Hey there,
future Skill Level contents are finished. Find them here:
Of course we are not finished yet. You can find more what we are going to do next in the IUF Blog.
Extreme level 9 consists of relatively easy tricks :\ I think a lot of intermediate riders can do them all, and pretty consistently.
Been riding since 1987, owned a dozen unicycles, used to do 70+ miles a week, week in and week out. Had loads of fun riding Muni/cross country and performing. I’m base level 3.
i like it. it needs to be a little bit harder tho.
Somebody should make one for trials
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.
Varialflip is a lot lot easier then inward varialflip. Inward varialflip is on par with full varialflip. Full varialflip cannot be compared with inward big flip. Inward big flip or inward fullvarialflip is on par with hugeflip or outfifth varialflip.
To land a varialflip all you need to learn is a outflip, then all you need to do is add a 180rotation.
To land a inward varialflip you need to learn from one of these methods:
Learn full outflips then learn to full outflip with an inward 180.
Learn inward smallflips, then learn those from seat in.
Learn inward varials then add an extra flip.
Learn sex changes from seat in then add an extra 180unispin.
Similarities with methods of learning full varialflips:
Learn full outflips then add a (non inward) 180rotation
Learn bigflips then learn these from seat in
Learn fullvarials then add an extra flip.
Learn varialflips then add a 180unispin
Big comment! I know… But hey, this really gets to me, saying that a inward varialflip is on par with a normal varialflip… Just doesn’t make sense to me.
Bit late to bring this up? I did bring it up when these levels were being created but I guess either Kelly or Shaun disagreed with me… (I haven’t seen any other opinions about this trick from riders that actually utilize it btw)
That’s true aswell, but I guess Shaun and Kelly didn’t want to make the skill levels go so high, to the point where they can’t do the tricks 
I think the levels make sense though, simply means we need more then 9 levels.
Or maybe some street levels… but then its tricky, I don’t like the idea of standardizing street or flatland unicycling. Because we all just practice what we want to practice, not many of us try to be good overall(I try lol).
lol xD
for me is the inwardvarialflip a lot easier 
I’ve been able to do them for a really long time now…
but I can’t do (clean!) varialflips so long I don’t think its easy to get it look clean/good; Inward varialflip it just turning around the uni… 
But well I don’t practise varialflips a lot… so idk
What I think is that:
Treybackflip and 360lateflip are a lot harder than hickdoubleflip/treysideflip
And yes! levels are to easy!
Even I can do everything from level 9 (and not everything of 8…^^)
Personally I laugh at this, most all of these tricks can be done on flat ground. I dont see that as being extreme personally. I know a lot of people that just do tricks and when they are given something such as a handrail they cant do it. (No offense to you guys!) Also why would you rate your riding? That takes away from the personality of it. If someone can do a lot of tricks cool, if someone has a unique style of riding thats even better!
When I first started riding I seen Defect and worshiped those guys! I really liked the street riding, you could tell that every rider had his own personality. Kevin M. had the, “Go big” style. Shaun J. had the techy buttery smooth look that made everything look easy. Dan H. had the original idea look on his riding. Each rider had there own style and you could tell who was riding just by the way they looked in the air and how they did their tricks.
I feel that this aspect of riding is going away with all the new tricks that are out there today. It gets old seeing a triple flip on flat ground or done off a curb. Its cool yes, but gets boring fast.
My view about the levels of riding are something that should stick with freestyle. Street and flatland should express the riders personality.
Yeah same for me, but you have to remember that this is a stance trick… I have to do my varialflips blind otherwise they are ugly as hell. I learnt inward varialflips long before varialflips. But this is because of our stance. People with the opposite stance find full varialflips easy and inward varialflips harder.
A similar list for street has already been up for a while
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Unicyclopedia/Street
I think a list like this is good. How else would you know if a trick you are thinking of learning has a resonable chance of success at your current level.
Ex. an “extreme” level 3 rider might be able to learn a level 5 trick, like a backroll before most of the level 4 stuff, buit prob not a level 8 trick like an inward varial roll. (assuming the progression is faily accurate)
I agree. You could prob say the say the same thing about any riding category.
Hahahahahaha Jacob you’re just jelly that I’m clearly a more extreme unicyclist than you are.
Hey guys,
thanks for your feedback. I would like to give you some notes to understand skill levels better:
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The Extreme branch is made by Adrien Delecroix and Spencer Hochberg, along with the help of Shaun, Kelly, Chris Huriwai and so much others in the forums here and riders at conventions. Thanks a lot for this guys.
