As some of you may recall, I’ve had little opportunity to ride recently. In fact, I think I did no riding at all from September to January. I had another ride today: a mere 5 easy miles on the Coker with my sister following on her bike.
So, here’s how the brain responds: I freemount first time, every time. I can turn more or less on the spot in either direction. And I was idling it well - up to 30 pedal strokes. I found myself riding and chatting, and putting virtually no thought into the riding activity. The brain copes well with a lay off. In fact, my idling may even have improved!
And the body? The man who could ride head down flat out for an hour, or do two hours without a dismount, who could ride the skyline of the Water Sports Centre, “cleaning” every hill and track… was absolutely cream crackered after 2 miles and made an excuse to stop and chat.
Fitness disappears so quickly - even though I’ve been fencing 2-3 nights most weeks, and dancing one night a week. It’s frightening.
That’s interesting. I think that unicycling uses different muscles than anything else does, or at least puts stress on the muscles in different ways. So not doing it for so long probably does make your muscles ‘forget’ how to work properly for that long. or something… ( :
Being over 40 is a totally different ballgame in the fitness world, it disappears quicker,and takes longer to get back. At least with fitness, you can get it back, its the hearing and eyesight that never comes back.
Morris dancing - it’s a traditional English dance performed by teams, usually of six men, a Fool, and a musician. I’m the Fool (think of it as a jester) hence the name, Mikefule.
Although it’s English, there are now teams worldwide, including New York, Toronto, Hong Kong, Sydney, (for Klaas Bil) Helmond and Utrecht. (Whilst most English dancing enthusiasts seem to do line dancing, Cajun dancing, French dancing… almost anything except their own traditionas. )
Dare I bring up the old Arnold Bax maxim - You should try everything once - except incest and morris dancing.
Yes, I guess I dare … although, non-unicycling folk could probably level a similar charge on unicycling !
I actually quite enjoy morris dancing - as an observer rather than a combatant, I hasten to add. All to do with pagan fertility rights and so on, I believe :D. Could be useful for some of us 40-somethings.
I have observed batch of one only…
I started unicycling on my 65-th birthday.
Unless daily attempt is made .
Longer distance unicycling is getting worse after breaks.
I feel it is caused by a SPECIFIC KIND OF UNFITNESS.
It is unfitness of COORDINATION between breathing and muscle action - aggravated by hightened tendency of opposite groups of muscles getting tense as the owner of the BRAIN is INTIMIDATED A BIT MORE.
Having observed above I have attempted, with relative succes, to combat the condition with PERIODIC HYPERVENTILATION.
Skills I have learned when young return almost instantly eg.
horseriding after 20years break.(Skill fully back at the day of trying and 2 weeks of painful muscles after).
Any official list of Morris dancing comments would include:
Hello Morris!
Which one’s Morris?
Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…
(To a Morris man at the urinal) Just having a tinkle, are we?
Pull the other one, it’s got bells on.
Of these, “Which one’s Morris?” is the only one inviting a witty riposte. The best I came up with (there were about 8 of us) was, “All of us. We’re twins.”
Also, it has nothing to do with “fertility”. It is a “futility rite”. ;0)
And there is only ONE Morris dancing joke, and it is slightly rude, but follows. Avert your eyes if easily offended:
Q Why are there no Jewish Morris dancers?
A It takes a complete pr*ck to Morris dance
You may have covered this in one of your many previous posts, Mike - but have you ever ridden the uni while performing with the Morris team? It would seem an appropriate vehicle for the fool - or is it against tradition?
Aside - my brother-in-law is a dancer with the Rumford Morris Men and I remember a great weekend at a meet in that village where Doctor Doolittle was filmed (the original with Rex Harrison).
s7ev0 wondered:
> You may have covered this in one of your many previous posts, Mike - but
> have you ever ridden the uni while performing with the Morris team? It
> would seem an appropriate vehicle for the fool - or is it against
> tradition?
Years ago I used to go along to a unicycle club where one of the
regulars was also into morris dancing. We had a few unicycle morris
practice sessions as a result. They didn’t go terribly well - we were
mostly novice unicyclists and somewhat handicapped by the fact that we
were unable to ride backwards.
A few years after that I had a GF who was into morris dancing and who
was also a unicyclist. She dragged me along to a morris practice
session and the dancers were quite keen to draw me in as a permanent
member, but we never combined it with unicycling.
I’d quite like to give unicycle morris dancing another go sometime.
–
Danny Colyer (the UK company has been laughed out of my reply address)
<URL:http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/danny/>
“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” - Thomas Paine
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