Is it ok to swing your arms? I have a 20" Schwinn unicycle and I just can’t stop swinging my arms. I’ve tried putting them on my lap and I can’t keep them there more than 20 feet or I fall of.
Keep praticing …
you will swing your arms when you are learning…especially trying to negociate turns and corners.
As you become more experienced, you will swing less and less.
When you are comfortable with riding, focus on using your arms less and less. A good technique to practice is to put both hands on the front of your seat, or holding your hands behind your back.
This causes you to have to steer with your shoulders instead of your arms (and moreso having your core, the hips, do the steering)
This is a good technique because once you start off roading and begin to hold your seat with one hand…you have one less arm for flapping.
If you ever notice yourself ‘just riding’ concentrate on not using your arms…it does not take too much practice to get it in your routine.
sofa is absolutely right about clasping your hands behind your back; this helped me a lot in my early stages. it was really frustrating at first, but after i learned to ride w/out my arms it was great. Once you unclasp your hands you feel like you have SO much control, its amazing. Im trying to think of an analogy…in basketball people practice dribbling with big winter gloves on so that when they take them off, dribbling is really easy…anyways try it, tell me how it works.
-grant
steering with your head
Who knows where the link is to the story about the guy who unicycled across the U.S. with handlebar things and a side-to-side sling seat between them who steered with his head. It was good reading!
Re: steering with your head
I’m guessing you’re looking for this: http://www.unicycling.org/unicycling/tales/kcash.html
Yup, that’s the one! Thanks, Duaner. Read it, Vinmacd if you haven’t already. When I got to the part about him steering with his head, I was really laughing. The dude was tough, for sure!
I think the most complex thing I have done while riding was remove my camel back, open it, remove the cd walkman, change cd’s, replace the walkman, replace the camel back and keep going.
What was the best part? Me not falling off the Coker with a CD in my mouth!
I’ve also carried a 29" uni while riding the Coker…not one comment from anyone…I figured I would have been bombarded that day.
The toughest had to be the 3km ride with a 12 pack of beer (bottles) after an 85 km ride, then 5km to the beer store. It doesn’t take your elbows long to lock into place doing that!
I once reloaded the film in my camera during a unicycle race. I think that’s about as extreme as I’ve gotten. I think that race ended in a (planned) tie between me, Dustin Kelm and Andy Cotter. It was a 9-mile race in Iowa in '96.
None more of that. Now I’m all digital, with at least 512MB in the camera!
I sometimes swing my arms on purpose. When riding up long, hills on my MUni, I found a swinging rhythm that helps me go straighter, using less leg energy to get me up the hill. One of my hands generally holds the seat, while the other one swings forward and back to counteract the “wobbling” action of my pedal strokes.
But that’s on purpose. Good advice above on learning to ride without the help of your arms. You could also practice juggling while riding, though it helps a lot to get the riding down without the arm movements first…
i find when im using my hands to do simple things, like eating a banana im not concentrating on my riding and it becomes really smooth, the hardest thing ive ever managed (once) removing my hoody and putting it into my bag and replacing my bag, it usually just ends up with me on the pavement with a hoody over my head and peole laughing tho…