I’ve heard it mentioned before that many riders wish they could go back and relearn how to ride again.
I’ve always thought this was strange because I’m very happy with where I’m at right now and couldn’t imagine going back.
Who out there wishes they could learn again and why?
I wish I could go back and learn to ride a lot earlier. I was almost 34 when I started. Back when I had all that free time. Think of the mad skillz I’d have now! At least the “geezers” give me hope that I have many more years of riding ahead. 
Learning was frustrating and I wouldn’t want to start over.
If I’m reincarnated some day and decide to unicycle hopefully I learn on a bigger wheel and a flat seat. 
If the question was:
If I would forget how to ride, would I learn again,
I would definitely tell myself to learn again.
If the question is:
If I could make myself forget how to ride, SO that I could have the chance to relearn,
I probably wouldn’t. I most likely have better things to do with my time. I might consider doing it once…depending on how much I forget: if it is just my muscle memory being lost, or all my knowledge about the act of unicycling lost, etc
I wish I could go back and relearn dismounting. I always hop off the front and grab the saddle from the bottom. It’s such a reinforced habit that I struggle with dismounting from the back. It messes with my brain and muscle memory!! 
There are many unicycling skills which I have yet to attempt or master. Some of these skills will likely prove to be harder and may take even more patience than learning to ride forward. Learning a new skill can feel like “starting over”. When I get a trick for the first time, I feel a mix of endorphins and adrenaline, just as I did when I rode my first revolution. I am currently struggling with one-footed idling. It reminds me that that the learning a new skill is no bed of roses (maybe it’s like UPDing into a bed of roses, thorns and all). Nevertheless, after all the struggling, when the technique starts to emerge, there is a great feeling of joy and satisfaction which comes from learning a new skill.
If I had to do it all over, I’d use my OTHER WHEEL.
Don’t want to be a beginner again. The only thing I do not like now is that there are no more tricks left that I could learn within a few hours …
Me too. I am trying to learn it now and my body resists.
Front dismounts are important too though. It is better to keep the uni away from other pedestrians if you suddenly have nowhere to go.
I accidentally did a backwards dismount once and caught the saddle between my knees.
I had a strong “premonition” (?) of myself riding a uni when I was still at school. Never thought of it again until I saw my first uni at a garage sale when I was 54.
This reminds me that I learned to dismount from the front, and did it for 30+ years. Then one day I just decided I would dismount from the back, now I always dismount this way. I don’t remember it being very hard to learn. Now it just feels right and controlled.
I wouldn’t learn to ride again. I broke my finger the first time, and it still hurts sometimes. I would, of course, love to go back and learn flatland when I had more time and less responsibilities. Of course back then they didn’t have the proper equipment and they didn’t even have those tricks. If they had the tricks, I would have broken my hubs a long time ago.
If I had to do it again, I would correct my lean to the left that I still have.
I ignored it, thinking it would correct itself with practice. No luck and now it is just part of my riding style.
I would also ride on rough and uneven surfaces much sooner. When I saw my son ride on his thin wheeled torker across really uneven grass for the first time, it hit me that I need more control. I need that connection between the ground and how much force the next stroke needs. That was a game changer for me.
Now, when I teach friends of my kids, as soon as they have the basics we hit ramps, speed bumbs, dirt, and grass. Even if they need support to do it.
I don’t know if I could learn again. I don’t know if I could find the time to wake up at 6 am, drive to the cemetery (smooth pavement and no cameras), practice, practice, practice, come home, shower, drive to work. Now I get up at 6 just to take my daughter to middle school. Too much running around after work, plus checking and helping with homework.
same for me: I should have learned 50 years ago! 
(things may have been easier … and all those year without unicycling …)
Like Jigywigy I would correct the lean that I have.
It only goes away when I’m on auto pilot 
so I know it can be done.
Also I would have like to picked up a unicycle 30 + years ago instead of just 4.
Thanks! That’s encouraging!
I’d consider starting over, and here’s why. As soon as I learnt to ride forwards, that’s pretty much all I did. I made the jump from managing to ride to the end of my street, turn round and ride back up, to doing ~5 mile rides (and a few days later, learning to free-mount).
My problem is, now I don’t want to learn new skills. As soon as I jump on my wheel, I just start riding for miles. I’ve been trying to force myself to learn to idle, and also the little hop-on-spot thing everyone seems to do so easisly (as well as hopping at all), but as soon as I try, I do like 5 attempts, then go meh screw it, and go for a proper ride. I think I’d learn skills such as idling/hopping much easier if I didn’t know I could easily just ride for 10 miles instead.
I don’t really have any regrets in regards to when I started riding. If I’d done it any earlier, I probably would’ve failed high school/college.
I was like you in that regard. You’ll still use front dismounts from time to time, but dismounting from the rear does have some advantages. You don’t unlearn the old dismount(s), you just add a new one to your arsenal.
Learning always messes with your brain. That’s kind of how it works. 
Learning to front dismount came more or less automatically for me. Dismounting from the rear, I had to work at.
This is the sort of meaning that I recall from when I was learning. Like the speaker was almost mildly envious because I was getting to go through the learning process.
I suppose the “tragedy” of that is that I didn’t enjoy my learning process at all. It was just something I had to endure to get the desired result. I wasn’t even entirely certain that it was going to be worth it. Fortunately, it was. Learning to juggle was the same way.
Some of the little epiphanies feel pretty good, and maybe that’s what those folks are talking about; but from a cost/benefit perspective, they’re not really a win in and of themselves. The feeling was more like “it’s about freakin’ time”. Obviously, some people’s experiences are different from mine.
I’ve spent a lot of time practicing certain skills which might have come more easily if I had practiced them at a different skill level. For instance, I think rushing to learn idling is not as effective as progressing through more basic skills first. However, it’s difficult to say how much one skill reinforces another and everyone is different. In a perfect world you would simulate three scenarios and then choose the one that fits what you’re looking for the most (most people want the quickest time but I like to maximize enjoyment):
[LIST=1]
That’s not possible. I might have waited a little longer to learn idling and probably one footed backwards but if nothing else I would have chosen to practice coasting earlier.
I too always dismount off the front and should probably train myself to be more ambidismountrous.
It’s how I’ve done it since day 1, more than 5 years ago:
