Hey gang,
I’ve been riding for 2years now off and on. Since last year, I’ve learned to idle, go backward. It’s been several months now. As I heard others progressing to level 4 and above, I am stuck at level 2…sigh. 
It seems my uni skills have plateaued. I can’t seem to pick up more skills like wheel-walking, gliding, side-hopping. I am stuck at level 2 and can’t seem to move forward.
Anyone else stuck like me? What did you do to get over the ‘hump’?
pick a skill to concentrate on, 1 footed riding or wheel walking is probably a good choice. Work on minimising (or eliminating!) the time you spend not learning that skill and you’ll have it in no time 
i agree i learnt 1 footing then wheel walking 1 footing is a basic/intermediate skill so focas on it
I got into UniHoki and clean forgot about the hump.
I’ve only started bothering with onefoot riding again recently.
I really want to learn backwards onefooting cause I think ‘toofeno’ is just the funkiest name for a uni skill.
The important thing is that u will get bettter, no matter how hard it will be, unless u don’t share this feeling,
I know what ur talking about,
side hopping i aced, so just practice ur timing normal hopping, and then as u jump, try to twist ur torso in the air, slightly at first, and building up to larger twists
Eventually, if u just keep at what ur doing, it will click, and the thing is, u probably won’t even know when it does
also, if u try too hard, it will be too hard, don’t hesitate to have a break of a few days every now and again
GOD SPEED!
Hi leadpan,
I am where you are, although I’d say the feeling is more “slowed” than “stopped” on the progress front. I’m working on the traditional skill levels to keep me motivated, but sometimes the next notch seems huge. Have you looked at the new USA Inc. rider base skills and the intermediate artistic skills? They’re developing new skill levels and they seem to be easier for me to progress in and move along in. I’ve gotten to “Artistic 7-2” so far. Seems like a more “progress friendly” system. Not that I won’t be trying to progress along the traditional skill levels, too. Good luck!!
http://home.comcast.net/~carol.mclean/Home/artistic.htm
Here’s a link to the skill set I’m talking about.
Leadpan and unidaddy, I love you both.
I’m so slow at learning (compared to most) but I feel amost normal now.
Cathy
Awww, shucks!:o You’re too kind (although I know you’re subtly pointing out that I’m slow)
Sorry I didn’t mean to do that. :o
Cathy
Whatever you do, don’t give up on the uni. Not even as a last resort. That would just make one less of us and one more of them (to quote the inverse of Gild’s favorite thing to say).
I’ve been working on idling now for almost 2 weeks, and I can only do it once and pedal out of it at about a 50% rate, and do it twice at about a 10% rate, and past that, I haven’t even been able to try yet. One thing that might help is to choose 3 or 4 different skills and actually schedule out various amounts of time to work on each in any given practice session, so you don’t get too burned out on one thing. This works for me a lot - today I sort of switched between working on idling, rolling hops, bunny hops, and some of my cross-country riding, and I improved a little in all 4 areas, and never got bored (tired, yes, but not bored ).
Just my 2 cents.
my main advice is break free man. stop tryin to be a higher level unicyclist and just ride and learn whatever tricks you want. i love unispins, and stand up glides, but im probably not real high on the levels. but ultimately its about just bein proud of like what you can do, and you should be no matter what. i say learn that ww. dont give up man. i remember trying, and trying, being out in the rain, falling, bleeding, everything. but just keep going.
well im sounding kinda deep…so over and out man. dont think of yourself as plataued, just in progress with something new.
Dudewithasock.
I don’t think it’s very polite to post on a thread about improving on skills that you’ve learned in a couple of months that have taken us a year or so. It’s kinda like rubbing my nose in it and you’ve got plenty of threads where you have been able to share your accomplishments.
Cathy
Cathy,
Uhh…not sure if this is sarcasm or not…but I reread my post and saw no hint of bragging or anything…plus I don’t think my speed of learning applies here, since he’s looking for overall tips on wheelwalking, gliding, etc., skills which are far above me. I’m sorry that I may have come off as a bit conceited, but it wasn’t intentional, I was just trying to share what works for me to help me advance faster, he can choose to apply my tips or not, but either way, I’m only trying to help.
