I have always hopped with 2 hands on my seat, but have noticed that most other trials riders hop with only one hand. Is there an advantage to hopping with one hand? I can hop about 3 inches higher with 2 hands than with one, and was wondering if I should start practicing one-handed hopping.
ThanksI don’t ride much trials since I’m only just starting jumping, but the one advantage I can see of one hand is that you can balance yourself with the other 
which can be useful for hopping onto small things.
I used to be a two handed hopper before I saw anyone else unicycle. I thought I’d try it their way and found out it’s actually a lot easier to jump higher (for me) with one hand. Also, I find a lot more stability and accuracy jumping with one hand. Twisting is also a LOT easier with just one hand on in my opinion as well. I’d say to try it out a bit, and you’ll find that jumping higher with two hands is mostly mental.
Like others may have said, most people use it for balance. I think it is easier to jump one hander but then again that is just me. It is easier to balance especially with seat out.
You can bend more at the waist in the air with a hand out since you can sort of swing it over the top.
With your hand out you can use it for momentum and you have much more control of your center and abs so you can balance, Plus if you have both hands on the seat then your hunched over, which throws your weight forward, and makes you balance with your legs(which doesn’t work ever), basically it is much easier to control you body from an open stance rather than closed.
Two hands on the front? or one on front one on back? I saw someone do that. Horrible way since it really restricts your movement. Learn it with one hand. There are no advantages to doing it with two hands.
For seat out hopping, I use two hands to hop, only because I think it is “a bridge” to learning how to hop using one hand. I am working on losing the other hand.
with one handed you can rotate the uni better while in the air in turn giving you more balance
i find u can hop higher with one hand bc the other hand on the back makes it so u cant bring the uni up as high
Yeah I agree, you gotta go to one handed. It makes a world of difference. If you want to get higher than 20 inches than let go with one hand, you can get at least 5-10 more inches easily. Also you have more balance with a free arm.
-Keaton Miller
Thankyou for the help.
I have begun to hop with one hand and I find that I can make more accurate hops. Although I can still hop higher with 2 hands on the handle I am practicing one handed hopping.