Freestyle Tips

Freestyle Written Tips

Riding Seat In Front

This is riding with your feet on the pedals as normal, but with the seat held out in front of you.

There are three parts to this skill. It's probably best to practice 2 first and then learn 1 and 3.

Taking the seat out from under you.
Stop briefly, stand up tall on the pedals and pull the seat out. I find it easiest to pull the seat out with one hand, then grab the side of the seat to hold on to with the other hand.

Riding along with seat in front.
Hold the side of the seat with your hand and ride along. To start with hold the seat so it is in front of you, but still touching your body. When you get better, you can hold it further away. You need to make sure you're not putting more pressure on one pedal and try to pedal very smoothly.

Putting the seat back under you.
Stand up tall on the pedals, quickly push the seat back under you and ride off before you fall over.
Anonymous

Try riding with no weight on the seat, all your weight is on the pedals. The seat is still between your legs but is just there for balance, you are not being supported by it. If you ride with your seat set reasonably high it may be beneficial to lower it for this exercise.

One of the things that makes seat in front difficult is that as the wheel rotates the amount of pressure each foot exerts needs to change to keep your balance. Riding an ultimate wheel is the same, only more so. You need to become accustomed to varying the force on each foot as the wheel turns.

Another good exercise is stomach on seat. This gives you a little practice in the feel of getting out and into seat in front without all the weight being on your legs.

To get into stomach on seat, reach down and grab the front of the seat with one of your hands and stand up on the pedals (so no weight is on the seat). Pull the seat out from under you and lean over. It may help to push the seat from behind with the other hand the same time you are pulling it forward. Getting out of it is pretty much the reverse.

Getting into seat in front is very similar, instead of leaning over though you hold the seat in front.

Now for the important bits.
When learning seat out in front hold the seat AGAINST your body. Also make sure you are holding the BACK of the seat. Note that when you pull out the seat from under you you'll be holding the front. The easiest way to grab the back is to use the other hand to grab the back of the seat. You can then let go of the front hand and use it for balance. (some people find it easier to hold onto the seat with both hands, use whatever works).

Really pull that seat into your body and lock your arm. To begin with try and make it a part of you. Holding it against your body gives you a lot more stability and the seat won't flail around from side to side as much. As you get used to riding like this your body will figure out for itself how to vary the pressure from each leg so that you can ride forwards without the wheel madly wobbling. At this point try moving the seat out from your body a bit. (Just a little bit). Gradually move it away as you improve. Eventually you should be able to ride holding the seat with one arm fully extended. You can then work on holding the seat with one finger and finally drop the seat completely to do a seat drag.
Peter Bier

In the case of riding with the seat out front, you want to be able to stand as tall as possible to make it easy to push the seat in and out. Having the balls of your feet on the pedals will give you more height than your heel or the center of your feet.

As a general issue, you have more control of the pedals if the balls of your feet are on the pedals. You can then do the fine adjustments with your ankles, which are easier to control, rather than using your legs, which is what happens when you put your heel on the pedal. There are obviously some issues of degree here, but the farther the pedal is away from the balls of your feet, the more flat footed you will ride and control will be stiffer and more awkward.
Beirne Konarski

Spins

A spin is a where you go round in circles really fast. You do this by having your upper body on one side of the point you are turning about while your lower body is on the opposite side.

To do a spin -

Do a leaning turn, about a metre in radius or so.
Do a really hard action-reaction turn in the same direction as your leaning turn.
Pedal like mad.

If your pedals hit the ground, you're leaning too far, you don't have to lean incredibly hard to spin.

I learnt to do spins using a hockey stick. If you've got one, try using this. First learn to turn 360 degrees using the stick to turn you, then try and get into a spin using the stick to do the action reaction turn.

Once you get good at spins, you can do them straight away, out of stillstands or whatever without the leaning turn into them. I like to stillstand, then lean a little bit and go into a spin.

Nb: Action-reaction turn is a turn where you turn your upper body one way(the action) and the unicycle turns the other way(the reaction).

