Erin and SIJF
Erin is as nice in person as she is on line. All that positive energy just can’t help but come through.
Erin schooled us on speed, those 150’s against our 170’s was no contest. We had to find some mean grades to regain our machismo.
The Uniques hosted the unicycle workshop for the Seattle International Juggling Festival. They put is in an area that was a bit remote from the main activities but we had a pretty good turn out. We brought giraffes, Munis, giraffes, the Coker and a bunch of 20’s and 24’s for people to try, it was a lot of fun.
One unexpectd comment was the uni riders enjoyed experiencing a variety of crank lengths. One of the freestyle uni’s has 102’s, several 125’s and 140’s. The Coker and Muni’s were very popular too.
The SIJF insisted we participate in the Public Show, we were a bit reluctant due to a shortage of members that could stay for the show but the troops rallied. We started off with the three little girls on their 16’s. I know it’s dangerous to lead with your best material.
Since it was a taste of our show and not a full production we decided to go over the latest trends in unicycling. The crowd was about 50/50 Jugglers and the general public. First we brought out the Coker. While Chuck rode it around the 15’x30’ stage we described the uni and all the things people are doing with it. Next we brough out the Muni’s, again explained all the features and did some bouncing around. After John demonstrated a few advanced skills on his Freestyle we brought out the last trend in unicycling: the Handlebar uni. We felt that part of the challenges fo unicycling is convincing newbies to sit on that skinny seat. A volunteer from the audience (about a two month rider) gave it a try, he could mount and the audience loved his effort. I then rode it across and off the stage into an exageraded over the handlebars UPD.
After a failed Giraffe freemount attempt we brough up a new friend I met at the Renegade show the night before. Vaughn from Portland had a slack-rope strung in a portable hammock frame. His uni was a 16" rim only. He free-mounted from the slack rope and tied a baloon animal. (I’ll put up pics later as they take forever on my 56K)./
We closed with the final trend: Trials (make that lame trials). We had built a portable set of three steps at 8, 16, and 24 inches. Thankfully it was a short show so we just did some hopping on them, a few crank grabs, and then up to rubber. (Landed that one but had to immediately hop off).
We wanted to close with a jump over, I can jump over an object approximating a body but I wouldn’t want to subject a volunteer due to the risk of failure. I also think if I landed on JC you all would never forgive me. Fortunately I saw another Trials uni right before the show, it belonged to a guy in the act following ours. Turns out they actually had practiced jump overs so when it came time to ask for volunteers for a jump over there were a lot of hands (and this is after seeing the failed free mount and our lame trials, people just love to be on stage). The “plants” were selected as the volunteers, I set up for a jump over but then turned it over to his partner. He rode across the stage into a huge rolling hop and the crowd went wild. Thank goodness for ringers.
If you are still reading this I have a reason for all this boring detail. After the show one of the general public said their kids loved our demo and actually appreciated seeing a trick like the freemount not work. She thought it was a good lesson that you don’t have to worry about being perfect when you perform.
Then back stage the juggler that did the big finale said we went a long way in openning people’s eyes to what modern unicycling is about.
Thanks to all the Uniques and our friends, old and new, for a successfull uni day.
