying. Good luck!

[Darth Elevator]

I should add that when my kids started learning unicycle two weeks after I started, they followed pretty much the same pattern, although each at a slightly different pace. It was fun to see the process repeated.

Don't give up and if you are able to post videos, I hope you'll do it. You're welcome to post them here or if you have a thread of your own, just send me the link and I'll follow your progress over there.

YOU CAN DO IT!

[mbalmer]

Lol. When you fell off with your trumpet, I imagined a neighbor throwing something at you because he or she was trying to sleep.

[syver]

You really are doing well. I liked the trumpet in the video, my goal is get good enough so that I can play my tuba while on the unicycle! I wonder if I will ever make it? I also see a ham antenna in the back of one of the houses. Is that a neighbor, or is that your house?

[GILD]

A couple of examples of people riding with Sousaphones:





The guy at the bottom actually did that during a professional performance.
He convinced the bandmaster to let him ride and play on the final night of the run.