Exiting the spin
The trick is just to keep practicing until you can do the spin really smoothly and then you can slow down and pedal out of it. Alternatively, do a pirouette out of it and then pedal off once you've slowed down a little, before you fall over.

In both cases, as you straighten up and ride out, your tyre will catch and you'll be able to ride straight off, you don't have to wait until the spin has fully stopped to ride off.
Anonymous

Backwards Riding

Backwards riding is pretty much the same as forwards riding except in the opposite direction.

There are two ways most people learn backwards riding.

Learn to idle first
If you can idle, you can learn to go backwards in steps. Do an idle and then let the wheel go one whole rotation backwards into another idle. Once you've got that, practice doing 2 rotations back, then 3 and so on. After a while you'll be going backwards.

Just go for it
Grab onto something to start off from, let go, ride backwards, repeat. It might help doing this beside a rail or a wall to hold onto to start off with, or with a helper.

In both methods, there are a few important things to know.

It's easier to ride backwards without looking behind you. When you're learning, look behind and check it's clear before you ride. Once you've learnt to ride backwards, you can practice looking behind while riding backwards.

If you're scared of riding backwards into the unknown, stand off the unicycle and practice running backwards through your practice area to help your confidence. Also if the area is limited in size, have visual clues on the ground so you can see before you get to the wall.

Playing hockey is a great way to learn riding backwards, I pretty much learnt it by mistake by playing hockey regularly.
Anonymous

Back to basics:
Reversing is the first of the basic skills which is genuinely dangerous: it presents a real risk of falling backwards. You could crack your skull, or damage your spine or coccyx (sp?) (tailbone!).
DO wear a helmet. Gloves or wristguards recommended too.
Find somewhere smooth and level, and be confident that the area behind you is clear of obstacles.
Now, I think riding backwards and idling are very closely linked skills. Practising one automatically leads to practising the other. Develop one skill, and the other improves.
Start by riding forwards, then stop, allowing the bottom pedal to pass bottom dead centre and start to rise behind you.
Allow the unicycle to tip back ever so slightly (i.e. the wheel is in front of you an inch or two).
Pedal back a half turn, stop, and ride forwards.
The first and biggest hurdle is pedaling back so that the pedal passes over top dead centre. It's a psychological hurdle, as there's a moment when you feel you have no control.

Soon, you should be confidently doing this:
Forwards, stop, reverse half turn, ride forwards.
For idling, the development is: Forwards, stop, reverse half turn, forwards half turn, reverse half turn, ride forwards. And then build up into 3s, 4s and so on.

For reversing, the development is obvious:
Forwards, stop, reverse a whole turn, stop, ride forwards... then
Forwards, stop, reverse 3, 4, 5 (etc.) pedal strokes, stop, ride forwards.

For idling, you CAN practise by holding onto a post or steadying yourself against a wall. I think it's better to learn in the open.
For idling, look a fair distance ahead and focus your eyes on a specific object. You should idle with your head almost completely still, and the unicycle swinging beneath you.
For reversing, look quite a way ahead of you. At first, focus on a specific object, as with idling.

Now here's the breakthrough:
As you reverse further and further, what do you do with your eyes? If you look at one particular object, it gets further away, and also it doesn't help if you want to turn!
If you look at the ground, it whizzes past you in a blur, and eventually your mind becomes boggled and you fall off.
If you look over your shoulder, you balance is all wrong.
So do this: look at a specific object on the ground and focus your attention on it. It might be a leaf, a pebble, a crack in the pavement, anything. But focus your attention on it and ride away from it.
After 5 - 10 yards/metres, a new object will come into sight on the floor. Make a positive effort to refocus your eyes on that object, and ride away from it. Keep picking new focus points every 5 - 10 metres or so.
The idea is that you balance with your brain, not your mind. The mind is an obstacle to learning complex motor skills like balancing. Keep the mind out of the way, and let the brain do its job! If your attention is focussed on a particular mark on the ground, the brain is receiving clear signals about speed and position, relative to a fixed point, so the calculations it has to make are much easier. Also, by making a conscious effort to choose an object and focus on it, your mind is kept busy, so it doesn't get under your brain's feet.
Have fun, be careful, good luck.
‘Mikefule’ from unicyclist.com forums

I have been riding backwards for 35 years now.
I have ridden from mount to dismount about 3km or 1.8mi. I am very confident with my backwards riding ability.

