I'm taking a leaf from my learning experience with kiteboarding where the kite control and the board control are easy to separate. Breaking the activity into smaller chunks helps those with limited bandwidth such as your truly get the necessary brain wiring in place.
I started up with the same drill that I used last time.
i) Put uni down and just stick handle. This time set out 4 rocks in a rectangle and about twice shoulder width wide and 1/2 a meter high. I very slowly manured the ball around the outside of the rectangle and really focused on my right hand rotating the blade of the stick to get the ball moving in the right direction. Then I started a slow figure eight around them and after a while just random but (mostly) intended directions.
ii) Then I walked up and down the court stickhandling the ball alternatively left and right trying to avoid widening my stance to balance me and forcing myself to slide the stick through my left hand in order to reach for the ball in preference of bending. this meant reaching for the ball on a lot of occasions with one hand which I'm led to believe is not ideal for control or my arm/wrist.
iii) Still walking forward I tried pushing the ball away and trapping it and pulling it back in. This is much easier on my natural side. When I tried on the other side so my left hand came all the way across my body to the right, I found that I frequently stabbed myself in the stomach with the end of the stick as my arms crossed over in front of me.
The two partial solutions I found where to no cross them but rather pull my right arm (on the top of the stick) around me to the back while I bought my left hand across the front and then push both forward to grab the ball. This meant that both hands were always moving in the same direction so it felt natural. The other part solution was to just push my right hand out in front ( with the top of the stick) and make the cross over happen with the stick stretched way out the front.
I suspect both might be useful but the I found the first also help to turn to the right more easily ( the right hand coming round the back). This seems to keep the stick in closer so there's less angular momentum to resist the turning action.
iv) Finally I increased the speed from a slow walk up to a fast jog. I also tried the sharp turns while jogging. For this I threw in the little alternative direction turn before twisting hard towards the direction I wanted to turn. This small, alternative direction turn prior seems to make it easier to turn agressively. I thought it was useful to try this while walking as this alternative twist feels quite counter intuitive and if I tried to think about it too hard or do it too quickly my co-ordination was all over the shop.
So takeaways today:
i) separate learning the stick and the uni until more advanced skill levels.
ii) Do things slowly with the stick until the co-ordination gets better and only then add the unicycle.
iii) turns to the right ( my right hand on top ) are easier when I move both hands around my body and keep them close in. The small, alternative direction twist prior to turning helps for more aggressive turns.
Friday, December 26, 2014
Thursday, December 18, 2014
Stickhandling
Stick handling in unicycle hockey take most of its direction from ice hockey and there is loads of great resources around on how to do it. www.howtohockey.com is a favourite.
I am very much a novice on this front and still find (after 3 sessions:)) that the hockey stick still puts be off balance when I try to handle it with my dominate hand at the top. However, today I discovered a few micro-things that seemed to improve my handling.
i) The top hand should be doing 95% of the work so if that arm is not fatiguing then the other hand is probably doing to much work.
ii) Cupping the ball, meaning that the face of the stick is not vertical when its in contact with the ball but instead leans in towards it, seems to be a very solid way to keep the ball from hitting and jumping over the stick. By focusing on cupping it I found that I lost control far far few times.
iii) Cupping is achieved largely through the rolling of the wrist of the hand on the top of the stick. I spent 20 mins just practicing this rolling motion as I pushed the ball from the left to right and back. The mental framing I found useful was to have my lower hand (in my case the left hand) pointing at the ball. There was almost a sense that the lower hand was fixed at a point in space relative to my body and the upper hand was doing all the positioning and exaggerated wrist rolling was responsible for the cupping.
iv) When moving the ball left and right the cupping action results in an action that makes me think of spreading butter on bread using one side of the knife then the the other, back and forth.
v) I tried to minimise the amount that I bent at the hips in order to reach for the ball. In the first instance I tried to recover the ball by letting the stick slip through you lower hands grip (like drawing a pool cue). Only if it was beyond reach did I then lean into it. I think that anything that prevents a chance of balance is a good thing.
The drills I ran through today that seemed to help:
i) Put the unicycle away and just walk around with the ball practicing the lower hand pointing and wrist rolling. Practice with the ball in different places around you. Walk very slowly.
ii) Try different motions of the ball: push it forward and then use the back of the stick to bring it back in, push it from the close on the left to far on the right. Avoid bending at the hips to reach out for the ball. In the first instance use your upper hand to push the stick towards the ball and let the stick slip through your hand as if making a shot with a pool cue.
iii) Increase these speed slightly to a brisk walk and then work up to a job. keep handling the ball in different locations around your body.
