I used to play lots of basketball and didn’t end up developing my other hand (in terms of doing layups) untill a year or two after starting bball. Having both hands developed really helped me gain a competitive edge and I’m trying to relate this to unicycling.
Now that I’m just getting the hang of unicycling, I’m wondering [i]how many of you practice idling/mounting with your non-dominate leg[/i]…and how much does this help. I can idle and mount fine with my dominate leg, and have now been practicing my other side and have noticed that the motor skills gained in my non-dominant leg from practicing idling/mounting have really helped my overall performance on the uni.
I practice idling with my non-dom. I’m okay, but better with my right foot.
I can hop 12" with right foot in front, and about 3" with left foot in front.
I can usually mount on first try with my left.
I hop with my left foot back, and idle with my left foot down. but I can idle equally well both ways, it’s just easier with my left foot down. and I can mount with my right foot kinda okay, it’s not easy, but I can do it successfully most of the time. I’m trying to learn to hop with my right foot back instead of my left, and I’m not very good at it so far…
I practiced alot of things with my non-dominant foot for the skill levels. I can:
Idle with left and right foot
Idle one footed with left and right foot
Idle with one foot extended with left and right foot
Ride one footed in a figure 8 with left or right foot.
I have tried hopping with my left foot in front but it is hard. I can hop in place but i havent tried hopping up or across anything.
The only mounts i can do with either foot is the static and rollback mount. I have tried the side mount with my right foot a couple times but i couldnt do it.
It’s nice to be able to do skills with both legs. I really noticed it helps to know things on both sides when I started to play a little uni bball. But one thing I haven’t master is one footed idle with foot.
I can mount just as well with left as right foot, and can also idle equally well. The same goes for one-footed riding (and idling). I’ve learned to one-foot wheel walk with my non-dominant foot also, but it doesn’t feel as natural or relaxed.
There are plenty of reasons to learn skills with your non-dominant foot as well. For example if you’ve done a trick and are about to get back onto the pedals, they may not be in the preferred position. Instead of having to dismount you can still get into riding.
Many of the skills in the ten levels build on this, and I’m sure it helps overall competence in handling the unicycle.
The word nxixcxk is looking for is “dominant.” There are lots of good reasons to learn the base range of skills with both feet. They will make your body more even, your riding more versatile, and you less likely to fall off while doing any number of things on a unicycle.
As you go into the higher range of difficulty there is less benefit or need to know skills on both sides. Especially if they are tricks you only do for show. For example, I once spent a bunch of time practicing a one-foot riding thing where I would smoothly switch from one foot to the other. It turned out nobody really noticed what I was doing. Judges should notice, but an audience may not pick up on it.
Mounting and idling are the basics of what you should learn with both feet. I have also learned one-footing (forward and back) and wheel walking with either foot.
I have to go out and check which foot I hop with … (pause for a couple o’minutes)… turns out I hop with my left foot in front.
I’m happy with always mounting with the right foot, for now.
It never occurred to me that I was only hoping with my left foot in front. I’m going to work on leading with the right. I just tried and was able to do it, but was very weak, and sloppy.
I mount and do one-footed riding and one-footed wheel walk with both feet. I’ve even managed a little one-footed backward riding and one-footed backward wheel walk with my non-dominant foot. My right foot is dominant for everything except sideways wheel walk one-footed, which I do with my left foot.
I have found that learning to idle with my left foot has really helped me in learning to ride backwards (although I can’t do it yet, it feels much, much better) after learning to idle with my left foot. As opposed to just idling with my right foot. I was amazed how ‘weak’ my left foot is in unicycling when I started to learn to idle with it.
The next thing is to learn to mount with that foot and I’m working on that too.
Cathy