I was out at a local school ground trying stay in the saddle for more than a
few meters and a family shows up to use the playground. They stop and chat
for a bit on their way to the swings. The father says he rode a uni quite a
bit when he was a kid. We talked about the learning process and I offer to
let him take my uni for a spin. He takes me up on it, mounts and peddles
around the blacktop for a bit and comes back grinning. I asked him when the
last time he was on a uni. He said about 25 years.
my father in law was like that. He rode a uni as a teenager to deliver papers. He hadn’t ridden in about 20 years and although he leaned on his van the first time he immediatly rode away. After that he freemounted every time. I was quite impressed.
Re: It’s something you don’t forget, like riding a unicycle.
I totally agree with your statement. You will lose some of your skill level by being off the unicycle for years, but I feel you can always jump on and ride. --chirokid–
I think it’s amazing that all these people can have the ability to unicycle, yet somehow resist riding one every day.
I didn’t ride for about 17 or 18 years before taking it up again. Now I do ride most every day and it would seem strange not to, but then again, life takes us through many twists and turns on its own and sometimes a unicycle is (seemingly) not the way to navigate them. Unbelievable as that may be. 
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
Re: Re: It’s something you don’t forget, like riding a unicycle.
do i feel a klaas bill stats gathering exercise coming on?
what level of riding did these people attain before packing it in?
how much of their uni’ing ability did they lose?
after how long?
if u 'r say level 8 and dont ride for 10 years, does that drop u to level 6 or 4?
Re: Re: Re: It’s something you don’t forget, like riding a unicycle.
--chirokid–
Re: Re: Re: It’s something you don’t forget, like riding a unicycle.
I too have met many people over the years who have taken their first ride in 5-25 years. Most get going on the first two or three tries.
99% of the world’s unicyclists don’t do skill levels. Most probably rode forward, backward, and idled. Or maybe not backward.
I don’t have any evidence of this, but I think a 10 year gap would require up to a few hours practice to regain the old skills, assuming the rider’s body is still up to the challenge. I go for very long periods between visits to a gym and attempts at some of the hard tricks I used to do. They come back fast. But when I try to do things that require flexibility or odd-location muscle power I no longer have, it’s a lot more of a problem.
Re: Re: Re: Re: It’s something you don’t forget, like riding a unicycle.
i should’ve put the skill in inverted commas
what i find really fascinating is the deterioration of skills
i’m sure we might agree that unicycling is a physical/mechanical skill
simmilar to juggling
i found when i started working on five balls that if i missed practise for a day, i was down 5-10 throws
then it reached a certain plateau where a couple of days break actually helped my performance
i’m curious to find out if any studies have been done on deterioration of skills
the more i think about it, the more fascinating it gets
back to the skill levels for a mo’ john
i read on a site recently that u can qualify for the skill levels by submitting an unedited video of the tests
if this is still available, it will be the solution to our south african problem
who do i speak to?
Re: It’s something you don’t forget, like riding a unicycle.
On Tue, 8 Jul 2003 22:14:44 -0500, “Cubby01” <cubby01@lycos.com>
wrote:
>One of Klaas Bil’s (maybe or maybe I read it
>elsewhere) uni statistics appears to bear this out as it indicates
>practicing 2 hrs/day vs. 1 hrs/day will not cut your learning days in half.
Yes that was from my stats but the evidence was not very convincing
(maybe better when based on more data in round 2).
I’ve heard the concept on various occasions about learning, e.g. for
school work or learning to play a musical instrument: divide your
sessions in smaller chunks and the pay-off is better.
Klaas Bil - Newsgroup Addict
You can’t go wrong when you follow King Muni-Man! - Jason from Alaska
I like to say, “Riding a uni is like riding a bike.” It’s true, and it makes me sound like an idiot as well.
Re: It’s something you don’t forget, like riding a unicycle.
When the Internet is dead and buried, what will be left? www.everylist.com
>practicing 2 hrs/day vs. 1 hrs/day will not cut your learning days in half.
I find that varying what your doing is important. If it’s just straight
unicycling, then 2hr’s probably is getting dimensing returns. But if you
mix things up, you can make progress on so many things at once
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