The main idea of these drills was to get used to cupping by rolling the wrists and to reach for the ball with the stick slipping through you lower hand (and avoiding leaning forward if possible).
Adding increasing speed, which then starts to feel more like the real action, will require you to adjust how you push and pull the ball because of the net forward speed.
I did these for about a 1/2 hour and then got on the unicycle and tried and there was a notice improvement in the length of time I could keep the ball under control when dribbling is straight lines and fairly big arcs.
I haven't done any work on controlling the ball through sharp turns yet but that is coming up soon.
I am very much a novice on this front and still find (after 3 sessions:)) that the hockey stick still puts be off balance when I try to handle it with my dominate hand at the top. However, today I discovered a few micro-things that seemed to improve my handling.
i) The top hand should be doing 95% of the work so if that arm is not fatiguing then the other hand is probably doing to much work.
ii) Cupping the ball, meaning that the face of the stick is not vertical when its in contact with the ball but instead leans in towards it, seems to be a very solid way to keep the ball from hitting and jumping over the stick. By focusing on cupping it I found that I lost control far far few times.
iii) Cupping is achieved largely through the rolling of the wrist of the hand on the top of the stick. I spent 20 mins just practicing this rolling motion as I pushed the ball from the left to right and back. The mental framing I found useful was to have my lower hand (in my case the left hand) pointing at the ball. There was almost a sense that the lower hand was fixed at a point in space relative to my body and the upper hand was doing all the positioning and exaggerated wrist rolling was responsible for the cupping.
iv) When moving the ball left and right the cupping action results in an action that makes me think of spreading butter on bread using one side of the knife then the the other, back and forth.
v) I tried to minimise the amount that I bent at the hips in order to reach for the ball. In the first instance I tried to recover the ball by letting the stick slip through you lower hands grip (like drawing a pool cue). Only if it was beyond reach did I then lean into it. I think that anything that prevents a chance of balance is a good thing.
The drills I ran through today that seemed to help:
i) Put the unicycle away and just walk around with the ball practicing the lower hand pointing and wrist rolling. Practice with the ball in different places around you. Walk very slowly.
ii) Try different motions of the ball: push it forward and then use the back of the stick to bring it back in, push it from the close on the left to far on the right. Avoid bending at the hips to reach out for the ball. In the first instance use your upper hand to push the stick towards the ball and let the stick slip through your hand as if making a shot with a pool cue.
iii) Increase these speed slightly to a brisk walk and then work up to a job. keep handling the ball in different locations around your body.
The main idea of these drills was to get used to cupping by rolling the wrists and to reach for the ball with the stick slipping through you lower hand (and avoiding leaning forward if possible).
Adding increasing speed, which then starts to feel more like the real action, will require you to adjust how you push and pull the ball because of the net forward speed.
I did these for about a 1/2 hour and then got on the unicycle and tried and there was a notice improvement in the length of time I could keep the ball under control when dribbling is straight lines and fairly big arcs.
I haven't done any work on controlling the ball through sharp turns yet but that is coming up soon.
Turn quickly to the weak direction
It was a familiar experience to discover how asymmetrical my ability turn was. I found that I could turn to the left with relative confidence but turn quickly to the right side was very different and awkward.
What worked for me to make quick turns through 90 degrees to the left (confident side) was to:
i) keep relatively upright.
ii) turn shoulder and lock my eyes on what I wanted to turn towards
iii) then and only then twist my hips to point the cycle towards the direction my head and shoulders faced.
iv) I found it easiest to to be on the down stroke with the leg that is on the side I wanted to turn towards.
Other things that seemed to help were to use the rising knee (on the outside of the arc being turned through to push the nose of the seat around.
To turn the other direction quickly I ended up needing to be very deliberate about an additional step going into the turn. All steps were:
i) keep upright (same)
ii) just before i wanted to turn to the right I turn very slightly the other way by twisting shoulder only (not head) slightly to the left and then turning my head and shoulder quickly to the other direction and lock my eyes on what I wanted to turn towards.
iii) Then flick the hips around.
iv) again favour the down stroke of the pedal in the direction you want turn
v) use the outside knee to help turn the unicycle.
keep pedaling through the turn.