I undestand that you weren’t bragging. I just thought I was safe on this thread, away from people who learnt twenty thousand times faster than me.
But you’re right, it isn’t my thread anyway and you were only trying to help. But there’s this thing called tact.
Cathy
The reason you’re not learning these skills is probably because you don’t need to, and hence don’t have a real incentive to do so. Things like idling and mounting are easy to learn because you’re forced to practice mounting, and if you ride outside idling is a good way not to get killed by traffic, but beyond that, things like 1 foot, wheel walking etc. aren’t much use for any other type of riding.
The skill levels are okay, but they only make you a ‘better’ unicyclist in the sense of being better at doing freestyle stuff in sports halls. I’ve ridden thousands of miles on my unis and currently I don’t think I could pass level 2 without a bit of practice. If you’re a person who rides places on your unicycle, or does muni, you’d be better off looking at things like learning to ride distances smoothly, or riding certain technical sections of trails without a dismount, or whatever you find fun to do. It isn’t any less valid than ticking boxes on a skill level chart.
If you’ve got riding, idling and mounting down, you’ve got the basic skills that’ll let you ride anywhere, practicing those is much more fun than trying a freestyle skill for an hour, as you can learn incrementally, just by riding lots. The more you ride, the more you’ll know if there are any tricks you need to learn, like hopping, or gliding or whatever. You’ll be much more likely to learn tricks if you have a real reason to learn them, like there’s a tricky trail section you want to get past that needs you to learn to hop, or a long smooth downhill that’d be fantastic if you could glide it. I know I only really learnt to hop once I’d got to the level of riding where I was regularly needing it to get through muni trails.
Also, bear in mind a lot of people on here are kids, they can learn things quickly cos they have so much time, and are willing to focus on useless tricks obsessively. Remember how easy it was to learn to yoyo, or juggle or whatever when you were a kid.
Joe
And the rest. Excellent post. Where’s the rep button gone?
Unicycling attracts the eccentric and unconventional type, but once attracted, some of those people seem to want to adhere strictly to the (perceived) rules! Look: I’m not just a crazy unconventional rebel, I’m a crazy unconventional rebel with all the official certificates to prove it!
The skill levels are there as a guide to the order of difficulty, and to provide personal targets for those who want to develop their skills in that direction. Great - that is perfectly valid. Freestyle is hard work, and technically demanding, and requires commitment and courage. I’m not knocking it.
Like Joe, I have ridden thousands of miles (or at least hundreds!) on the road and off the road, but I doubt I could pass many skills tests.
I can: freemount, ride, turn, stop, idle, reverse, dismount. These are all the skills I need to complete a safe and enjoyable journey on mixed terrain.
In addition, I can do a couple of simple “trick” mounts, idle one footed, ride seat in front and bounce on the spot. (It would be exaggerating to call it hopping.) I did learn to ride one footed, left foot only, but have since forgotten.
If you have not advanced beyond level two, one explanation is that, like me, you have no particular desire to perform those skills. Maybe, unlike me, you feel some sort of pressure - that you somehow “ought to” advance further. I could be wrong, but maybe you should consider that possibility.
Here’s me: at one time I had a 20 (freestyle), 24 (general purpose), 26 (MUni), 28 (roadie) and Coker. I used to go out three evenings a week. I never knew which uni I would take until I picked it up on my way to the door. After a while, I noticed I never chose the 20 or 24, and seldom the Coker.
In summer, I tend to choose the 28, and in winter I tend to choose the MUni. So they are my preferred styles, and my goals are geared towards those styles: certain distances, speeds, times, or certain difficult terrain types, or specific trails.
But if you really do want to achieve level four: set a date for when you will achieve it. Set dates for each of the skills, and tick them off in order, keeping to your programme. But you have to want it.
Personally, unispins, grinds, single foot wheel walking, etc. sound like things I can admire in others without the slightest desire to attempt them myself.