Woah, that kind of stuff reminds me of the Amazing Larry Vee. Ever seen him? He’s a master of ridiculous combo tricks, many of which look super-awkward. And I don’t think he makes them extra awkward for show; they’re just really hard to combine! Like riding a unicycle while doing a hula hoop while spinning a ring on each wrist while juggling 3 balls. That’s maybe kind of a basic one for him. Great work on your part!
Oh, so tempting. To sig that at the bottom of my posts… No! I won’t. Sorry moms & dads…
Probably not. If you juggled clubs a lot, you might be getting the snap from there, where spin velocity is an important component of each throw. I’ve seen where Russain juggling teachers use a wrist-mounted hand support that holds your wrist at the optimum angle for throwing and catching. I guess the idea is that your arms do most of the aiming and changing wrist angle can make things less accurate.
Like any other component skill of a larger combination, for best results get the skill down solid while doing it by itself; this will help you focus on all the little details you need for that particular skill, and then after that you add the next skill and refine your technique to make them both work, etc.
Not as much as you think, unless you mean stopping the juggle and starting it back up again. If you ride to a stop and then go again, your audience won’t really notice you did anything. Idling in a circle I think they’d like. But when it comes to juggling, one of the best things you can do is drop one, and recover by any method.
Most of my parade and/or show juggling experience was on giraffes. When I dropped one, I would first try to reach it, which is silly on a 6’ giraffe. Eventually someone picks it up and, amazingly, almost never runs off with it and wants to see you catch it into a juggle. If you’re on a regular unicycle, being able to pick up a ball or club is a very handy skill, and audiences are really impressed if you can do it. Never pick it up on the first try though; that makes it look easy.
Thanks! They’re just cheap work gloves. I wear them in case I fall off and land on my hands. I really dislike the feel of wrist-guards, I’ve worn them twice and that was it for me.
Before I took up unicycling I was a joggler for many years, so it just made sense to juggle while unicycling once I was comfortable with one wheel. That’s awesome, going 5 - 10 miles juggling while unicycling without dropping. I’ve done 4 to 5 dropless miles a few times with balls. I still can’t juggle clubs while unicycling, but I’m almost there, I only learned club juggling very recently.
Thanks for the accolades! Which leg are you talking about for the under-the-leg throws in 1-foot wheel walk, the leg on the frame or the pushing leg? I envision getting to the former long before the latter.
I got a recent under the leg on video but it wasn’t very clean:
Thanks for all the advice, John! Larry Vee is amazing, I hope to be able to do some of what he does some day. I have some parades and other events coming up, but I may just walk and juggle them.
Smooth! Your shoulders seem to be completely isolated from all the uni movement below. Good form! Now you just need a helmet/glasses mirror so you don’t ride into any potholes…
I’m getting here a little late, but when I read “riding backwards and feeding,” I almost fell out of my office chair! I had to read it twice to make sure I read it correctly. That is truly amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it. I can juggle clubs while riding forward, and I have a friend locally that can pass clubs while riding, but nothing on the scale of what you’re doing. Way to go, man!!!
Here’s backwards riding in a counter clockwise circle while juggling clubs. I want to get it tighter and smoother. Compared to balls you have more angles to worry about. I also finally landed a full backwards figure 8 with wraparound arms but it was huge. I need to get that tighter before I try juggling it.
Can now juggle while idling either foot down almost equally well. I’d say my left foot is about 85% as good as my right(dominant) foot. It took a while for my left foot to catch up but I did learn faster than I did with my right foot. I think this is an example of 1 side teaching the other side.
I can sometimes do 2/3 of a backwards figure 8 while juggling, and getting better at transitioning to juggling backwards. The clockwise portion is usually easy, but it’s going counterclockwise that I find very difficult(even without juggling I find counterclockwise slightly more difficult). Can’t do it like the amazing Waaalrus, that’s for sure. And I’m still using balls instead of clubs. I should master arms on my chest then work on juggling while doing the backwards figure 8s.
So glad I started this thread! Got to see some amazing things(especially from Waaalrus), and got some great advice. Once I figure out how to do this, will start working on some advanced skills.
I started very basic skinny practice (step 1 is a 2x6 board) and my goal is to improve enough to be able to juggle on the wider ones (like curbs) and maybe try out unicycle paddleboarding.
I may have mentioned this before but I’m also working on a small, sideways figure-eight where my shoulders are squared to the front throughout. The idea is to be able to juggle in a small area without idling and without going back and forth. You could have two people facing each other passing clubs or an idler feeding two people weaving in and out of each other’s path. Last night I realized I need to practice my frontspins and backspins so they’re smoother in a straight line first, then I can go back to the sideways figure-eight.