The idle or pause is not necessary to learn how to ride backwards. It is only needed for transition. How did you learn to go forwards? You can start off riding backwards, and be just as successful as starting out forwards. The difference right now is there is a distinct difference in your forward and backwards riding ability, and as you have noticed, the fact that you can ride forwards, doesn't really assist that much learning to ride backwards.

If you can't idle, then you won't beable to do a standing mount, and change directions backwards. So do what you did before you could do a standing mount. Hold on to something, steady yourself, and begin to pedal backwards. You do have an advantage knowing how to ride forward. You know where the sweet spot is located. When you are still, the sweet spot is directly over the wheel. As you gain forward momentum, the sweet spot shifts, with the seat slightly ahead of the wheel center. You know the feeling of where that spot is, and that is why you don't fall with regularity, like you did before you found it by feel.

Going backwards is the same, but in reverse. The sweet spot is slightly backwards, witht he seat slightly behind the center of the wheel. Most beginners start pedalling backwards, and lean slightly forwards. Then the wheel goes backwards and the seat goes forward, and you get dumped, just the same way as when you were learning to ride forwards, and leaned backwards, the wheel shot out from under you, and you got dumped.

You have to get comfortable witht he new position. You have to lean back slightly, and pedal faster to correct when you start to lean backwards too much, which will upright you. Its the same are when you leaned forward too much, and by pedalling a bit faster could upright yourself, and avoid falling forward.

The problem is until you find that sweet spot, which is the opposite angle of the 90 degrees you have found forward riding, the odds of falling backwards goes up considerablely. You would rather fall forwards while riding backwards, so you can use your hands to break your fall, than risk applying what you already know about ridig forward, and that is you must lean slightly in the direction that you are traveling. For backwars riding this means leaning backwards.

Don't be afraid to extend your arms fully to the side like a balance bar. It helps, If it had no effect then high wire unicyclists and tightrope walkers would not be able to do what they do. You can lower your arms once you get the hang. The other advantage is your arms are already in a position to break your fall, should you go gown fast and hard. And yes, if you are on pavement, as most people that learn are, it will hurt. But a broken arm is much better than a skull fracture, or broken spine.

Don't be afraid to look where you are going. I have seen too many people learning to go backwards that never look where they are going, be it the concerete stairs they never thought they'd make it too, or onto the street into oncoming traffic. And that is not as easy as it sounds. You will find the motion of turning your head over your shoulder to look, will through your hips off, and you'll start to turn, and backwards turning is the hardest part of backwards riding to master.

Those are the only things I can think of to mention to those learning to ride backwards. The rest is like learning to go forward, practice, practice and practice.

But once you have mastered backwards, you become one with the wheel. You are then capable of a ballet, of movement that cannot be duplicated by any other sport or pastime.

Hope this has been of some help!
‘Defender of Enormous Manhood’ (guest at unicyclist.com forums)

One Foot Riding

It took me several sessions to understand that getting my "free" foot placed just right on the frame was the most impostant thing--at least for me. I kept fumbling the foot placement, usually having my foot extended too far and my toe would drag the tire and I'd pitch off in a flash. Once I perfected snapping my foot back and up (a tricky move to get it just so) onto the frame I could crank eight or nine revolutions right off. There's a lot of precision with the foot-to-frame move, and uit felt totally bizarre at first. For anyone who is trying to learn one foot riding, practicing getting that foot placed correctly (I did so leaning against a truck) will likely radically steepen your learning curve.
‘vivalargo’ from unicyclist.com forums

For beginning beginners, just try lifting your foot from the pedal as it comes on the upward part of its revolution. Put most of your weight on the other pedal too. You'll find you can hold it off for a little more each time.
'David' from unicyclist.com forums

Two things to be thinking about alot when learning one foot:
-Push really hard after the pedal comes over the top and through the down stroke.
-Once the pedal is at the very bottom and the cranks are vertical, you must shift from having all your weight and force going into the pedal to the extreme opposite. On the rear upstroke your foot should be like a feather on the pedal.

