Ive noticed that for some reason non unicyclists seem thrilled when someone can unicycle and juggle at the same time. Ive never found this very impressive at all compared to other things done on unicycles, I was just wondering why non unicyclists are so impressed by it.
I think they are impressed because they might have tried juggling and failed due to lack of persistence, and they probably have never tried unicycling, and both activities are percieved to be hard (to the non juggler/unicyclist). When you put them both together they think that it is a combination of two activities which each seem to require your whole attention, so making it more impressive. What they don’t realise is that you can put your unicycle on auto-pilot once you have a bit of experience, and juggling is similar. I am able to unicycle and juggle, but I’ve never tried idling and juggling. The best I’ve done is about 60 or 70 meters riding forwards and juggling three clubs. I just did it to see if I could do it, and I could.
Re: unicycling and juggling at the same time
People like to be entertained. Watching someone juggle and unicycle is entertaining. Non unicyclists/jugglers don’t know or care how difficult something is if it looks good. They care if they are entertained.
As long as you’re not the target, monkeys hurling feces can be quite entertaining, at least for a while. I have yet to meet a single person who has witnessed this that didn’t relate the story with a pleased chuckle. And while I bet that most monkeys don’t think of feces flinging as a difficult skill, I will bet that they don’t disparage it either. In fact, a brother or sister monkey’s well tossed turd is probably a joy to them anytime.
Therein lies the difference between entertaining and technical skill, though they may often cross paths, and mutual support amid minor distinctions, though they too often do not.
Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ
not only did that make a #%@$-load of sense, it will also continue to give me the giggles for at least the rest of the weekend
btw brennan, if u’ve ever tried this, u’ll know that it is actually rather challenging
this is mainly because u have to learn to operate your extremities in two seperate acts
your legs have to keep the idle going while your arms have to keep the juggle going
these happen at different speeds and u need to be able ‘seperate’ the bits in your brain sending out the signals to your muscles
drummers should be good at this
do u juggle?
as a side note
non-uniers also find skipping on a uni to be very impressive
your thoughts?
When a non-unicyclist sees someone on a unicycle, they think thats pretty impressive, and it looks impossible to them. Seeing someone doing trials or MUni doesn’t seem much more impossible to them, after all, a lot of people wsho can ride a bike would be capable of doing those things on it.
But juggling is another thing which can seem impossible. Some people are genuinely amazed and impressed by me just juggling 3 balls. Combine two seemingly impossible things and they think the sun shines out of your bottom. Incidentally, eating ice cream on top of a giraffe also impresses them, whcih is good because it combines two fo my favourite things!
I have juggled well for years. So, I was never that impressed with juggling on a unicycle (typically done while idling), because I figured, if I could ride a unicycle then I could do that too. I was so wrong! How I was wrong …
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Once having learned to ride a uni, I soon discovered that being able to idle is much harder than riding.
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Once having learned to idle well, I discovered that 1=idling(well) + 1=juggling(very well) doesn’t add up to 2 difficulty wise; it adds up to something like 5 or 10. I would guess that juggling while idling on a unicycle is comparably difficult to jumping up 2foot or so on a uni. Personally, I found mounting on and riding a 6" skinny substantially easier to learn than juggling while idling, and I was already a very competent juggler when I started.
However, as for what is interesting to do on a uni (from the rider’s point of view) …
I got into uni to learn to juggle on the uni. I then found that (for me) uni juggling is not all that interesting to do; it’s much more interesting to Muni or do trials or do freestyle than it is to juggle on the uni.
Juggling unicyclist
As someone who has been juggling while riding the [20’ or 24"]unicycle about 4 miles a day for the past 10 years, I can say that even people who have seen me thousands of times say I never fail to put a smile on their face. Nevertheless, I find it much more challenging to juggle while idling, as much of this discussion seems to be about.
Of course, riding my new 29" Big Apple I just got from Unicycle.com, I always wear wrist guards, which has put a crimp in the juggling. I can’t think of a device which would protect against wrist-breaking, which would also allow juggling, can you?