I was wondering if anyone could help me out with some effective tricks and ideas for riding the unicycle on stage.
My school has a talent night, and I have previously been pressured knowing what to do. My preferred riding style is MUni, but I have plenty of time to learn useful tricks to show off.
I was hoping to not have too much circus style moves (I can juggle and things but would prefer not to), and wondered if anyone could give me a lead for an act the ignorant non-riders would appreciate. In my experience non-riders have absolutely no idea of difficulty, and are sometimes hard to entertain, even though they praise you for merely riding straight.
Please help anyone, I’m also prepared to make steps and balance lines, though would value an opinion.
Some simple but effects tricks that I can get off the top of my head are…
-Ride forward
-Ride backward
-Ride with one foot
-Ride with the seat out
-Ride with the seat out behind
-Kickup mount
-Hop
-Wheel walk
-Hop on the wheel
-One foot idle
-180 unispin
-360 unispin
-180
-No footer
Hey Unisykolist, Good list, but Peter B. What’s your skill level?
I would think that if you just performed all of the tricks on UNISYKOLIST’s “Most Recent video” That might do it. Otherwise just fall back on his list. Oh and don’t do the shoelace thing at 1:22 by Brandon.
Good Luck!
Effective tricks are the ones you can do solidly, and have nothing to do with how hard they are. Two classic examples are Kick-up mount and jumping rope. Also riding over a ramp, or down some steps. People like that. Then if you can hop back up, more applause.
But just doing tricks is not the way to guarantee success. Be interesting and funny. If you can do something funny, you’ll win even if your unicycling skills are minimal. And remember. Even minimal unicycling skills are beyond what 99.9% of your audience can probably do, so give them some credit.
I performed in a talent show last year and what I gathered from it (and reading the advice of others) is the more simpler tricks seem to be noticed more. If you do things like going backward, hopping (maybe over someone), one-footers, and maybe a wheel walk if you can do it. And like John said, be interesting and funny.
One thing I did notice, but don’t necessarily recommend, is that I did fall once during that show while doing a relatively simple trick. It seemed to make the audience more concerned and appreciated it more when I did things right.
He was famous for telling you how good it felt smoking a cigar, even if it wasn’t lit, and how his wife had more talent. We listened to this routine for decades. It never made any sense, but that wasn’t important.
Go out there and show em some stuff and talk about it. It is always better to talk about it so-so, than to quietly do it well. If you wish to succeed with mere excellence, you must be an athlete. Win a sport contest, that thing. Jugglers and uni riders need to talk to people, and take them on a little conversation. The regular folk don’t have a clear knowledge of how or why you are doing what you are doing. Don’t bore them while you explain it. Make up some funny lies. A truth that is unentertaining, is a waste of time. Replace it with something better, and you will be much loved.
They don’t really want a tutorial on how to ride, rather, just to be entertained by what it means to you. Don’t explain it to them to truly. Let your mind wander and make stuff up. Prat falls take a lot of talent to pull off well, and are often much funnier than real tricks.
Focus on your own mood. You are likely newish at this. Believe it or not, you could ride around the stage like a dandy blowing a whistle for a short while, and as long as the audience felt you were having fun, and had a real smile on your face, that’s entertainment. There really aren’t any rules, except
1 . Never apologize to your audience. I don’t care what you think you did wrong, never do that. It is the ultimate sin in live show biz . Just never do that, or even contemplate thinking about it. Chin up, smile, and life is gravy.
Tricks you can land almost all the time. 360s look really cool to the untrained eye. 180s are even cool if you can ride smooth backwards outta it. Just nail what you are consistant at at make it look flowy. You will do just fine!
Yeah since you have a muni background try to use your suroundings. I find that usually looks better than flat. I have done many shows and when I start to use the staircase and jump off the stage that oddly gets more attention than my street tricks or even ballooning while riding…Now doin drops on a giraffe gets some attention…and a bent frame
Yes sir… I used to do alot of tricks on them in shows like 360 unispins etc…Though once the frame bent it got a lil harder and im too cheap to replace it hahah! Hopping SIF on a giraffe is kinda hard when your balance is thrown off…
If you have to kill some time and you dont think you can do tricks long enough, I dont see why not add the jugglin in =p
Hey guys, thanks to all of you who have already posted on this thread, I’m going to do a school talent show and all this information is very helpful.
I’m going to come up with a routine to do and if you have any Tips or recomendations that would be very cool:)
These are the tricks I plan on putting together for my routine:
ride forward
ride backwards
idle/ride one footed (Ive heard of a little dance thing you can do while idling by kicking out your foot that you’re not using but I don’t know how to do it)
seat in front
hop (maybe do a little trials If I get some obstacles)
suicide mount
leg around seat mount
wheel walk a tiny bit ( I plan on falling )
hop on wheel (90 unispin)
180 unispin
180 and 270 hoptwist
jump rope
go off a ramp
juggle ( I plan on throwing the balls out to the audience after I’ve finished)
jump over one or two people
jump off the stage
I’ll post how I plan to put it together when I plan it out.
I have 4 minutes and a pretty big stage with enough room, I can also play music but I haven’t thought about that yet
also, the prizes are:
1st - $100 (US)
2nd - $75
3rd - $50
I second that. Three high school kids I’ve trained won 1st place out of 22 other acts at the higt school talent show. Start learning to static hop without the rope, then add the rope. Before long you will b doing it well and enjoying it too. Good luck!
What about a seat drop? The trick where you drop your seat, catch it with your foot, and then kick it back up. I think those look good and people who don’t unicycle would think they were harder than they really are.
Thanks everyone for the input, I’m glad other people are benefiting too. It is a really interesting topic, which we could probably get a lot more recognition for our sport through.
Two questions,
How do still stand long enough to do the seat drop?
How can you make a unicycle act more audience inclusive? I thought, make them hold the skipping rope and be hopped over. What else can you think of that would add to the performance?
The ‘assisted suicide mount’ is definitely a fun one (have someone drop the unicycle for you so you can suicide mount). If not many people have seen you mount before, you could start with something like “So, a lot of you are probably wondering how you even get on this thing”. Explain the act to them. You could really talk it up, and people will even get really worried - this one’s definitely my personal favorite.
You have to be sure they drop it right though (as in not forwards or it gets pretty difficult to mount).
Also, let the audience count out loud and give them a chance to cheer - they love doing that, even if you don’t think your doing that well.
