So I found the Unicycling Society of America while surfing the interwebs. I was interested to see that they have a standardized set of skill levels. I was reading them and it seems that a lot of the skills they require to level up are based more on flatland unicycling than universal skills. which of these skills would translate to all forms of unicycling?
The International Unicycling Federation is working on a new set of skills which are now split in two main families: Freestyle and extreme.
The USA list looks like it was inspired by the old skill level progression.
You can find the most recent descripton at their Skill Levels page. There is good talk on why they are renewing the skills which is linked in the page.
I feel like I should start a new forum war by pointing out that the new skill levels are useless for us muni riders 
And Rod, are you in the Monotreal group on facebook?
What skills would be good for muni? That’s what I want to eventually get into.
- Riding
- Freemounting
- Riding a lot
Hey,I can live up to that standard:D
Still stands, hops, drops
Biggest ones IMO are rolling hops and 1 footing. Learning to rolling hop in any pedal position will make riding more fun, and 1 footing will help when you need to replace your feet on the pedals.
In the end though, there is no substiute for riding. You will learn more from trying lines and simply trying to ride stuff than practicing individual skills will ever teach you.
Cool to see the ‘Extreme’ levels now. Still pointless for the type of riding I do.
Yes I am.
By today’s definitions, they are based on Freestyle unicycling. But they date back to even before we called Freestyle Freestyle, and they are just based on doing the types of tricks people were doing in the 70s and 80s.
The IUF 10 levels were adopted by the USA, but those were based on the original 4 Levels published by the USA (before the IUF existed). In the transition from 4 to 10, the creators of that list intentionally made the skills indoor-friendly. The original levels included things like riding off a curb (L2) and riding one mile in under 8 minutes (L3).
The original 4 USA Skill Levels were created by Jan Layne in 1979. Starting in 1985, a large group of riders led mostly by Sem Abrahams developed the 10 levels of the IUF. Since then, the USA and IUF have used the same list, though the USA is more specific on the requirements to pass each level.
The intent of the levels is to provide riders with a progression of skills they can learn in a more or less logical order. Since they were developed, unicycling has come a long way and the “universe” of specialties has spread all over the place. A single progression of skills would be hard to make useful to all types of rider. So people are still working on good ways to develop progressions for the various specialties.
No they aren’t.
Well, I guess you can get away with Hand Wheel Walk and maybe Backward 1-Foot Wheel Walk, but many of the skills contribute to a well-rounded unicyclist and can enhance your skills for most other types of riding.
I’m a Level 7, but I play a Level 9 on TV.
True, all styles of riding help… I actually noticed an improvement in my muni riding after taking tango lessons… wasn’t expecting that…
Thanks for the historical context John!