I know there may have been threads like this before, but I thought it would be cool if everyone would give their best shot at inventing levels 11-15. Throw in 16-20 if you like. Anyway here are some general guidlines;
Only reasonable tricks may be included; no sideways seat dragging hand spoke walk.
Try to follow the general pattern in the previous levels of adding circles and figure eights and doing things with both feet.
Be creative and have fun!
Here’s my best shot.
Level 11
Demonstrate 11 types of mounts.
Walk the wheel backward in a figure eight.
Walk the wheel backward one-footed in a circle.
Sideways wheel walk one-footed for 10 meters.
Stand up wheel walk for 10 meters.
Glide backwards for 10 meters.
Coast in a circle.
Crank idle on the left side 25 times.
Crank idle on the right side 25 times.
Cross over for 10 meters.
360 degree uni spin.
Level 12
Demonstrate 12 types of mounts.
Walk the wheel backward one-footed in a figure eight.
Walk the wheel backward one-footed with left foot for 10 meters.
Walk the wheel backward one-footed with right foot for 10 meters.
Stand up wheel walk in a figure eight.
Seat drag in front backwards 10 meters.
Seat drag in back backwards 10 meters.
Stand up glide for 10 meters.
Stand up wheel walk backwards for ten meters.
Coast backwards for 10 meters.
Handride for 10 meters. (with transitions)
540 degree uni spin.
Level 13
Demonstrate 13 types of mounts.
Walk the wheel backward one-footed in a figure eight with the right foot.
Walk the wheel backward one-footed in a figure eight with the left foot.
Seat drag in front backwards in a figure eight.
Seat drag in back backwards in a figure eight.
Stand up wheel walk backward in a figure eight.
Coast backward in a figure eight.
Stand up coast for 10 meters.
Stand up glide leg extended for 10 meters. (extended HIGH like the Japanese freestyle riders)
Hand wheel walk backward for 10 meters.
Sideways wheel walk sitting on seat for 10 meters.
Side ride backward for 10 meters.
720 degree uni spin.
Level 14
Demonstrate 14 types of mounts.
Hand wheel walk backward in a figure eight.
Stand up coast in a circle.
Stand up coast backward for 10 meters.
Sideways wheel walk one-footed in a figure eight.
Sideways glide for 10 meters.
Sideways hand wheel walk for 10 meters
Sideways seat drag 10 meters.
Sideways wheel walk sitting on the seat in a figure eight.
Sideways wheel walk one-foot sitting on the seat for 10 meters.
Handride in a figure eight.
Level 15
Demonstrate 15 types of mounts.
Stand up coast leg extended for 10 meters.
Stand up coast backward in a figure eight.
Sideways seat drag in a figure eight.
Sideways seat drag to the right for ten meters.
Sideways seat drag to the left for ten meters.
Seat dragging handride for 10 meters. (A guy from Sweden could handride an ultimate wheel. The rider would be given the option of switching pedals for this one.)
Sideways wheel walk one-footed sitting on the seat in a figure eight.
Wheel walk backward seat in front for ten meters.
Wheel walk seat in back for 10 meters.
Wheel walk seat on side for 10 meters.
900 degree uni spin.
And that’s it for now. I may make some corrections later. Also I alternated “10” and “ten” and “backward” and “backwards.” There may also be some spelling errors. I’m too lazy to fix any of this right now. Have fun!
I’m not sure if there ever was a ‘proposal’ as serious as this one. You mention ‘with transitions’ somewhere, but the official levels state that everything has to be with transitions (except possibly side ride). Your addition implies that you envisage (more) exceptions?
I would like to hear how the current level 10 riders look at this list. Since there are level 10 riders in the first place, I think there is a need for 11 - 15.
Another interesting topic I discussed briefly with Nathan and KH is to fashion a rating system form Muni runs, similar to the Yosemite Decimal used in rock climbing. Without that system, climbers have no idea what they are getting into–it’s absolutely essential.
I’m going riding now, but if possible, I’ll try and draft up something later today.
No, everything would have to include transitions, including seat dragging handride. I only mentioned the transition on Level 12 because handride is relatively easy unless you have to get in and out of it, in which case it is close it impossible.
There is no exception on the skill levels for side ride.
Yes, probably a lot more. For level seven and higher, all the mounts have to be into something besides riding unless they are extremely difficult, so here is a possible list for the hypothetical level 15.
1 Rolling mount to gliding.
2 Kickup mount to wheel walk.
3 Free jump mount to stand up wheel walk.
4 Side jump mount to wheel walk.
5 Reverse mount to wheel walk.
6 360 degree spin side jump mount.