Don't forget to keep your foot and leg moving in the same circular motion as the pedals. If you don't it will act as a brake and slow down the momentum that you worked so hard for on the down stroke.
Dustin Kelm

Gliding

The natural progression is to learn ww followed by 1 ft ww. By the time you get good at 1ft wheel walk you will be doing little occasional bits of gliding just to keep your balance.

Once your 1 ft wheel walk is comin along well I suggest tyring pull gliding. Find a friend or two` to pull you along. Get them to stand facing you and lhold hands To begin with you may need to hold two hands. Start to 1ft wheel walk to get yourself into position for gliding and then get them to pull you along as you try to glide. Having 1 or 2 hands to hold on helps your balance enormously and brakes learning gliding down into another step.

Note that once you've learnt gliding the natural way to get into it is straight from riding. It helps considerably to be able to ride 1 footed to do this as you will be momentarily riding 1 footed. Pedal reasonablly fast and as your gliding foot that rests on the tyre comes up to the crown it comes off the pedal and into position. The wheel continues around and as the other foot comes up to the crown on ther other side it too flips into position. Once you get the hang of this it is a really fluid motion. The advantage of going into gliding from riding is that you can get much more speed up than you can with wheel walking which means you can glide further on flat surfaces.
Peter Bier

For gliding on a flat surface -- or situations where you need some momentum before going into a glide, it's useful to be able to glide with your non-dominant pedal foot.

I learned to glide by idling on a hill, then putting my non-dominant foot onto the tire, pulling my other foot off the pedal and onto the frame, then kick off.

As a result, I am right foot dominant for all pedal related skills, and left foot dominant for all wheel walk related skills. I don't know if you can actually chose your foot dominance -- for me, it just worked out well. So, I can ride forwards quickly, take my left foot off the pedal and put it on the frame -- and for one brief moment, both feet are acting as dominant -- then I remove the no longer dominant foot from the pedal and go.

Another tip on gliding -- get shoes with a flat, ideally single piece soul. That will help learning a lot. I recommend finding a pair of really cheap skateboarding shoes -- expect to eventually have a large hole in one foot, so don't get anything you wouldn't mind destroying.
Jeff Lutkus

Wheel Walking

Some people think that the best way to start wheel walking is to begin near a wall, carry out the movements while holding onto the wall and then eventually try it away from the wall. Me personally, I think its better to start away from the wall, usually means you learn quicker. You can either start from idling or start as a mount. Neither way is easier than the other, unless you can't idle. With your first foot push forward with your toes and then stop with you heel. Try to get as much distance as possible in one push, then as your other foot holds the wheel still, do the same thing with the remaining foot toe heel, toe heel, toe heel etc. Keep you back straight and try to lean back. With many unicycling tricks this doesn't come instantly and will take some time, but don't give up some days can be better than others.
Anonymous

One thing that helped me was going up a handicapped-access ramp that had handrails on both sides. I could touch the rails for balance, and w-w uphill is easier than on the flat (except for very steep hills where you have to use a lot of force). In that setup I also didn't need to transition into w-wing. I think that knowing where you are going helps one learn the transition. However, it took me a long time to learn, so there may be faster ways.
Dave Stockton

Toe to heel. Nice and slow. And for goodness sakes, lean back more!
Daniel from unicyclist.com forums

Returning Feet To Pedals
What I do now to get back on the pedals from ww is to drop my left (non-dominant) foot to the pedals 11 o'clock position. If the pedal is already there then I drop the other foot and I'm done. If the pedal isn't there then I keep pushing the wheel with my right foot until it is.
mgrant - unicyclist.com forums

If you try to look for the pedals over the front of the seat and between your legs you will find that you have to lean too far forward and that will throw off your balance. The trick is to look to the side over the outside of your leg rather than between your legs. You just need to tilt your head to the side and look down while keeping your upper body mostly straight. You'll be able to get a glimpse of the outside edge of the pedal. You won't be able to see the entire pedal, just the outside edge. But that's enough.
John Childs

