Furai, we are all trying to help.
Sure Tom might have assumed that you can ride a unicycle, but you are taking about getting into MUni, it is a pretty reasonable assumption, and he gives good advice.
If you really are so new at unicycling perhaps you should take it a bit slower, get a bit more proficient on the road then start riding the trails.
I should have expected exactly what I received, because this is an internet forum.
The fact is that 90% of the responses here are helpful and instructive. It’s a shame the other 10% always screws things up. Sometimes, I get frustrated dealing with the attitudes of the 10%. So, I let my frustration show and now what started out to be a harmless thread has turned into another ludicrous discussion about who needs to chill out and who offended who and why so-and-so was right and so-and-so was wrong. Don’t worry, I promise I won’t lose any sleep over this thread. I don’t consider myself sensitive - not many sensitive guys make it through Parris Island and 4 years of being a Grunt.
Feel free to continue this discussion without my input. I’ll be moving to other threads since this one has been totally derailed. I’ll take full responsibility since I’m the FNG.
I’m going back to basics my self. I was up to 5.5 miles on a 29 er and thought surely I can do Muni and got my but kicked in the first 30 yards and ended up walking the entire trail only getting on every now and then to try and do a little more.
So now I’m practicing on the side walk and when I get to an intersection I try to go off the ramp at an angle to get the drop feeling.I do the same when I get to the other side and feel the bump like its a root.There is also a park near the house and it has a small hill with some uneven surfaces so I’m riding down it and across the field to help me to stay in the seat.
What ends up winding you is standing on the petals the whole time. You start to learn that that is a killer and to only get on them at the last second.You got to keep your butt in the seat as much as possible.
I’m a noob too so keep it up and post what works for you.
Peace
For anyone just learning to hold the handle while riding:
I found this hard at first too, since it seemed like swinging one hand around didn’t provide enough “momentum” to correct my balance. I found that by holding something in that hand (in my case, a thermos of coffee), the extra weight at the end of my arm provided the missing momentum, and helped me to learn to ride with one hand. Then as I got better, I no longer needed the extra weight.
IMO, Furai, you may be jumping into Muni too soon, and/or putting too much pressure on yourself.
I waited quite a while untill I did my first Muni. I did lots of “urban Muni” (every day on my commute). When I could ride up driveways and off curbs constantly for an hour w/o getting exhaused or any scarry UPD’s, I went on my first Muni ride. I would also ride lots of “skinnies” (cracks in sidewalks, edge of curbs & painted lines on asphalt). I was amazed how hard it was just to go streight on smooth flat hard packed dirt, the wheel slid all over the place as I pedaled.
Riding on dirt was another skill I had to learn, I realized I needed to pedal a lot smoother (holding the handle helped). Even though I was riding REALLY easy terrain it was a lot harder because there were so many little things close together to throw me off as aposed to ignoring everything untill I hit that big curb.
i really dont get whats up with this guy sounds like he didnt expect the obvious resopnce to his post. ovcourse muni is hard when you first try it !!! silly man
If it were easy it would not be interesting. 
Scott
curiously this is not my experience: as soon I was able to ride I found muni easier than “pavement unicycling”… (notice that I started late in life and I am not that young)
why that? because I love woods and rough terrain and I don’t mind falling: I love trying to choose my path amongst rocks and obstacles it’s much more amusing thant just riding along. Muni is like skiiing. + a major difference with pavement unicycling is that I can find lot of excuses for a stop, a deep breath, a sip of water, a chat with squirrels, and so on …
So relax and just don’t mind about failing: just enjoy paths!
From my experience of taking absolute beginners out on trails, I agree the holding on to the saddle is quite a big step. It is something you will help in the long run so do persevere on that one, it is not essential to the introductry Muni though.
The advice to check the tyre pressure and the seat hight is really good advice. It is amazing the difference in stability you will find when you get those right. With the Dura Wildlife leopard you will find that the right tyre pressure for off road is actually too soft for comfortable pavement riding, it will feel unstable on the smooth ground. The seat will definitely feel too low for road riding… but off road it helps a LOT.