Update:
Made some more progress here and am making tighter turns.The couple of things that emerged are:
i) Staying relatively vertical and avoiding leaning hard or bending forward - looks towards where you want to turn. Both of these action requiring the radius of you turn to be larger.
ii) Raise myself off the seat a bit as I turn. I am still in contact, I just reduce the pressure on the seat so that the seat can turn under me without it be driven by my thighs against the seat. The twisting motion is achieved naturally as your inside foot pushes back on the pedal and the outside one pushes forward. You can enhance this by visualising the pull backwards and pushforwards of the opposite legs ( think cross country skiing type motion). This lets the unicycle initiate the turn and ahead of your center of gravity shift which seems to increase agility.
iii) Continually twist to look at the new spot you want to turn to. This is tricky because when you turn your body and then the uni, the uni catches up and angle between where you are looking and where the uni is pointing gets small. The challenge is to keep turning you upper body to avoid the uni pointing in the same direction. Keeping this angle as big as possible ( continually correcting it) helps a lot.
Eureka!!!!!
After reading up on the UK Hockey League - How to Play I read that you should observe the opponents shoulders as an indicator of where there will turn. So today I tried dropping the shoulder on the side I want to turn to and Eureka I was turning like a person who turns well!!!!! yeah!!!
What worked for me to make quick turns through 90 degrees to the left (confident side) was to:
i) keep relatively upright.
ii) turn shoulder and lock my eyes on what I wanted to turn towards
iii) then and only then twist my hips to point the cycle towards the direction my head and shoulders faced.
iv) I found it easiest to to be on the down stroke with the leg that is on the side I wanted to turn towards.
Other things that seemed to help were to use the rising knee (on the outside of the arc being turned through to push the nose of the seat around.
To turn the other direction quickly I ended up needing to be very deliberate about an additional step going into the turn. All steps were:
i) keep upright (same)
ii) just before i wanted to turn to the right I turn very slightly the other way by twisting shoulder only (not head) slightly to the left and then turning my head and shoulder quickly to the other direction and lock my eyes on what I wanted to turn towards.
iii) Then flick the hips around.
iv) again favour the down stroke of the pedal in the direction you want turn
v) use the outside knee to help turn the unicycle.
keep pedaling through the turn.
Update:
Made some more progress here and am making tighter turns.The couple of things that emerged are:
i) Staying relatively vertical and avoiding leaning hard or bending forward - looks towards where you want to turn. Both of these action requiring the radius of you turn to be larger.
ii) Raise myself off the seat a bit as I turn. I am still in contact, I just reduce the pressure on the seat so that the seat can turn under me without it be driven by my thighs against the seat. The twisting motion is achieved naturally as your inside foot pushes back on the pedal and the outside one pushes forward. You can enhance this by visualising the pull backwards and pushforwards of the opposite legs ( think cross country skiing type motion). This lets the unicycle initiate the turn and ahead of your center of gravity shift which seems to increase agility.
iii) Continually twist to look at the new spot you want to turn to. This is tricky because when you turn your body and then the uni, the uni catches up and angle between where you are looking and where the uni is pointing gets small. The challenge is to keep turning you upper body to avoid the uni pointing in the same direction. Keeping this angle as big as possible ( continually correcting it) helps a lot.
Eureka!!!!!
After reading up on the UK Hockey League - How to Play I read that you should observe the opponents shoulders as an indicator of where there will turn. So today I tried dropping the shoulder on the side I want to turn to and Eureka I was turning like a person who turns well!!!!! yeah!!!
Saturday, December 6, 2014
Stopping hard
This is where you are moving forward and then you want to come to a complete halt very quickly. Its the equivalent of jamming on the brakes. By watching good riders in the uni hockey team I've realised that this is a critical skill and one that really needs to be mastered equally for each leg doing the breaking.
Places where this gets used are delaying reaching a spot because you're ahead of where you need to be to get the ball, your racing towards a corner or wall perpendicular to it so you'll need to stop to dig the ball out or you want to come to a standstill with the ball to give your team members time to get into position.
It seems that the opportunity to apply a breaking force is only there when the breaking leg is at the bottom of the stroke and it starts coming up. At this point you can bear down hard on that leg to oppose the forward moment. This was the singular focus I had when I started trying this but I soon found that it was really hard to stop this way if you have any speed on you because and the problem is exacerbated the shorter you cranks get. I found that I was applying the back pedal/breaking force but because I had too much forward momentum the pedals where continuing through 90 degrees and with my backwards lean this meant that the pedal passed through top dead center and so my back pedal force then became a forward pedalling force and the uni was shooting out from under me.
After another lucky mistake I realised that I needed to do some other things at the same time to be able to increase the force so that I could decelerate to zero before the pedal reached top dead center.
