Hover on a Unicycle
"Hovering" is the term used to describe the action of rocking back and forth on a unicycle to stay on, but stay in one place. It is an extremely good skill to have to become a better unicycle rider because it improves balance and strengthens your core.
Contents
Steps
- Start using a wall. Other tutorials suggest using fences and such, but this sometimes forces a person to become dependent leaning on something, and not actually sitting up tall.
- Find a solid wall on a solid and flat surface with enough floor space that you won't be rocking back and forth into anything.
- If you can mount freely, do so near the wall and just hold onto the wall when you mount (just a hand firmly pressed against the wall will do).
- If you cannot freely mount, stand with your back against the wall, your dominant foot's pedal between halfway and a quarter of the way from the bottom.
- Push down on this pedal with your foot and move your other foot onto the other pedal.
- Use your hands on the wall to keep your balance as you slowly move back and up the wall to mount.
- Now turn using one arm and keep a hand pressed firmly on the wall.
- Understand the actual act of hovering. The way that you rock back and forth is by allowing one foot to stay at between 4 and 8 o'clock, moving back and forth between those two. You do not ever keep your feet at the same level!! The biggest mistake people who are first trying to hover make, is they keep both feet going back and forth between 8 and 10 o'clock.
- For the sake of pure frustration when you will never be able to let go of the wall, do not do this (unless you're messing around seeing how long you can stay up doing that).
- Typically, people hover on their dominant foot, the foot that they mount with. There are two methods to free-mounting to get this foot to the bottom.METHOD ONE: This is how I learned how to mount but is considered poor in the unicycling world, but actually works very well when learning how to hover. You put your dominant foot on the pedal, and push all the way down and back to 8 o'clock.METHOD TWO: This works with how you are supposed to mount and if you find it difficult or weird to push backwards. Mount and ride around until your dominant foot is on th bottom and stop yourself using the wall.And for my non-mounters, just turn so you're parallel to the wall and work your way to the dominant foot on the bottom (and it should be fairly close after mounting).
- This is the last non-action step, but it is a very important concept to think about. Put all of your weight into your bottom foot. Pretend that your top foot doesn't exist. It is much easier to hover when your anchor foot is doing all the work because your top foot will put unnecessary weight on the opposite side, making it more difficult. This is also a really good thing to practice while you are learning to hover because then once you want to hover with one foot, you can just pick up that foot with no problem.
- So now it's time to start rocking back and forth between those 4 and 8 o'clock positions. It is not a bad idea to look down when you are starting to ensure your feet are not going too far, as long as once you get a feel for where your feet need to be you only look straight forward for balance's sake. Try not to ever stop yourself at 6 and 12 o'clock because it can be very hard (especially without a wall) to not be able to move either foot and you can fall and injure yourself.
- Just keep going. Just like while trying to learn to ride and you play "just keep riding, just keep riding, just keep riding, riding, riding" in your head, play "just keep hovering." The more you just keep going back and forth over and over again the better you will get. And as you're going, if you're feeling confident, just slowly move your hand away from the wall, you can always push it back if you feel like you're going to fall.
Tips
- Don't give up!:)
- If you are having absolutely no luck off the wall, do 10-15 sit-ups to engage the necessary muscles and get right back up. (I had a girl who couldn't go more than 10 seconds, I made her do just 5 sit-ups and she was instantly able to go 50 seconds.)
- Keep that top foot light, once you feel comfortable you should be able to simply pick it up and put it ABOVE your tire (keep your toe on the curve or step that juts out to go on either side of your tire in order to keep your foot from hitting the tire and causing injury).
- Tell someone else what you're trying to do and how it should look and ask them to watch you. OR you can set up a camera or do it in front of a mirror or something...
Warnings
- Keep that lifted up foot away from your tire!!
- Keep those feet away from being stopped at 6 and 12 o'clock!!
- Do it in a safe place (besides parades, I've only ever ridden in a basketball gym). Stay away from slopes, sharp fences, or people.
