I was just wondering, how many people skated before the started to uni, and did it help. I never skate borded, I did: bmx mountain bike, dirt bike, and stuff like that and i was wondering if sk8ting actually helped.
I did just about everything before I started unicycling (yes, including in-line skating 
)
I think doing those other activities and becomind moderately skilled at them helped me out a good amount.
I have ridden snowboard the last 6 years, i also did some bmx, but snowboard is my thing.
Now it seems like, or feels like i can’t ride anymore, but i’ll meet a athletic-injury-specialist in the 23rd of november.
total newbie
I have not skateboarded, in-line skated, bmxed, dirt biked, moto-crossed, mountain biked, snowboarded or even simply biked. I did ski once when I was 13 but I’m not sure that would count.
I came to unicycling from nowhere and I love it. I’m sure if I’d done any of the above I mght have learned more quickly, but what the hey…
Re: How many people sk8ted before Uni
Me too, and i didnt sk8
and I learned how to uni in 3 days.
Learned to boogie board when I was 3. Learned to Surf when I was 5, Learned to Skateboard when I was 9, Learned to snowboard when I was 10, learned to uni when I was 12. And life went uphill from there(almost a pun…).
Funny you should ask. I did skate before I unied, not that I was that good, my younger skating friends would sometimes try to teach me stuff. Just tonight my friend Josh was like " do you remember the good old days when you used to skate?" he asks me that sometimes, one time I said something like " I try to forget that". Tonight I pretended like I was missing it, but I don’t, if I want to skate I just ask to borrow one. Skating takes practice, and I can appreciate that, but I like to unicycle.
I don’t like that this kid got on and could ride like 20 feet in 10 minutes, grrrrrr, actually it was cool. : )
Andrew
yeah I used to skate. Then I learnt to unicycle and sold my skateboard.
I think it kind of helped, not so much balance wise, but just the whole extreme sports type thing, like what’s possible, how to move your body to do the tricks, how to fall, how to build up the balls to do it etc.
ive skated, wakeboarded, snowboarded, bmxed, mountain biked and probably any other extreme sport
I think active bikers learn to ride a unicycle a lot faster than non-bikers. I used to never ride bikes, and it took me ages to be able to ride the unicycle, over a month. But my friends who mountain biked a lot learned in a few days.
i used to skateboard
i lost my skater and i miss it…
but i am a unicyclist so it wouldnt be like old times if i got another one
I agree with the sentiment that bikers learn how to uni faster than nonbikers. I didn’t even know how to ride a bike when I decided I wanted to uni. I learned how to ride a bike in 45 minutes just so I could at least have a chance at it. Of course, after about 2 weeks of about 45 minutes a day, and now, a whole (terribly agonizing) 9 days off, I figure that this is starting to look hopeless. Maybe it’s a good idea to have a lot more experience than I started out with. I know, everyone chimed in and told me that people have learned to uni without learning how to ride a bike at all, but it must have taken them eons. It’s surely taking me at least that long.
Wootizzle 30’ distance record! gag
Oh well. I’d vote that any previous experience, skating or not, would help you out a lot more than going into it without any balance at all. Ever. ((To be honest, I always wanted to learn how to skate, but I could never bring myself to do it, because everyone else seemed to know so much more about it than I did. Uni-ing wasn’t the kind of sport where people would be able to show off in front of me unless I sought them out and wanted them to.))
My step brother actually owned a skateboard shop. He was a self-proclaimed expert. I was afraid to ask him for help. I just want to be able to go in, like, a straight line… I don’t want a whole speech and demonstration/to be laughed at and irritated when I fail miserably.
Didn’t sk8 but I did rollerblade and do a LOT of distance bike riding and city riding. I am the best at cutting through traffic 
The furthest I’ve gone in a day is 120 miles on a bike because I don’t know any other rides that go further but not too much further.
learned how to unicycle before i skated. sort of stopped unicycling for skateboarding at some point since it didn’t seem to have what skating seemed to offer. skated for like a couple years or so before i realized it wasn’t for me, then started trying to do everything i was doing on a skate on a uni. then i eventually got universe and my life changed when i saw dan heaton jump up a picnic table on a unicycle.
I think when your learning anything, spending time by yourself is important, but so it doing it infront of people, which in my oppinion is more difficult. I would encourage you ZAM to not give up, it’s extrememly rewarding to learn something hard. Maybe get some unicycling videos, they have a few at www.unicycle.com
. See how they do it, remember to keep your weight on the seat, back straight, and look forward and up, not down at the ground. Practice on a fence if you have one, try to not use it as much as possible. When your comfortable with that, maybe try taking off, it’ll probably be awhile and take a lot of trys till your body figures out why it keeps falling off, or you’ll have to change what your thinking.
I think you have balance, as long as you can walk you have balance. You know how to not fall using only 2 feet to support you, how to keep your weight over them so you don’t fall one way of the other. Unicycling is like that, but different. you have to move this one wheel under you to keep your weight over it, something new like that takes time.
Andrew
I skated and snowboarded for years before Muni and I’d say it does absolutely nothing for you. Sure you might build a little balance and learn to handle your board at different speeds but it doesn’t translate to uni much at all.
Balancing on a board gives you more “sideways balance” skill where a uni requires mastering “front-back balance” skills. All I really mastered on a skateboard was the ability to bruise my shins.
A few things I’ve done that I feel translate well to unicycling:
Yoga: awesome for developing balance, flexibility and breath control. Helps for those long distance rides!
Rock climbing: excellent for developing balance and concentration.
“Aerial” martial arts (such as Judo, Hapkido, Aikido): crucial falling skills are developed in the first months of training. Taking 50-100 falls in a day helps you learn to save your own a$$ when a UPD occurs!
Yup, I rollerskated.
Rollerbaldes were not made back then.
My skates had steel rollers.
My skateboard also had steel rollers.
I took those off to put on those new fangled polyeuothangethingtype rollers thou …
And, yes, it helped my unicycling.
It helped me learn how to fall !
(snicker)