wheel walking?

[habbywall]

i just learned how to unicycle tonight it is so awsome
could someone please help teach me how to wheel walk?
thanks

[peter.bier]

Wheel walking is a significantly harder skill than simply riding.

I don’t want to discourage you from learning it but I suggest you work on some easier skills first. They will help build your one wheeled balancing ability, making the eventual progression of learning to wheel walk easier.

To give you some idea, wheel walking is a level 5 skill. Many of the skills on level 1 through 4 will help you in learning to wheel walk. See: http://www.unicycling.org/unicycling/skills/skills.html for more info.

Some things you can work on right now that will help with wheel walking are the following
-practice riding with out waving your arms around (try holding them behind your back as this is a little safer than folding them)
-practice riding as slowly as possible. Wheel walking is a slow trick and you need to teach your body to balance at slow speeds.
-try holding on to a post and placing one foot on the wheel while the other is still sitting on the pedal. Don’t let go, just get the feel of the balance points.

It is a good idea to work on learning to idle, then one footed idling and then riding one footed as these skills help with the transition into wheel walking

[leo]

Originally posted by peter.bier
[B]I don’t want to discourage you from learning it but I suggest you work on some easier skills first.

and

To give you some idea, wheel walking is a level 5 skill. Many of the skills on level 1 through 4 will help you in learning to wheel walk.[/B]

Reminds me to that little boy of about 7 years in Kenya. He saw a German tourist riding the unicycle, and wanted to ride as well. But his legs were much too small to even reach the pedals. But on a miserable surface with many branches and stones he managed to learn the wheel walk! After that the German tourist did’nt dare to take his unicycle from him, and left it there.

So; screw the levels if they are used to limit or discourage you. That was not where they were ment for. Go ahead, just start practising! Yes, it may be hard, but your motivation is the main factor for success.

[podzol]

Kenyan

Very cool story.
Blake

[sevenasterisks]

congratulations on learning to ride! Unicycling is really really fun (as I am sure you already know). While wheel walking is a really cool skill, it is by no means easy. I would recomend you ride more before trying it, as you will not only be better at riding, but also better at falling, which is important because it is much easier to hurt yourself wheel walking because your feet tend to get caught on the wheel.

It seems some of the best things to work on at the beggining are freemounting consistently, riding as far as you can, and making sharp, controlled turns. Some people think hopping is one of the first things you should learn, but I found hopping very difficult (it took me 4 years untill I learned it)

keep practicing and you could probably learn wheel walking within a few months. Have fun:)

edit: listen to leo, and just go for it:D

[leo]

@leo

But his legs were much too small to even reach the pedals.

Took me nine years, but I found back the picture…

[pstrick]

Inspiring story and great picture! Great reason to resurrect this thread- thanks for sharing!

[kahunacohen]

Talk about thread revival!

[pierrox]

Really cool!

Could you find a picture of the little boy now? Who might be an adult, it’s true.

[unibokk]

If you look more carefully at the picture, you will notice that the boy is using a stick to prop himself up. Check the shadow on the ground…

Wheel walking is a difficult and dangerous trick for an inexperienced person to learn. I think Peter Bier makes some helpful suggestions.

[kahunacohen]

I agree. I had already ridden for many years and could ride one footed, idle, ride backward when I started learning and it still took a lot of persistence and time. Most of the time breaking down skills to easier skills is the way to go, but there are always outliers.

[unibokk]

When I was learning to wheel walk I slipped and fell backwards. I tried to break my fall by putting my foot on the ground but the revolving pedal caught the back of my foot throwing me back even further. I would have had a bad fall had I not been holding onto a railing but I still fell awkwardly.

I responded to this by tweaking my uni. I replaced the cranks and pedals with two chopped down aluminium cranks. I smoothed the chopped cranks with a file and some emery paper making sure that there were no sharp edges before putting them on the uni.

When my wheel walking skills improved I put the cranks and pedals back on.