One man’s pain might be my gain: in something that I hope doesn’t turn out to be cruel irony, I’ve found out today that if I use crutches to stabalize myself while practicing, I’m able to go without the use of a wall or shoulder to lean on. It follows the chair idea, only now I can keep them tucked under my arms rather than dragging them around. Now I wait until tonight, to ride the airfield. What a sight I’ll be.
Re: Crutches, but in a good way!
It sounds like you’ve got the basic for-and-aft balance reflexes down well enough that you are now working on side-to-side balance. Excellent progress! Obviously, go for minimal taps with the crutches.
Side to side balance is done with your hips, abdomen, arms and shoulders. When riding forwards twist your hips in the direction of the fall and pedal the wheel under you to stop the fall. Like the fore-and-aft balance it all has to happen faster than you can think so it will take time to build the reflexes.
The mass of the crutches will eventually help you. When you pivot the mass of your hips, legs and unicycle one way is to counter-pivot all the masses in your upper body the other way. If you watch videos of expert unicyclists you will see them swinging their arms to help this momentum transfer. Bronco riders do exactly the same thing.
Since the crutches are far from your central axis and connect to your body at two points they are idea for generating angular momentum. You’ll learn to swing them for extra effect. It will be very weird when you finally toss them away because you’re going to have to greatly exagerate your arm swings to compensate.
Good luck,
Tim
Kraze, we’re still waiting for a picture of you!
Hey Kraze, mabey you should just get a buddy to walk along next to you out on the airfield. The crutches are actually a bane, not a boon. If you end up falling into the crutches, you’ll find that you just get a crutch to the armpit, and then a really awkward fall. A friend walking next to you is much better. Crutches can really only be fun once you can control direction enough to keep from accidentally turning into one of them and then running it over. Even then they’re not that fun. I seriously reccomend against the crutches. Also, you want to wave your arms in whatever direction you wish, and if you’ve got them attached to crutches, you can’t.