Maybe because when uning the brain is solely forcused on that activity leaving no room for those dark thoughts that sometimes trouble us, or maynot, maybe it’s a chemical thing?
I certainly forget about alot of things while uning
I think it’s the combination of endorphins and all the chemical stuff that starts going on in your body when doing sports, and that while uni’ing (especially on hard terrain) you must concentrate hard on riding so there’s not much room for bad thoughts. Then of course it’s always good to get some fresh air.
edit: ok that was actually a sum-up of the above posts
i’m definately buying into that concept
there is a lovely expression in afrikaans that some of the dutch guys might know
‘Ledigheid is die duiwel se oorkussing’
i can’t think of the english equivalent immediately
it basically means that being idle makes u a comfortable place for the devil to dwell
and the same, i accept, goes for your mind
Hmmm… We have more or less the same proverbs but it can be misinterpreted as “only lazy people have time to get problems in their head”
other intensive activities : programming, teaching, brassbanding (?) , mountain biking… do not have the same effect on my brain, so I suspect there is something subtly different.
true
when someone asks me if i can teach them how to ride the unicycle i always say no
but i can show u how to teach yourself
och!, they say, u’re just playing wordgames now
no, i’ll respond, i’m not
in learning how to ride, u will reach a stage of incredible frustration and irritation because u think u should be able to ride and yet your body can’t
yet
at that time, the normal instinct is to turn around to a ‘teacher’ and say: “help me”
in unicycling (as in life really) this is impossible
there is nobody who can help u thru that part of the learning curve
and eventually u realise that u must’nt look outside yourself for help, u need to look inside yourself for help
and that, to me, is the very essence of unicycling
everything u do after that moment of realisation is just for fun
but that’s just the kind of stuff i think about while i’m sitting in a dark room, late at night, listening to the phillip glass version of the theme song from the smurfs
GILD wrote:
> norry wrote:
>
>>Maybe because when uning the brain is solely forcused on that
>>activity leaving no room for those dark thoughts that sometimes
>>trouble us
>
> i’m definately buying into that concept
> there is a lovely expression in afrikaans that some of the dutch guys
> might know
> ‘Ledigheid is die duiwel se oorkussing’
> i can’t think of the english equivalent immediately
> it basically means that being idle makes u a comfortable place for the
> devil to dwell
> and the same, i accept, goes for your mind
The devil makes work for idle hands.
Idle hands are the devils tools.
Cheers,
Roger
Nottingham One Day Juggling Convention
5th March 2005 - 10am-Late
I work in TV production where there’s massive tension, bullshit, and brutal hours. Most every night, even when it’s late, I jump on my uni and ride. I used to do the same with rock climbing (climbing gym at night). Both pursuits involve total involvement, where you break out of the trance of self-absorbtion and are simply present with yourself in a task. And that, in my mind, is what makes unicycling and many adventure sports so theraputic–you have to be present with yourself to do them. In short, the best medicine is being present with yourself and your own life, as opposed to enmeshed with your thoughts.
I’m not sure what uni-ing is doing to my brain, but at lunch the other day the site lead engineer trying nicely to get me to join in the conversation, pointed out that I hadn’t much to say lately. He asked why?
I responded, “Because nobody wants to talk about unicycles.”
He didn’t know what a uni-cycle was, and when he finally understood the term, he began talking about his desire to get a Vespa scooter, so we talked about that for a while.
Some day they will see the power of the uni, whoohhhhaaa haaa !
i think when one is set to a task like rail riding or gliding the mind has not room for bad thoughts, because if u change thought on something like that you can hurt/kill your self. it helps me when i feel like masacaring everyone around me…
Amen, Vivalargo. For me, juggling provides a very similar mental release. While a missed move doesn’t carry the same consequences as climbing or uni, it still requires a total focus on your physical self, and using only those parts of your brain that process spacial relationships and control physical motion.
I work in a very left-brain job, and the fatigue can build pretty quickly. I find that taking 5 minutes out a couple times a day to juggle really helps me clear out the fatigue and get my brain in a different and more relaxed place. It’s like shaking up your cerebral Etch-A-Sketch.
Coincidentally, I had lunch with a friend the other day who told me that her youngest daughter was diagnosed dyslexic. The Dr said to get her into something like gymnastics. Somehow the balancing helps create new paths in the young brain that combat the condition. Naturally I saw the one-wheel parallel and suggested unicycling. It could be helping your kids in school more than you realize.
Do we have any brain doctors in the house? I’d love to hear the professional angle.
Very well said, especially this part: “the best medicine is being present with yourself and your own life, as opposed to enmeshed with your thoughts”. I think you need to NOT make the mind exclusively mediate your relationship with yourself, your experience of yourself. And I think the great emphasis on education and the dry academic atmosphere that are impressed on us from early life until adulthood (and that continue - unabated despite in another form - in the occupational context) have taught us to mentally mediate that relationship (with ourselves) so that we have simply lost the innate ability to be present with ourselves, to experience ourselves as we are (and are becoming); and even to cease to become in order to be able to mentally experience what we already are! Instead - and after the model set and promoted by education - we learn to impose on ourselves, to mentally dictate what and how we should be. I think unicycling has no place in all of this. As such it constitutes a perfect escape from this artificial mentally-mediated form of self-relationship.
My uni is part of my daily commute to work. For me it’s all about being totally focused for at least 20 minutes each day, a form of active meditation :
