Well, before you get lost in magic realism, try slowing down your wheel walk. Actually, you can wheel walk at any speed you like, but at the moment you return to the reality of the pedals, it helps to be approaching a standstill.
For me, that means going from riding to taking six steps on the tire, then back to riding. By that sixth step, I have slowed way down, and my left pedal is (hopefully) approaching the forward horizontal position. I step on it, quite forcefully if necessary, and bring the other pedal smacking into the sole of my right foot. Then I become an axolotl and ride off into the Pampas.
Thanks, song, for the wheel walking advice. I might try to glance down at my pedals to see if they’re in position after six foot-pushes. The idea of doing it without looking…is a bit freaky. I remember, in my dream, I put my feet down, I couldn’t see, and I was struggling to feel the pedals. I’ll keep you posted on my progress.
My unicycle dreams a rare, cool, and a tiny bit frustrating as what I’m doing in the dream is something I wish I could do (gliding, freewheeling, one foot riding), but is beyond my current abilities. They do, however, inspire me to learn!
After dreaming about wheel walking 50 feet, I was disappointed to return to reality based practice, yesterday, when I was lucky to ww 10 feet. I read somewhere, maybe on the forum, that the “think” method only works when there’s an adequate amount of related knowledge. For example, you’re an accomplished musician and have to learn a different instrument. You might make some progress thinking about playing the new instrument. I thought a lot about unicycling when I was a beginner, but that didn’t stop me from regressing from the end of one session to the beginning of the next. When I was not quite a beginner any more, on one day I would practice a mount 50 times, only landing it on the 50th try…then, on the next day, I would land the mount on the first try. This suggests, to me, that some learning occurred while thinking about unicycling. But, for that to happen, I needed enough knowledge about unicycling to construct an adequate model of whatever technique I was learning. And the only way I could get that knowledge was to accidentally, randomly do the right thing by landing the mount on the 50th try. There are some beginners on the forum who have been politely accused of over thinking unicycling. I think the implication is that, for beginners, there are too many “unknown unknowns” to expect that over-thinking unicycling is going to help. You just have to experience it. As a beginner, when I randomly did something right, allowing me to ride a bit farther, I would think about how it “felt” when I had a good run. It was hard for me to “know” what I did right. I made assumptions, but many of my assumptions were later proved wrong. So, long story short, to answer my own question, whether or not dreaming about unicycling helps in learning, I suppose it depends. Maybe for emerging techniques, dreaming helps. If I dreamed about gliding, however, which is something I’m not even close to being able to do, I’m not sure that dreaming about it would help me learn any faster. Before ever trying it, I dreamed that I put my feet back on the pedals while wheel walking. Yesterday, I attempted putting my feet back in real life, and I fell on my ass. I suppose that not knowing much about wheel walking means that thinking about it, dreaming about it, may not improve my technique. Nevertheless, dreams can be motivating.
I come back with the Lucid Dreaming subject cause it’s used by some sportsmen to enhance their trainings and their results.
See this article. From the German Psychologist Paul Tholey.
I resume his thesis there: Thesis 1: Sensory-motor skills which have already been mastered in their rough outlines can be refined by using lucid dreaming.
Thesis 2: New sensory-motor skills can be learned using lucid dreaming.
Thesis 3: Sensory-motor actions can be perfected by test runs carried out in a lucid dream state.
Thesis 4: The flexibility of an athlete’s reactions can be substantially improved by varying body movements in lucid dreams.
Thesis 5: Lucid dreaming can also be used for practicing mental movements which make sensory-motor learning easier.
Thesis 6: Lucid dreaming can be used for improving the organization of the phe-nomenal field with respect to the execution of sports movements.
Thesis 7: By changing the personality structure, lucid dreaming can lead to im-proved performance and a higher level of creativity in sports.
I remind that “Lucid Dreaming” means: dreaming while knowing that your are dreaming.
As I said, when the first pedal you’re going to step on arrives at the right position, you’ve got to be going really, really slowly- so slowly that if you stayed at that speed for more than a second or two, you would lose your balance.
This is what worked for me when I first learned to return to the pedals, and it is what works for me now, though it could change- it already has slightly. At first, if that front pedal wasn’t at a point just above 3 o’clock, all was lost. Now, if it’s anywhere between 1 o’clock and 5 o’clock, I can usually get it, though I have to adapt slightly. If the pedal is close to 5 o’clock, I have to just barely touch it and shift my weight backwards to catch the other pedal, but if it’s at around 2 or 3 o’clock, I sometimes have to give it a good stomp. The other pedal then joins my other foot with an audible smack, and the wheel is then back under me, restoring my balance. Reaching for that first pedal was never too much of an issue, it was reaching for the second one that really felt like a leap of faith until I had done it a few times.
If I take a longer walk than the standard 6 steps, I have to plan my return to the pedals several steps in advance. I have to know where the pedals are, and slow my walk down so that I’ll be grinding to a halt just as they come into position.
I have never had a dream about unicycling -lucid or otherwise- that I can recall, but it definitely does help to think about some of this stuff, visualize it, explain it to others and so on.
I don’t think it needs to be quite that sketchy, but you are accurately describing the general situation on returning to pedals.
If you keep working at it, it will continue to get easier and will matter less and less where the pedals are.