When I go back to the pedals, I wait till the pedals are in a similar position to how I mount- with the left pedal horizontal and at the back, and slip my non dominant left foot back to the pedal, and then the right foot follows soon afterwards.
Rowan Chivers

Hand Wheel Walking

For learning to hand wheel walking, you'll want to start next to a wall or pole. For the wall, it should be at an outside corner so tht when you hold on the wall with one hand, you'd let go and be able to turn any direction while hand wheel walking away from the wall.

To get started, you want to put one foot in position on the frame, put one hand on the wall, bend down to put the other on the wheel. Then put your other foot on the frame. Finally, lean foward a little and start pushing with your hand that's on the wheel, bring your hand that was on the wall to the wheel and push with that one.

One tip for the guys to ease the pain is to pull the seat out a little bit forward before leaning down to reach the wheel. Make sure you bend down far and this will make your abs rest on the seat instead of any other sensitive body parts.
Kevin Gilbertson

Backwards Wheel Walking

I would recommend learning koosh-koosh and backwards wheel walk concurrently, at least to begin with. You will find after a while that one comes more naturally than the other. You may want to focus on getting the eaiser one down first once you've experimented with both.

Backwards wheel walk feels like a VERY slow trick. Practice wheel walking forwards as slowly as you can to get the feel of the kind of speed you will be dealing with.

The learning procedure is the same as for forwards wheel walk - it just may take a little longer! It also doesn't feel as safe and you are more prone to falling over without landing on you feet. For this reason wearing a helmet may encourage you to push yourself a little beyond your normal safety zone without worrying about injury. People tend to learn faster when they are pushing themselves just beyond the limit of what they can do - but you don't want to crack your head.

A great exercise when learning to wheel walk backwards is to have someone hold one or both your hands so that you have an added balance point while you focus on getting the footwork right. The spotter can be either walking or riding and it is easy for them as they get to go forwards since you are going backwards.
Peter Bier

You definetly don't lean back. This makes you pull the wheel really fast in order to retain balance. In forwards wheel walking the proper technique is to lean back. In backwards ww I think it is better not to keep the body overly forwards, but just comfortably forwards if that makes sense. I also find it easier to have minimal gap between the feet. Use the heel at the start of the stroke and the toe at the end. Remember to lift up the heel of the foot as it gets close to frame because otherwise you will hit the crown with your foot if you have a crown that sticks up a bit.
Nick (nickvb123 from unicyclist.com)

Stand Up Wheel Walking

Here are the basic steps to learn stand-up ww:

Make sure your ww 1ft is completely solid.
Work from the wall
In order to stand up press the dominant foot and foot on frame against the wheel and quickly pull yourself up
Make sure the seat is at your knees and you are grabbing with your knees
Stand up straight, dont lean over
Push slowly with your dominant foot @ the wall until you form a gliding motion with your foot
Stay straight, dont rock back and forth
Practice these steps another million times against the wall
Then start with your back to the wall and work away from it
When you get to the point where you can go across the gym, you now work away from the wall and getting out of it.
Ryan Woessner

One Foot Wheel Walking

Although there are some exceptions, people generally find one foot wheel walking more difficult than wheel walking with both feet. One method of learning to one foot wheel walk is to start beside a wall (or some other support) with one foot planted firmly on the crown of the frame and the other resting on the top of the tyre. You should always have an upright posture when one foot wheel walking as it is generally done pretty slowly and you'll have more control this way. This skill requires reasonably fast foot-work which will only come with practise.

While holding your support, push the tyre forwards about 10cm or 4" (a longer push may be neccessary if you're trying it on a wheel that's larger than 20") then lightly and quickly drag your foot along the tyre back to it's original position. Eventually you'll want to be able to drag your foot back lightly enough that the wheel still rolls forward the whole time. This will result in a much more controlled and impressive technique and can also lead to gliding. You should only really have the front half of your foot in contact with the tyre. One foot wheel walking requires not only fast 'paces', but also for these paces to come in reasonably quick succession. Always keep your arms out wide for balance.