Good luck with the riding.
Roger
Muni is difficult to talk about as every trail is different. To improve the muni-skills, and improve my riding, I’ve tried a bunch of different activities all that seem to help. I’ve hunted for easy to access items:
Look for bumps that you can get used to. I remember my first time going from a paved driveway to a sidewalk. I though every groove would toss me off, many did too.
Advance the bumps (sidewalks or rough pavement) to something more intense. Fine a very quiet street (cul-de-sac etc), and try zig-zagging in and out of driveways. I’d ride on the sidewalk to a driveway, then exit over the curb to the road, then down the road and back up on to the sidewalk. The 1/2 inch to 1 inch curb was totally worth getting used to. I still do this one a lot.
Changing wheel size is huge too. I just hopped onto a friends 20" muni and it felt like I was learning all over again. I’m used to a 26". Took a bit and then I was back at it.
One last thing, keep it fun! We’re typically on our own riding around the neighbourhood or on various trails. Most people still see us as a cross between a superhero and a superfreak, so in the end it’s really about your inner motives to have a good time.
Wow. Looks like MadFurai and I are getting into muni and riding a larger wheel at roughly the same time.
I recently upgraded from my ancient 24" schwinn to a 26" muni. Luckily for me there are two extremely easy places to muni in my area. My first experience was on one of those easy double track trails. I had about 60 miles recent experience (thousands of miles experience total, but all a decade ago) on my road uni before doing it, but muni still winded me. I chalked it up to the new larger knobby tire at a much lower pressure, riding in the driving rain, and the tire “giving” into the wet ground. Didn’t help that this particular double track is a low sloped hill… that goes on and on and on for about two miles before the first flat or downhill. Brutal.
My heart about popped on that ride, so I decided to take my muni on the road to get used to the new wheel size, tire, etc. After about 30 miles I re-tackled the off-road. I found a nice double track that was built on top of an old railroad track. Straight, flat, the ultimate bunny slope of muni. I used that to increase my time in the saddle without a dismount, and overall time in the saddle. Ended up tearing my rectus femoris due to a fatigue strain. 
I pushed my personal best single distance ride out though.
After all that I decided to finally take on a single track after a 4 mile warmup. That was a mistake I figure. Horrible ride with more UPDs in one mile than I had in the previous 100. I found that lots and lots of roots were causing me to ride with my weight mostly on the pedals nearly the whole time, which wore me out quickly. I may have been riding with too much air pressure as well. I suspect I may have rolled over a few of those roots more smoothly with lower tire pressure.
One thing I will say. I took a few downhills on that trail that I would have seriously been worried about even on a bike. I’m not a very athletic person, so I figure it will take quite some time to do muni on some of these heavily rooted single tracks that have several man made obstacles built in to keep things interesting for the bikers. Plus I suspect I’ll need to become a waaaay better unicyclist in order to tackle those things. Absolutely rock solid, no wavering on nice smooth trails with the occasional obstacle. Flailing first timer that looks like they’ve never touched a unicycle on a heavily rooted trail.
There’s a nature trail that goes through my housing development. It’s dirt with with a few bumps and very slightly up and down. Nothing at all like a muni trail. I took my ultimate wheel out on it yesterday and before a goat head prematurely ended my ride my earlier rides on the trail started coming back to me. This was long before I was riding muni and was on my freestyle unicycle. It was hard and took me quite a few tries before I could ride it and I was remembering almost every feature that initially gave me trouble and that I later overcome. Like here’s a little bit of loose dirt and rocks which would be laughable now on my muni but took time and time again to be able to ride over.
MUni is really hard? Hmmm. Me trying to think back to originally learning it. I didn’t originally attempt MUni at all. It didn’t exist yet. What we had in 1979 was “getting from my driveway to the paved street without getting off”. This involved riding the length of one house on a dirt road, my original “offroading” challenge. Yeah, that was definitely hard. But at the same time, rewarding to (finally) make it! I always liked the challenge of riding on bumps.
