This is a direct copy of a message I posted to rec.sport.unicycling, but posting it here seems to yield a bit more response.
I’ve recently been trying some seat out front jumping, and after two weeks
of practice, I can jump up to two feet. But after taking a video of myself,
I see a distinct difference between me jumping, and some of the movies on
the internet (Like the excellent ‘How to hop quite high’). My lower legs
seem to be almost horizontal when jumping, whereas the guy in the Howto
movie’s legs are approaching vertical. Is this normal, will I gradually get
my legs to bend, or is this something that really needs some attention? The
attached file is in MPEG4 format, and was shot with my mobile phone camera,
so the quality is quite crappy. I suggest you play it in Quicktime, and then
use the left and right arrow buttons to go from frame to frame. If any of
you have some solid information and need a better quality video, I’ll go out
and shoot one with my digital camera.
No, that’s quite apparant. The original message I posted doesn’t appear on the forums, but does appear on the newsgroups. Might be because of the attached file though.
Anyway, back to the topic. I shot some foto’s today, with me jumping normally, without jumping onto something. And miracle, miracle, I tuck! Quite well actually, the wheel almost leaves a black mark on my ass. So, new problem, how to transfer this skill to sidehopping (However slight the ‘side’ part of the hopping may be). Also, the tucking is not concious, I just… do it… Well, practice makes perfect!
The hop in that video looks good to me. I think theoretically you can get more height by folding yourself up and getting the wheel out in front of you than if you pull it inside so it’s hitting your butt.
You’re right though, just practice a lot. That’s what I should be doing
Luckily this is enough to do some simple trials lines, now on to learn how to pedalgrab, this should increase my jumping height by at least 10 inches. I’m struggling with learning this though, because as you can see in the video, my jump is to my left. What you might not be able to see in the video is that my left pedal is the pedal behind, so if I want to go from pedal to rubber, my ‘loose’ pedal (my right one) would have to be in front. Now I know it’s possible to do it either way, but I’m having major difficulties controlling my weight distribution like this, as I tend to tip over forward. Any tips on doing this? (Also, just to be sure, going from pedal to rubber is basically just jumping off your pedal, and then quickly pulling up your unicycle under you again, right?)
Just a picture to illustrate the difference between my ‘free’ jump (Not jumping onto anything), and my jump onto something. Pity I can’t practice right now (Gotta love dutch weather…)
> The original message I posted doesn’t appear on the forums, but does
> appear on the newsgroups. Might be because of the attached file
> though.
Well, sort of. Your original message may appear on your local news
server, but it didn’t propagate to Unicycling.com, Supernews, or
Google. It looks like your server (or one “upstream” from it) dropped
the ball and failed to send the message. I doubt a problem with the unicyclist.com gateway had anything to to with the matter.
Noord-Holland, Alkmaar, has been raining off and on. But even a small amount of rain will make everything just slippery enough for me to think “Imagine what will happen if you slipped, you could crack your skull open”, and leave me standing there, hopping. Also one of the main reasons I’m going to get a helmet and shinguards ASAP. (I’ve only really being doing trials and street since about three weeks)