Once you feel comfortable one foot wheel walking beside a support, try leaving the support after a few metres, then riding into a one foot wheel walk unassisted. To do this, you should reasonbly slowly, then lean back a little and pause on the spot while stepping up. Generally it's easiest to pause with your dominant foot down and back and the pedals somewhere between horizontal and about 45 degrees. Then you must quickly step up directly to the tyre with your non-dominant foot, and follow with your dominant foot (which goes to the crown). Then you're ready to kick the tyre forwards again and start one foot wheel walking. Once you've got the hang of this you can also try going into the one foot wheel walk without the pause by doing a little glide (allowing the wheel to drag forwards under your foot) with the non-dominant foot.
Andrew Carter

Seat Drags

I can only tell about my experiences in this skill:

You should not 'throw away' your saddle. I do seat in front with the saddle very wide extended. So the way to the ground is not so long and it do not interrupt you so much. If you throw away your seat with a lot of speed, it is hard do stay on the wheel.

Riding dragseat:
the first and iportant rule is 'do it with speed'. If you ride fast, you have more stability and you do not fall so quick You should not have your legs streched. It is better to go down very deep, so your center of mass (center of gravity) is not so high.
Moritz Hahn

For learning to seat drag, you want to get good at seat in front. Extend the seat out as far away from you as possible and once you get good doing that, start to only hold it with a few fingers and work your way to holding it lightly with just one finger. Once good at that, you should start to drop the seat. Don't push it too fast down, just dropping it works best (although you may want to experiment and see if pushing it down works better for you).

For seat dragging, you want to make sure you have enough speed, as going too slow will make you more unstable. Also, you want to keep your legs stiff, meaning that your muscles should be flexed (and not relaxed). Then it's just a matter of practice.
Kevin Gilbertson

Unispins

I think the best tip anyone can give is to remember that if your feet land on the cranks, you will still land it. Therefore, dont aim for the pedals, but just throw your feet out, spin the uni, then throw your feet in all the way against the wheel. Once you get used to that you can start aiming for the pedals more and getting a smoother landing.
'muniracer' from unicyclist.com forums

Seat Drops

A Seat Drop is a very cool trick that will impress your friends who want to actually see you do a trick.
Begin by hopping with your feet on the cranks, pinching and squeezing tightly all the way to the frame. The arch of your foot should be directly over where the crank connects to the axle. You should probably be hopping holding the seat out in front when you learn. Position the foot that is forward so that the toe of that foot OR the whole foot gets in the way when you drop the seat down onto it and makes it so that the seat won't go all the way to the ground. Once you feel comfortable hopping like this, pause for a second and just let go of the seat. Keep your knees in the same position, but still slightly bent. The seat will jerk to a stop once it gets down there. You can do a little bit of a standstill or pause for as long as you feel comfortable, and then you can get the seat back up using one of two methods. The easiest is probably just to reach down there and pull the seat back up so that you are in the seat-in-front hopping position. You can also learn to "kick" the seat post back up. To do this, lean forward a bit with the seat when it jerks down, and then snap back up (straighten your body up) while using your toe or whole foot to propel the seat post toward you.
Sara Chastain

Frame Hopping

This next skill is an extended variation of a seat drop; I like to call it frame hopping. From the quick pause that occurs just when you've dropped your seat for seat drop, squeeze your feet into the frame and hop up and down. You should be able to do regular seat-in hopping without any hands before you try this. Hop a bit like this, and then reposition your feet on the cranks, with your forward foot moved out of the way so that the frame just drops all the way down and the front of the seat is touching the ground. For just this brief transition, you will not be "squeezing" your feet to the uni. Now squeeze your feet in to pinch the wheel. You can recover from this trick by reversing these steps, but you will most likely have to actually pick up the seat/seat post with your hand. Try your best to stay balanced when doing this trick, and wear at least ankle and shin guards, maybe a helmet.
Sara Chastain