That’s a lot of changes. Those alone would make riding the MUni on pavement a big challenge. Especially at a “dirt” tire pressure, which would make it ride lousy on pavement.
I learned in my years of doing unicycle clubs that people who learn to ride indoors have to kind of start over from scratch, even to ride down a sidewalk. They aren’t prepared for bumps of any kind; even expansion joints let alone driveway-endings. If your experience so far has been in outdoor riding, you’re in better shape than they were. But switching wheel size, and weight (and probably crank length) at the same time as hitting the dirt will be pretty overwhelming.
Enjoy it! Yes, MUni is hard. And that’s what makes it so great.
Yup. Here’s a quote I’ll never forget, from a face-to-face meeting of the board of the Unicycling Society of America, in the early 80s: “I know that whatever I say you’re going to disagree with me, but…”
“Not necessarily…”
Aww. I feel sorry for your ego. Cody implied that MUni is only a notch more difficult than mountain biking. BAH! Even the mountain bikers don’t agree with that. It’s definitely many notches harder!! However much a notch is… 
It’s a forum, you’re a member, you are struggling, so you got offended when you were criticized, so what.
Anytime you try something new, it’s going to be a struggle, that’s to be expected. Muni is hard, duh! You’re riding a unicycle off road, how could that be easy?
It takes a huge amount of effort and years of practice to make it easy.
I rode muni this past weekend with some forum members, one of whom is a new rider (one year). Our Saturday ride was 13 miles of single and double track with some technical sections that we all walked. He had tons of UPD’s, ran out of steam, bonked a bit, but just kept on riding with periods of walking.
But he finished the ride and I swear his skill level increased from that one ride alone.
Don’t be so sensitive, esp if you want sympathy and support from experienced riders who all went through your experience at one point.
Muni ain’t magic, it’s hard work.
Johnfoss wrote: I learned in my years of doing unicycle clubs that people who learn to ride indoors have to kind of start over from scratch, even to ride down a sidewalk. They aren’t prepared for bumps of any kind; even expansion joints let alone driveway-endings.
I’ve been riding for only a couple of weeks…indoors, on a pristine floor, no expansion joints, and I think I’m ready to roll out the front door when I see John’s advice. Had he not posted this I would have been in for a big surprise. 
To the OP: I’m sorry you are having a difficult time. However, this noob has certainly learned valuable lessons from your post. Thanks for posting.
John is right, even a twig can be destablizing if you’re an indoor rider, so don’t expect an easy transition.
I learned outdoors and still it was tough going when I started riding on uneven surfaces like grass. I remember having the hardest time tansitioning to loose terrain to the point that I laid out sticks on pavement and practiced riding over them
Now I ride over logs, off water bars, jump off rocks, all while rolling on down the trail. It’s what you get used to doing as routine that makes it easy.
I guess I’m lucky. I learned to ride on a fairly rough lawn - holding onto a trampoline while riding around it. Then when I transitioned to pavement - it was really easy.
MUni came quickly thereafter.
I’m afraid the OP is no longer taking part in this thread, but, if he is…
A technique to practice, which will help in muni, is riding while standing up out of the seat a bit. Then, on a trail, a bump gets easier to absorb if you just un-weight a little and let your legs absorb the bump.
There’s no time like the present. Riding indoors is great (if you have a place to do it!), but the outdoors has its own challenges that are well worth it. To the sidewalk!
And then MUni a little later.
BTW, MUni is not supposed to get easy. If we wanted easy, wouldn’t we be doing something else?
I rode inside for the first time in April and it was an amazing experience. I was knocking out long runs of one footed wheel walking that I’m only just now starting to reproduce on pavement. It was at the Isla Vista juggling festival and I was hard pressed to get off my unicycle to juggle. Luckily I didn’t have to.