7 Side mount reverse, leg around 2.5x.
8 Running jump mount to seat drag.
9 Pickup mount to seat in front.
10 Frame kick mount to seat in back.
11 Flying jump mount to seat in front.
12 Frame spin mount to wheel walk. (Jullian Monney does this in a video in Yoggi’s gallery. I invented the name myself but it probably has another name)
13 720 degree spin jump mount. (I don’t know if this has been done, but I assume that it wouldn’t be to difficult if you could do the 720 degree unispin.)
14 Side mount to one-footed idle.
15 Rolling mount to backwards gliding.
I have seen videos of 1, 2, 3, 8, 12, and 15.
6 and 7 are on the IUF skills list.
I have done 4, 5, 9, 10 and 14.
I am assuming 11 and 13 could be done.
Not in the USA skills levels, but there is in the IUF skills levels. There are some subtle differences between the two sets of requirements. That’s why I added “possibly”.
I don’t handride, but I used to be able to ride, seated, while holding onto my toes. If you switched to stomach on seat first, it should be a piece of cake to make the transition. Much easier than some of that other stuff!
I don’t know about a need for higher levels just because some people have completed the first ten. A couple of reasons:
The 10 levels were created in the late 1980s – more than 15 years ago. Today there are only a handful of level 10 riders. Either the 10 levels are plenty hard enough, or not enough people are interested in persuing them.
Once you get to level 10, maybe you should stop learning other peoples’ tricks and start making up your own. That’s what I did when I started doing shows. You always want to have some original material.
The most useful reason – Because Carol McLean’s group is working on a new and improved skill level system, which will branch out better and cover more areas of unicycling. No need to add onto the “old” ones.
I think handride should actually belong at level 12. I can handride, but not very well and in my opinion, it is about as hard as most of the level nine skills, if you don’t do the transition. It is harder than gliding and hand wheel walk, but definately easier than coasting. This is backward handride however; I think forward handride is probably a lot harder. The transition to backward handride would be very difficult though, because the position is very different from regular riding. You have to turn the seat around, and rest mostly on your abdomen. I have tried, but I can’t figure out how to ride with my feet on the seat in this position. So unless you can do forward handride which is a lot harder in the first place, the transition will be VERY difficult.
I agree with your other comments completely. I wasn’t seriously suggesting expanding the skill levels, I just thought it would be fun to try to come up with something. I don’t know enough about freestyle yet to seriously suggest anything. Mostly I was hoping to see other people’s ideas on this for fun. That’s why I put it in the JC forum.
this thread might give some indication if that comment is correct or not
i realise that this isn’t a scientific survey by any stretch of the imagination, that’s why i said ‘indication’
but it’s possible that some suggestions could be made that Carol’s group could include in their work?
Hate to burst your bubble but I can get into and out of handride backwards (not forwards yet but someday soon I hope). I’m about 50% of getting in and out of it. I thought it would be hard too but I’ll tell ya how I do it if you want to learn (even though I don’t really want to give out the secret, I will just so more people can learn and to prove it’s possible).
I start with the seat backwards and start doing hand wheel walk with my legs out (extended), then when the pedals are just right I switch and put my hands on the pedals, then immediatley I start pedalling with my hands backwards. Getting out of it is actually pretty easy and only took me a couple tries to get it. When my right pedal is in the down position, I swing my right leg down and onto the pedal, then my left one and bamb, you’re riding again! As far as I know, I’m the first and maybe only one that can do this-at least I’ve never seen anyone or heard anyone do it before. So good luck to anyone who tries it or learns it. Peace out.
Thanks. I’ll have to try that as soon as I get some dry pavement and learn to hand wheel walk legs extended.
I would point out however, that as a level nine rider, you should be quite capable of doing some level 12 skills.
Ignore what I said before. The handride transitions are difficult, but not nearly as difficult as I thought. I did the transition out of handride after about five minutes of practice, then got it again a few minutes later. I also got the transition into handride once, but I did it from idling, not hand wheel walk. Now I need to get better at unispins so I can get to it from regular riding. Thanks much for motivating me to try it.
No problem. It does seem like it’d be really difficult until you actually try it, especially getting out of it. Getting into it is definetley hard and I can only do it about 25% as of right now. Might try getting into it by idling, but I think I prefer the hand ww legs out transition to backward handride.
As for the orginal point of this forum. I like the idea of throwing out more levels but think that there should only be up to level 10 until a ton of people have passed 10. Think there’s only 9 or so right now and half of them aren’t unicycling as much and probably wouldn’t try to pass anymore levels, or maybe they just might get back into unicycling. Hmmm… And there is an unofficial level 11 that 2 people I know have passed. Maybe level 12 could be 69 but that’d be really tough!?