I definitely want to work on more than basic juggling and passing on the unicycle. Double spins are a good start. I tried 5-ball for the first time and need to keep practicing.
Awesome! I’m glad you started this thread, too! It’s good to have people to bounce ideas off and share experiences with. I consider it to be, “Tips for juggling while unicycling” and plan to keep posting here if that’s OK. My latest thing is to practice with a metronome. I’m thinking it may be a good way to train people that a double spin is two beats:
It’s more than OK, I was hoping fellow uni-jugglers would post about skills interrelated with juggling backwards or advanced juggling while unicycling skills. There are very few good discussions concerning more advanced juggling while unicycling on this site, or anywhere else for that matter. Glad this thread turned into a place for uni-jugglers to bounce ideas off of. Your partner juggling while unicycling skills are very impressive, I’m hoping to do this soon with the local juggling group. Thanks for your inspiration!
Update: Today for the first time ever I juggled 3 balls while unicycling backwards in a figure 8 on my 24 inch unicycle. It took a lot of work to get there but it was worth it. One thing that I think helped was practicing backwards on my 29 inch unicycle, which I’ve been doing for only about a day. To safely do this, I removed the 114 mm cranks and replaced them with the much slower 150 mm cranks and did some backwards(no juggling) circles. It didn’t seem all that challenging; I wouldn’t dare do this on the 29" with 114 mm cranks.
Over a year ago I struggled with right turns while riding forward while juggling with my 24", so I switched to the 29" for a few days(for some reason no problems turning in either direction while juggling), went back to the 24" and all my problems vanished. I think this does something to the brain to help it better understand the skill in depth – the more data points to work with, the better it understands the skill.
Will need to practice a lot to smooth it out. Will work on lots of variations, especially with tire pressure and may use heavier balls every now and then. Not ready yet for clubs. Unfortunately, no video from today, wasn’t expecting this breakthrough.
I figured it out, though it’s a struggle — I have something like a 15% success rate doing a full figure 8 backwards while juggling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKgGwp42I3M
This will require a lot more practice.
Another thing I’m working on is going forwards and backwards 10 to 15 ft while juggling. I can reverse from forwards to backwards while juggling about 50% of the time, but can’t go from backwards to forwards while juggling. It feels a lot trickier, I always UPD.
I can now do 12 backwards figure 8’s while juggling with my 24" unicycle during a practice session. My figure 8’s are getting smoother but I still screw up sometimes. I still struggle a little more with the counter-clockwise portion, so need to work on that some more.
I occasionally go backwards on my 29" but it’s a lot scarier since it has 114 mm cranks. Still, I try to do it slowly. I usually just do a straight line rather than circles and I don’t juggle while going backwards on it(when I put on 150 mm cranks I do backwards figure 8’s with the 29", but without juggling). Learning the same skill on 2 different size unicycles enhances learning in my experience.
During one recent practice session of juggling while unicycling backwards I did 25 backwards figure 8’s. So I’ve been making good progress. Besides this, I’ve been working on juggling while idling one-footed, which I can usually do for 15 - 20 seconds before having to dismount. Here I am juggling while idling one-footed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrjhfEevCyI
Update: Too many things were going wrong with my 24" Club unicycle which I’ve had for 3 years. It was my first unicycle. Needed new saddle, bolts popping out, crank threads wearing out, so got a new 24, the Nimbus II. I was riding it today and I think it will take some getting used to. Compared to my old 24, it feels so solid and stable, though it feels a little awkward since I’m not used to the cranks or the tire yet.
I could juggle backwards on it, and juggle while idling but I screwed up a lot compared to how I performed on the old unicycle. I think within a week I should be 99% used to the new setup.
Thanks! I think you’ll be doing this some day too. So far, I’m having difficulty transferring all my skills to the new 24". It often feels weird. I can juggle backwards alright, but not in figure 8’s like I could with my old 24". I can do backwards figure 8’s without juggling pretty easily though on the new one. This will take some getting used to.
After struggling for a few days, I finally did my first backwards figure 8 while juggling today with the new Nimbus II 24" unicycle. The slightly more knobby tire will take a little more time to get used to, even though it’s the same size as the old one(Club 24") and the cranks are only a tiny bit shorter(125 mm instead of 127 mm). Actually, it’s not just the crank length, they’re bulkier ISIS cranks and seem a little less responsive than the old ones.
My juggling while idling technique on the other hand is about 90% as good as it was on the old one, and my juggling while idling one-footed is quickly catching up to where it was before.
I had to read it twice to make sure I read it correctly. That is truly amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it. I can juggle clubs while riding forward, and I have a friend locally that can pass clubs while riding, but nothing on the scale of what you’re doing. Way to go, man!!!