Here's some things I tried:
1. The first thing was to prevent myself rising off the seat by gripping the seat between my legs, my knees almost touching. The effect is similar but less effective than gripping the seat handle with my hand and pulling up on the seat.
2. Next was to make use of the upper leg to assist breaking by sweeping it from front to back as the same time as applying the breaking force with the extended leg. This also helps to stop the uni rotating under you due to the asymmetrical forces you're exerting on the pedals.
3. The next thing was to bend at the waist so that unicycle continued to move forward ( much like in the rocking motion with disembodied torso floating above it) but at the same time let my upper body also being forward ( basically bending in half as if touching my toes). This helped balance but more importantly it meant that my upper body still had some forward momentum during the initial breaking effort. This meant that the initial decelerating force was mostly being applied to decelerating the uni and my lower body but not my upper body. As a result deceleration was quicker.
UPDATE: Tried a variation on this. Instead of bending I tried letting my hips continue to move forward (pushed torso back) seemed to work a bit better a slightly higher speeds but I am not sure sure why. It seems counter intuitive.
4. The final thing, and this sounds slightly counter to the first point, I raised my self off the seat slightly as the breaking leg passed through top dead center + about 45 degrees. The action here is almost as if you are going to accelerate and kick the uni forward before the breaking leg reaches the bottom of the stroke. Then when the pedal passed the bottom of the stroke you can then use the weight of your upper body dropping downward to add to the breaking force. I've found that its most effective if you're still slightly off the seat when you come to a stop. So, when you start to break drop your weight down onto you back leg but stop yourself short of sitting on the seat. This deceleration of your upper body adds to the breaking force you're legs are contributing.
Although this last point sound a bit counter to the first points its actually not because the knee/thigh that you hook under the seat will have a bend knee so that you can easily stand off the seat and you knee will still be bend and hooked under.
This has been working when there is a little bit of speed and I have been practicing on a slight downhill run to strength up the muscles that apply the breaking force.
I had been favouring my non-dominant leg on this exercise so started practicing with the other leg down and that seemed to go okay once I started very slowly and methodically applied the above steps ( adding one element each time I go comfortable).
Places where this gets used are delaying reaching a spot because you're ahead of where you need to be to get the ball, your racing towards a corner or wall perpendicular to it so you'll need to stop to dig the ball out or you want to come to a standstill with the ball to give your team members time to get into position.
It seems that the opportunity to apply a breaking force is only there when the breaking leg is at the bottom of the stroke and it starts coming up. At this point you can bear down hard on that leg to oppose the forward moment. This was the singular focus I had when I started trying this but I soon found that it was really hard to stop this way if you have any speed on you because and the problem is exacerbated the shorter you cranks get. I found that I was applying the back pedal/breaking force but because I had too much forward momentum the pedals where continuing through 90 degrees and with my backwards lean this meant that the pedal passed through top dead center and so my back pedal force then became a forward pedalling force and the uni was shooting out from under me.
After another lucky mistake I realised that I needed to do some other things at the same time to be able to increase the force so that I could decelerate to zero before the pedal reached top dead center.
Here's some things I tried:
1. The first thing was to prevent myself rising off the seat by gripping the seat between my legs, my knees almost touching. The effect is similar but less effective than gripping the seat handle with my hand and pulling up on the seat.
2. Next was to make use of the upper leg to assist breaking by sweeping it from front to back as the same time as applying the breaking force with the extended leg. This also helps to stop the uni rotating under you due to the asymmetrical forces you're exerting on the pedals.
3. The next thing was to bend at the waist so that unicycle continued to move forward ( much like in the rocking motion with disembodied torso floating above it) but at the same time let my upper body also being forward ( basically bending in half as if touching my toes). This helped balance but more importantly it meant that my upper body still had some forward momentum during the initial breaking effort. This meant that the initial decelerating force was mostly being applied to decelerating the uni and my lower body but not my upper body. As a result deceleration was quicker.
UPDATE: Tried a variation on this. Instead of bending I tried letting my hips continue to move forward (pushed torso back) seemed to work a bit better a slightly higher speeds but I am not sure sure why. It seems counter intuitive.
4. The final thing, and this sounds slightly counter to the first point, I raised my self off the seat slightly as the breaking leg passed through top dead center + about 45 degrees. The action here is almost as if you are going to accelerate and kick the uni forward before the breaking leg reaches the bottom of the stroke. Then when the pedal passed the bottom of the stroke you can then use the weight of your upper body dropping downward to add to the breaking force. I've found that its most effective if you're still slightly off the seat when you come to a stop. So, when you start to break drop your weight down onto you back leg but stop yourself short of sitting on the seat. This deceleration of your upper body adds to the breaking force you're legs are contributing.