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“Extreme”: The name isn’t set in stone here. The first guess was to cover all extreme disciplines here but it turned out only to be the technical ones, like street and flatland and it reduced mostly to the latter one
Yes, we need a better name here, make suggestions. -
“Uuuh, skill levels are so easy and simple” statements: At first, all the simple statements are subjective and each subject differs from others, so it’s hard to compare them, right?
So, how to answer this correctly? The skill levels are a training instrument to progress “best” through the unicycle skill jungle. Think of newcomers, it’s hard for them to get all the trick names and how to learn each one, complicated (even for me i’m not that familiar with flatland names - into unicycling since 1990). To quote Shaun Johanesson on that one, he said:
With that, the goal of skill levels is to teach a wide variety of different moves. That’s why they stop at a point, where we think from here you have a very good set of different skills, progress from their on your own and create something fantastic.
Skill levels introduce you to technical unicycling.
- “trick a on par with trick b”: As I said above this is very subjective. Sorry @unicycldood, my vocab is limited here (I’m a freestyler :p) but as Tim Desmet says the other trick is easier for him, which is the direct proove for my statement
Hope that all clears some misunderstandings you probably have.
gossi
So “180° Hoptwist frh” means a 180 without holding the seat? That’s extreme 
You better believe it Julia!
& Gossi
I like it! I believe that the list could be changed into flatland tricks. I really see extreme riding done off of obstacles. I really agree that this is a good chart for learning new tricks, some things could be switched around but its pretty spot on!
It just bugs me cause according to that chart im newb. Then again most of the hardcore muni guys would be in the same boat! I have a huge amount of respect for the true Muni riders like Turtle and many others on the forum. They have amazing riding abilities and they can take a beating!
@aarons: Freestyle Baby! 
Thanks Jacob. Yes we are looking for a better name, because really MUni and Trial are not affected by the Skill Levels. Flatland as a Name is a candidate but Grinds are in there too, so we have Street elements. I would love to hear suggestions 
I still don’t see anything wrong with the current levels (minus a few minor changes) except for the fact it doesn’t include street, flatland, MUni, distance and all the other disciplines. In my opinion the best solution would be to have a freestyle level 1-10 (current one with a few modifications), and a street/flatland level 1-10. I don’t think the other disciplines need skill levels and it kinda sounds like some of the flat and street riders don’t even want levels but I guess it doesn’t hurt even if know one uses them it’d be a good guide.
I also think the proposed skill levels are too judgmental especially since there is no defined distance. Don’t know if judgmental is the right word but what I’m trying to say is there could be too much variance with testers. One tester could pass someone all the way to level 9. While another tester could test that same person and say he could only make it to level 5. They differ because the rules are too general. With the current skill levels you either do it for 10 meters or not. Simple. An easy yes or no. You have to ride into and out of each skill so that proves you are in control. With the new system, was he in control, maybe, um, I guess, well maybe not, hmm, and he only did it for 5 meters, hmm. Very hard to judge in my humble opinion.
But my biggest concern is that right now there is only one person contolling everything with no voting to see if people even want these! From what I’ve heard and the polls we’ve tried to do the majority of riders don’t want to change the original levels. So why are they being changed? Cause one person says so? Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. A poll was just created a few days ago and I’ll post the link here when I get home to see if everyone is on the same page or not.
Probably not. The biggest problem with the old Freestyle levels is that they’re way too hard to be useful to actual unicycle teachers. Early riders would benefit from much smaller steps between the levels. For expert riders, they should naturally seem too easy.
If you don’t like skill levels, just walk away. Not everybody needs them, but some people are going to continue to work on them anyway, so we might as well let them. Personality and style are great, and have to develop separate from skill levels. But the levels aren’t intended as a be-all, end-all; just a way to show a logical progression. I love watching riders that have their own style and approach.
It might be inevitable as the sport matures, but there’s still a long way to go. Sports that are actually popular need a base population of people doing the “standard moves”. The top riders will always rise above this and be leading the way with their own creations.
I don’t think the old levels are too hard to be useful for teachers (maybe the last few) as levels 1-5 seem to be adapted pretty quick by the average unicyclist that pushes for it. I know TCUC teaches the levels really well and most riders get to level five in a year or two, which is pretty good if you ask me. I think it’s good to have some of the higher levels hard to push people. Otherwise there would be thousands of level 10’s with no where to go. So in my humble opinion I think the old levels are just about right.
I don’t know much about street but if more than 10 current riders can pass all the proposed levels, maybe they need to be made more difficult as riders are just going to be getting better each and every year.