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If I take a longer walk than the standard 6 steps, I have to plan my return to the pedals several steps in advance. I have to know where the pedals are, and slow my walk down so that I’ll be grinding to a halt just as they come into position.
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Back when I did tons of Freestyle riding, mostly in gyms (which have a nice, predictable riding surface), I got to where I didn’t even need to look down; I could feel where the pedals were. While I never really perfected that technique, it was always great when it worked. Mostly I would just do a little glance down. Once you see where the pedal is, you can calculate (with practice) the movements to get your feet onto them. Kind of like in juggling; if you can see where the ball peaks, your brain can fill in the rest of the arc and tell your hand where to meet it, even if you’ve closed your eyes.
Unicycling dreams:
I’ve definitely had some. I remember some where I did stuff that I’d never seen done in reality, but were tricks or techniques that should be learnable. Like going from the seat to a sideways wheel walk, to walking the wheel behind the seat (seat in front) to sideways walking on the other side of the uni, and back to the seat for a complete 360. I’m sure there are a bunch of people out there who can do that now if they want to practice it.
In recent years, unicycle-related dreams seem to have been more about arriving at Unicon and not being ready to compete, not having trained, showing up last-minute with no time to put the unicycles toghether, losing track of all my stuff, etc. More typical of dreams in which people worry. But now that I’m less competitive at the conventions, those have faded as well. Less pressure and more fun!
Thank you, johnfoss and song for further explaining wheel walking. I will practice slowing to a virtual halt…before attempting to put my feet on the pedals. Just like beginner riders, my tendency is to speed up throughout the course of the wheel walk. The frustrating thing about the transition back to the pedals is that failed attempts are going to land me on my ass. Reminds me of the sketchy falls I had as a beginner. This is not true of most failed attempts at other techniques, where a UPD lands me on my feet.
I am pretty good at a variety of jump mounts, but all of them are landed with the seat in front (or behind), in my hand(s), rather than under my bottom. If a jump mount fails, seat out, I land on my feet. If a seat-in mount fails, I land on my ass. I have a similar feeling about the transition back to the feet during the wheel walk. Sketchy as hell…
I have a pair of tail bone protection shorts. I will put them on next time I practice wheel walking.
Hmm, well, I still have never really had a bad fall from wheel walking in dry weather, though I’m sure John Foss is right that I would if I tried to wheel walk backwards. I don’t have any scars from wheel walking, but I do have a little one from jump mounting without shin guards! I also don’t have any of the jump mount-related skills that you have.
But yeah, learn to bring your wheel walk to a standstill when the cranks are approaching where you want them, and you should then find reaching for the pedals a lot less intimidating. You are right to compare this process to learning to ride all over again, but it takes a lot longer, or at least it did for me. It is definitely worth it, though.
Dreamt last night I had a uni with a wheel about 30“ in diameter an about 8“ wide, like a large car tire. Tried to ride it on a dam with a grass track. Pedaling was very hard and there was no way to pick up speed to keep rolling.
But when I stopped, I didn‘t fall down. The wheel was wide enough to stay on top without waving my arms.
It would be interesting to know how such a wheel behaves in reality.
Here is what the builder wrote: “Its really not too bad. Getting started is the hard part lol. Steering isn’t too bad on a flat surface, but the road is slightly slanted on the left side. The wide surface area makes the wheel want to follow that contour of the ground with raises the chance of tipping. It takes a lot of concentration to ride haha.”
Unicycling dreams seem to be getting common for me. Last night I dreamed I saw three people riding ringlike impossible wheels, advertising for a circus. (See my sketch below: the outside rim runs along the inside rim like a large ball bearing, the wide wheel is attached to the outside rim only.) They each had one foot placed on the platform and did wheel walking with the other to propel themselves through a crowd.
Actually, this concept of a mix between impossible and ultimate seems plausible for me. If the platform were large enough to place both feet to the right and left, we would have an impossible, adding a handle would make jumping feasible. Placing one foot in the middle one could ride wheel walking like the circus gang I dreamed of.
My question: does this type of uni exist? If not: would it work? If yes: can anyone build me one, pleeeeeeeaaaaase?
I’ve had dreams where I am riding my BC wheel perpetually in my basement where I have a pole I use to keep propelling me. I think I dreamed this because I would sometimes ride a razor scooter around in my basement (very smooth on a concrete floor) and do this movement where I can keep moving without touching the ground. I always thought it would be fun to ride the BC wheel continuously without stopping but you need an electrical one to do that. I have had dreams where I’m continually propelling myself on the BC wheel by swinging around the pole in my basement to rocket me forward.
I had a bad head impact injury in 1994 and I still have dreams about it once in awhile. I always wake up from those dreams with a big jerk of my body. I hit a metal cross bar that was running between a big sign. I was wearing a baseball cap at the time and didn’t see the bar. I broke my nose and fell backwards fracturing my skull. Had swelling of the brain and almost died. It still haunts me in my dreams. I always wear a helmet now EVERY time I ride.
People always wear their safety gear after an accident happens. Or they don’t like skateboarders from what I see on youtube Failarmy vidz. Unicyclists are much more safety aware in general even though IMO it is easier to control a uni than a skateboard. Coming 2 weeks I won’t be riding uni and expected I would start dreaming about riding uni after next week, but I already dreamed I was riding last night. All the things I can do with a uni in my dreams. There I am a real pro.
