Day 1 
Finally !!!
Today was a good day for me. I got up at 6 AM, did my regular routine of 50 push-ups and 600 crunches/situps, then jogged slowly to the outdoor pool which opened for the season today (it’s been more or less warm for a couple of weeks, but on our National Day 17 May it was snowing in the morning…).
Currently the weather is just lovely, so it was a warm morning and the water didn’t even feel cold when I jumped in, partly because I was already breaking a little sweat, and partly because it was simply warm weather (the water itself is probably the same temperature as always…).
Anyway, I ran about 2,5km to get there, then I swam 2500 meters in 67 minutes, and then I walked back the 2,5km to my house. I got back about a quarter to nine, two hours after I left (the morning swimming at the pool is from 7 AM until 830 AM). Then I was rather exhausted so I took it slowly getting a shower and so on. And then I had the first “meal” of the day, drinking half a liter of the “diet juice” that I’ve explained earlier. Exercising in the morning wiht just drinking lots of water is hopefully helping me to burn lots of fat.
Then I went to work around 11 (lazy day, I know - but I expect to get there sooner as the swimming becomes more of a routine). And since I didn’t get the famous UCD package on Friday, I called Tollpost Globe again to double check that they got my internet order for the delivery this afternoon. And of course they didn’t get it, but they had a truck going to where I live so they could deliver - but only in the afternoon. So it was a short day at work, I got back at 330 PM to pick up the package.
Of course I immediately set about to open it, but then I remembered that I had another errand that I had to do first. I might tell you about that later 
I got back around 530 PM and then started to unpack and assemble my new coker (the Nimbus Nightrider in case you didn’t already read my ramblings about it). I filmed the entire sequence and I have to say that my first thought when I put the seatpost into the frame was “that is HUGE, how will I manage to get on that…” and I was thinking that perhaps I had made a mistake after all.
But that doesn’t show on the film
Then I was ready to get on for the first time around 730, or so I thought. It quickly turned out that the seatpost was too long and had to be cut. So I opened my new Qu-Ax toolkit and found the ingenious toolpost cutter tool. After some work I had a shorter seatpost and then it turned out that there was some small pieces from the cut, or something like that, which made it almost impossible to get the seatpost back into the frame. I finally succeeded and made a first few attempts to get on the uni.
What I did was lean against the wall, climb onto the lowest pedal (crank at 6 o’clock) with my right foot, and then swing my left foot over the seat to sit down.
Already at that point the bonus of having a coker was clear - with my height I was able to reach the ceiling of the basement room I had chosen for my practice (ironically this is where the bikes are stored, so I had to move them out of the way before I started) - and not only, but also some pipes going conveniently across just where I was starting my practice, so I had something nice to grab hold of.
Just after doing this first attempt I remembered that I wanted to put some bubblewrap around the nice purple handlebar to protect it. So I managed to scratch it up on my very first try…
But then I set about to fix that. Using the packaging bubble wrap from the other items in the package, and liberal amounts of packing tape, I securely fastened nice “pillows” around the front and back handlebar.
My original plan was to simply take off the handlebar while I was practicing, but it turned out to be integrated with the seat/seatpost attachment. Probably I could have bought a similar piece without an attached handlebar. But I didn’t.
And as it turned out, the handlebar made it much easier to learn, so I would actually recommend it strongly.
With the handlebar properly wrapped, and also myself, I tried again to get on and found that I had to cut down the seatpost even more. So I realised that unicycling is a lot about patience, not only when you are trying to ride, but even before you get that far…
With the second adjustment of the seat I felt much better about it. Still getting “over the top” is of course very high on a coker. In the beginning I could only try once or twice on each leg (I turned around to alternate) because I got so tired in the other leg from trying to jump up. I managed almost sometimes. Gradually I was getting better, and the big breakthrough came when I realised that it was not about jumping, but about standing and pushing down on the pedal. Of course this is a basic principle that I have already read about many times, but I didn’t remember that when I was down there trying.
In between the mounting tries, I climbed up a couple of times to feel the balance. I could use my arms and upper body strength to keep from UPDs while holding on to the pipes and leaning against the wall, so I was able to get a little feel of it. But I decided it was pretty hopeless to climb up that way, and I couldn’t even do it every time, so I decided I simply had to learn how to mount in order to be able to get on the bloody thing so I could actually start learning how to balance and ride…
So I did “thousands” of mounting tries, and I got steadily better, until I actially got to the top, but lost my balance immediately. Then I was able to wobble about for 1/2 a second before UPDing so I was making progress. Finally I was even brave enough to give full throttle and go over the top to let the uni crash down between my legs. Actually it didn’t even do that many times, since I held it with my hand. Not that it mattered, since it was nicely padded in all the right places.
And so was I
I was wearing high basketball shoes with flexible soles and covering the ancles, then the sixsixone leg armour up to the knees, a suspensorium (I quickly learned that this was necessary, and remembered the laments of other males in the How to learn Uniycling thread - luckily I used to do karate so I had one lying around) under my shorts, then rough leather work gloves that I got cheaply from a hardware store to cover my fingertips, inside wrist protectors, with a long padding covering my underarm up to the elbow pads. And of course a bike helmet.
