i went out for a bit of retail-therapy on saturday morning and ended up at a flea-market
while walking around minding my own bussiness, a young man, dressed as a clown, rode past on a unicycle
i fought it, really i did
i tried to keep quiet but i couldn’t resist the temptation
eventually i called out :“hey, where’s your other wheel?”
and got the snappy ‘it fell off’ as a response
ended up having a nice chat and found out that he’s involved in some sircus school, been riding for about 4 months and has tried some off-road stuff despite the fact that he’s riding the same no-name brand 24" that i have
what is a fitting penance for making that comment?
I usually ask what their skill level is, after I ask if I can ride, they suddenly think, and then turn and realize that I really can ride, though this has not happened many a time.
-Jonathan Ware-
Basic truth; still, it is also true that skill levels reflect a certain level of familliarity and competence. After seeing some of the UniCon Videos, I’d say a Level Skilled rider could very easyly make the transition to Trials, MUni, Uni Streat Punk Mojo. The opposite isn’t neccessarly so…
Im going to agree, mostly with this here (draws arrow Upwards). I unicycled for almost 2 years of stritly freestyle, attaining lvl 7, before I tried Trials or Muni. My trials skills picked up quickly, and im assuming that the freestyle helped quite a bit.
I’m gonna go with SKill Lvls are Stupid WHAT NOW!??!
Having a proper order to learn tricks is stupid. Go out there and have fun. Ride on things way to hard for you untell you can ride them with out fail, then move on to something way harder. Try to wheel walk when you cant idle. And of course the first free mount learned by all should be a suicide. If you ride and pratice stuff thats way harder than your skill level you will just get better intill you can do the hard stuff, and then the easy things just fall in place. Thats not saying dont work at the basics, but rather, do everything!
I’ll agree with that if you can do solid level 5 tricks that your a good rider. But if your not putting on a show does that matter?
Of course the only true test of 2 Unicyclers skill levels is the Joust.
I pretty much agree with you there, but remember that some people’s idea of fun includes having something to test themselves against, i.e. the skill levels. I’d much rather just go out there and cycle, I’ve had enough of being told what I should be doing and in what order. Maybe I would improve faster if I followed the skill level progression, but it’s not like one of my other hobbies, kayaking, where you really should build on the basics a step at a time for safety reasons. With unicycling it is generally just extra neat tricks.
"I’m gonna go with SKill Lvls are Stupid WHAT NOW!??!
Having a proper order to learn tricks is stupid. "
i’m going to disagree because this seems to be the month for me and checkernuts to disagree
actually, i’m not really disagreeing, i’m suggesting another way to view the skill-levels
for the novice unicyclist, they can be a very handy answer to the ‘what next’ question
while u r figuring out what u can or cannot (yet) do on your uni, it’s kinda handy to have a list of skills in (more or less - this is subjective) ascending order of difficulty to offer some suggestions of skills u may want to learn next
thrown into the bargain is also a handy way of comparing (at least freestyle-based) individual uni’ing ability
and a good excuse to wear badges on your uni-jacket
if it’s not your thing, kewl
doesn’t quite justify calling it stupid tho
I enjoy having a goal, and bragging rights when I pass a level, as well as comparing skill levels with other uni-ists. I did learn a few level 2 skills before I passed level 1, but that just makes it more fun.
