4th day/3rd hour of practice

I didn't have to work today and it was nice.... well 20° ... but NO
wind. So i doubled up my clothes and grabbed the uni. I was going for 2
hours but only made it to about 1.25. This was mainly due to the cold
air doing strange asthma-like things to my lungs.

Anyways, i ramble. I did phenomenally well, again. After the 3-4 days
or so it's been, i'm surprised... hopped on and right off the bat i was
doing BETTER than my last practice session. Last time, i was too
paranoid to try uni-ing away from the fence. Also, i've been noticing
that i've been doing better with the fence on my right than with the
fence on the left. Soooooo... just practice more with the fence on the
left, right ? No. My first instinct was to practice with the fence on
the right till i didn't need the fence at all. After all, why practice
with the fence on the "uncomfortable" side when the goal is to eliminate
the fence, right ?

Lemme back up... I think at least a little bit of what helped me so
much was the snow. Slowed me down a bit. But after a while, as i did
more and more laps, something cool started happening. The snow packing
up under the uni started creating little obstacles for me to... either
drive over and develop that skill, or avoid and develop that skill.
Avoiding them involved uni-ing farther away from the fence. Far enough
to where i couldn't reach it, and the "Side of the fence" issue became
moot. To an extent. I no longer needed the fence, but i also discovered
the reason for the fence issue. I'd been veering to the left. SHARP. If
i just uni and don't worry about straight lines, it's about a 15-20 foot
radius. Seems bad.

I gave up the fence, and just pushed off from the fence and went. 16
times. An average of 18 strokes per run. Keeping in mind the max the run
could be would be about 20-25, that's not bad. I had only 2
failed-starts, with 2 and 3 strokes. Everything else was 10+ as i
recall. My max run was 29, that was a fluke though, as it was basically
a perfect quarter-circle... I also did a 28. Anyway though, the
breakthrough in this session was not length, clearly. It was
independence. And i can't go very much farther than i am now in this
tennis court. The max run i could do would be maybe 45 or 50 and i'm
pretty sure it'll be a few more sessions before i can do that. If i'm
near the fence i tend to use it. If i'm not near the fence, it's harder
to go straight. Midway down the court, is, of course, the net... which
for a newbie is somewhat of a tight squeeze. So i need to:
1) Travel towards the net away from the fence, going straight.
2) Veer towards the fence just enough to avoid the net.
3) Veer back away from the fence... if i go straight after this, who
cares.

Actually... that could give me about 60, if i veer left after the net.


After doing my "norm" practice for a good clean hour, i was going to
give up but on my way down to the car i saw a looooooooooooooong
straightaway that i was going to practice in. Messed around trying to
freemount for about 5 minutes before i got ****y. Then i wanted to see
how far i could go... feel like a REAL pro, ya know ? But it was
uphill... or downhill, however you look at it. I could go about 4-5
strokes uphill, and could barely even mount downhill. I think this area
was a bit more slick than where i'd been before too.


--
McNerdius
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Hey, that's awesome! Sounds like you're ready to break free from your
tennis court bondage!
Keep it up, man!


--
Tak

"Unicycling goes against common sense." --maestro8
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