I’d say that the most useful safety equipment I used today was not stuff I bought especially for the unicycle, but stuff I already had - the helmet allowed me to rest my head against the ceiling posts and pipes, the underarm padding was crucial as I could lean my entire underarm against the wall rather than just the hand, and the leather gloves protected my fingers.I realised when looking at the wrist protectors that they didn’t in any way protect the fingers, and I remembered augustdreamt telling that the fingertips of her gloves were worn away. Hence the tough work gloves. And, of course, the suspensorium…
Now, this is not to say that it was not important with the new gear. Especially the wrist protectors were very useful in addition to the gloves, as I could lean on the metal bar of the wrist protectors to take a lot of the weight. So my fingers were not touching the wall that hard, more for adjustments, since I leaned my underarm and wrist for most of the weight.
Also, being all padded up I was not afraid to fall down or hit something, so I could just give it all I had and get up there. I’d certainly say that this is the most important lesson to take away from today’s exercise.
So I was working on the mount. I decided that I would not call it quits until I succeeded. I also realised that trying to get up on the coker and stay there while just supporting myself on the wall would be more than I had managed to do when already up on the coker, as I had tried a couple of times to leave the safety of the pipes and go the 2 meters over to the beam by just leaning on the wall, and immediately UPDing. So I added 2+2 and decided it was time to try mounting next to the beam or pipes, so I could grab hold of them when I got up. Of course this was more difficult at first, since I was losing my focus on getting balanced before trying to grab.
But it was also good, since I started looking up and forward instead of down at the pedals and my feet.
And then I succeeded First when mounting with my left foot on the pedal and jumping with my right foot onto the other pedal - this was easiest because I jumped with the foot closest to the wall (don’t know why but it just seemed obvious, perhaps I was leaning in a little), and thus I was facing the pipes and had something easy to hold on to. I could do this several times and almost got to the point where I could say I had that one clinched.
The other way, jumping with my left foot with my right on the pedal was harder - I tried many more times this way but finally I managed it - just once - and leaned on the beam (there was nothing to hold on to, but I could lean on it, supporting myself with the hand on something in front rather than to the side, and thus stopping my self from falling forwards (I would avoid falling backwards by leaning forwards enough to “fall” that way).
The last thing I said before doing it was “this is NOT that difficult”, and I was very happy getting up there to stay, and then I said to the camera that I felt like Neo and I quoted him by saying “There is no spoon”, immediately before UPDing again
That is also when I discovered that this magic moment had not been caught on tape (memory stick, that is), since the battery had run out. So I headed up to my apartment to get the other battery, and then happily started recording again. I didn’t bother to ration the film, since I had a new big memstick and enough battery to last the rest of the training (or so I thought).
So the camera caught a lot of mounting tries, but not the more exciting things that happened thereafter, as the second battery also died on me.
What happened was that I got tired of the mounting attempts going right to the beam, and instead went up to the left and the pipes, since I was able to do that fairly easy and regularly. From there, once I was up, I was able to move around a little, holding on to the pipes and then holding on to the wall and ceiling to go from the pipes to the post - which I had not been able to do previously.
What I noticed was that the mounting tries - trying to find the point of balance from jumping up (you could call it a standing or stationary or basic mount, assisted by a wall) - helped my sense of balance so it was easier to sit and feel the balance after that.
I remembered the advice from blot to BurnerDave about sitting down on the seat, so I tried doing that instead of having the weight on my legs. I also tried just sitting still, keeping my back straight, just like you would do for balance training or yoga or something like that. I actually had some practice on that earlier, since my friend bought a Nintendo Wii Fitness board, where a lot of the action is about balance, and you always have to start by standing completely still and trying to get your center of mass exactly in the center, not forwards/backwards or right/left.
All of this was just to get myself used to the concept of sitting up on the coker. I didn’t feel the height was a problem after getting up on it - it was only a practical issue of the actual getting up…
I remembered also the advice that you just need time to get your muscles used to the different sensations of balance and control that you need on a uni. And then I tried moving around a little more. I tried moving past the beam, into the wide open part of the basement that I had never thought I would venture already on the first evening. The ceiling was the same height, but there were no more beams or pipes… The room was not that big, the “wide open spaces” were perhaps 3-4 meters to the far wall.
And on the second or third try I actually managed to reach that far wall (!) by supporting myself on the wall (to my left) and the ceiling. I also tried, briefly, in between, to support myself only on the ceiling, figuring that if I could support myself less and less, I would suddenly be freeriding. Also, using the ceiling has the big advantage over the wall that you are actually sitting straight, not leaning over.
First time I tried just the ceiling I fell forward almost immediately. But the next time I was more careful and had more control, and I was able to get back to the wall instead of stretching my limits too far. But I got to the far wall a couple of times, and there was a window sill and some more pipes (this was by the door outside, where I had brought in my coker earlier, after assembling it), that helped me turn around and head back. On the second or third try I managed to get all the way there and back, and boy was I proud
Even if I had had the camera rolling then, it wouldn’t have recorded that, since I had aimed it at the space between the pipes and the beam, where I thought the main action would be (and it was, but the real excitement was of course venturing outside that aread of safety).
After this I kept doing balance training in the “safe zone” and I especially noticed that by holding on to the pipes I was able to practice idling and rolling back and forth even longer than that, keeping my head in the same place but leaning my upper body far back or far forward in order to keep my hips and the seat above the wheel. In other words, learning how to maintain balance even if the wheel is running a little ahead or behind.
Here I was remembering the advice that you are not supposed to get above the wheel, you are supposed to get the wheel under you, in order to keep your balance. Of course, that requires being able to move the wheel to where you want it…
But I really felt how my control over the wheel improved, and I felt like I was more in control and “manhandling” the uni more than it bossed me around.
Again, wearing full “body armour” made me feel very safe and thus able to “jump into things” without holding back.
OK; I had to split my post in two parts.
To be continued; See the conclusions in the next part…
