Swinging your arms

Keep praticing ...

--
DrBallard
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you will swing your arms when you are learning...especially trying to
negociate turns and corners.

As you become more experienced, you will swing less and less.

When you are comfortable with riding, focus on using your arms less and
less. A good technique to practice is to put both hands on the front of
your seat, or holding your hands behind your back.

This causes you to have to steer with your shoulders instead of your
arms (and moreso having your core, the hips, do the steering)

This is a good technique because once you start off roading and begin to
hold your seat with one hand...you have one less arm for flapping.

If you ever notice yourself 'just riding' concentrate on not using your
arms...it does not take too much practice to get it in your routine.

--
Sofa - you - pee - dee

'Mommy!!! :eek: He's on a..........thing!!!!!........Wheel!!!!!!!!!!'
- Some kid

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sofa is absolutely right about clasping your hands behind your back;
this helped me a lot in my early stages. it was really frustrating at
first, but after i learned to ride w/out my arms it was great. Once you
unclasp your hands you feel like you have SO much control, its amazing.
Im trying to think of an analogy...in basketball people practice
dribbling with big winter gloves on so that when they take them off,
dribbling is really easy...anyways try it, tell me how it works.

-grant

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tennisgh22 - Learning to muni

Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
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Who knows where the link is to the story about the guy who unicycled
across the U.S. with handlebar things and a side-to-side sling seat
between them who steered with his head. It was good reading!

--
elmer - uniimpaired

"At 40 life begins...to show."
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elmer said:

*Who knows where the link is to the story about the guy who unicycled
across the U.S. with handlebar things and a side-to-side sling seat
between them who steered with his head. It was good reading! *

I'm guessing you're looking for this:
http://www.unicycling.org/unicycling/tales/kcash.html

--
duaner - -

duaner.
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Yup, that's the one! Thanks, Duaner. Read it, Vinmacd if you haven't
already. When I got to the part about him steering with his head, I was
really laughing. The dude was tough, for sure!

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elmer - uniimpaired

"At 40 life begins...to show."
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Once your know you're not swinging your arms around much, you can (for
instance) hold a bottle in your hand and take a drink as you ride
forwards. You may UPD the first time you do it, but it doesn't take long
before you can drink on the move.

Throughtout the winter I arrived at juggling club, took off my jacket
and pullover (to reveal the T-shirt underneath) and then rode around the
hall. I recently got into the habit of mounting the unicycle and then
taking off the jacket and pullover while riding around. It's the most
ambitious thing I do with my hands while riding (so far) and again it
takes a few goes before you get the hang of that.

When you can do those, you'll know you have really overcome the problem
of swinging arms.

--
gkmac - Shy Nervous Newbie
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I think the most complex thing I have done while riding was remove my
camel back, open it, remove the cd walkman, change cd's, replace the
walkman, replace the camel back and keep going.

What was the best part? Me not falling off the Coker with a CD in my
mouth!

I've also carried a 29" uni while riding the Coker...not one comment
from anyone...I figured I would have been bombarded that day.

The toughest had to be the 3km ride with a 12 pack of beer (bottles)
after an 85 km ride, then 5km to the beer store. It doesn't take your
elbows long to lock into place doing that!

--
Sofa - you - pee - dee

'Mommy!!! :eek: He's on a..........thing!!!!!........Wheel!!!!!!!!!!'
- Some kid

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I once reloaded the film in my camera *during* a unicycle race. I think
that's about as extreme as I've gotten. I think that race ended in a
(planned) tie between me, Dustin Kelm and Andy Cotter. It was a 9-mile
race in Iowa in '96.

None more of that. Now I'm all digital, with at least 512MB in the
camera!

I sometimes swing my arms on purpose. When riding up long, hills on my
MUni, I found a swinging rhythm that helps me go straighter, using less
leg energy to get me up the hill. One of my hands generally holds the
seat, while the other one swings forward and back to counteract the
"wobbling" action of my pedal strokes.

But that's on purpose. Good advice above on learning to ride without the
help of your arms. You could also practice juggling while riding, though
it helps a lot to get the riding down without the arm movements first...

--
johnfoss - Walkin' on the edge

John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com"
www.unicycling.com

"Hey, could I have some of that spinach? I need to get this pork rind
taste out of my mouth." -- Ryan Atkins to Kris Holm, on the way back
from Moab after sampling some of my pork rinds. They grossed out the
whole van!
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i find when im using my hands to do simple things, like eating a banana
im not concentrating on my riding and it becomes really smooth, the
hardest thing ive ever managed (once) removing my hoody and putting it
into my bag and replacing my bag, it usually just ends up with me on the
pavement with a hoody over my head and peole laughing tho...

--
tom_edmonds - Finally...less talking, more riding

"rest and elevation" we know its all we'll be told, so why do we still
go and wait in A&E all day?
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