Although this last point sound a bit counter to the first points its actually not because the knee/thigh that you hook under the seat will have a bend knee so that you can easily stand off the seat and you knee will still be bend and hooked under.
This has been working when there is a little bit of speed and I have been practicing on a slight downhill run to strength up the muscles that apply the breaking force.
I had been favouring my non-dominant leg on this exercise so started practicing with the other leg down and that seemed to go okay once I started very slowly and methodically applied the above steps ( adding one element each time I go comfortable).
Idling
Despite idling being in the IUF levels at a level lower than 180 degrees and hoping I actually find idling far more challenging to get. I read numerous posts on the topic and they generally agreed. However, it wasn't until I accidentally moved a particular way when falling that I realised what I wasn't tuning into was and hadn't read about is how you need to engage different parts of your body. Here is a record of some of the 'Inner Unicyclist' observations that I became aware of as I (currently) increase the number of idling stokes that I can do.
Firstly, the stuff that is reported in lots of idling posts:
i) Dominant foot at 6 o'clock
ii) Limit the angle that you rock the crank through to c. 45 degrees
iii) Keep you body upright and let your hips and legs pendulum under you. You're torso and head should look a bit disembodied to an observer as you legs and hips rock and your body stays motionless in space
What the inner unicyclist found
i) To keep your body stationary and have your legs and hips pendulum under you you need to actively thrust your hips forward and backwards. I found it impossible to get the rocking started and sustain it if I only used extended leg to push and pull the lower crank through the arc. I made a very deliberate effort to thrust my pelvis forward as my knee came forward and the again lead with my pelvis rocking backwards followed very quickly by my knee being driven backwards. I think this both helps get the initial momentum get happening and also reduces the angel relative to your pelvis that your leg must drive through.
ii) I needed to grip the seat tightly between my legs to stop the the seat shifting unpredictably under me or have the seat favour one side. Both of these required a shift of balance to keep up right. Holding the seat tighter between my legs help the frame move much more in concert with the balance that my upper body was dictating.
iii) Twisting your hips towards the direction you're falling is the the way to regain balance reliably. Get used to responding to the sense of falling in a particular direction by twisting towards that direction at the same time as pedaling to bring the uni back under you. For example suppose you've initiated the back pedal part of the rocking motion and you feel you're balance falling away to the right. Twist your hips so that you turn your back towards the right side and keep the pedaling action happening. The net result of this is that as your body falls to the right the twist and back pedal will bring the unicycle back under you and together and you will end up being upright again.
iv) Contra-rotating your upper body. If all your effort and most of the weight is on the one pedal it will be hard to prevent the uni from twisting to to that side as you put pressure on the pedal. To remove the net turning force towards the outstretch leg you need to have a force rotating in the opposition direction to counteract it. There are two ways ( maybe more) to do this. One is to you use your upper body to contra-rotate. So, if you left leg is outstretched and you are in the process of bringing your left knee forward so that the tendency of the uni is to rotate clockwise under you, your upper body needs to rotate counter clockwise. The overall look of this is that as you knee comes forward your opposite shoulder and arm reach across your body towards it. You can see this in most videos on idling.
v) Alternate between your legs so that the driver of the rocking motion in any direction comes from your leg being pulled from front to back. So, if you lower leg is out front you'd then sweep this leg from front to back to rock backwards. When it swept back and the pedal is behind, I find it difficult to quickly get power to that leg to then push that pedal forward, perhaps because this is a weird movement that is the same movement that you would do to accelerate running backwards. So instead of using that same legs to drive it forward, I have been trying to use the other leg. At this point the other leg is forward so and so the action it needs to perform is to pull the pedal from front to back - the strong stroke. Then for the next 1/2 cycle of the rock its the lower leg pulling from front to back, then next half cycle the upper leg pulls front to back etc. I find that it helps to point the toe of my upper leg to assist with a good grip on the upper pedal.
Takeaways:
i) Actively thrust your pelvis forward and backwards rather than just rely on the force in your legs to do all the work.
ii) To regain balance when you fall to one side twist your hips so that uni turns towards the direction your are falling. This will pull the uni under you again.
iii) Engage both your legs in the idling motion, alternating between then so that the rocking motion is driven through the action of one of your legs being pulled from front to back.
And finally 2 practice tips:
i) I found that after a short while of practicing, holding onto a support of having a support within reach was a liability. I found myself tending to try to fall onto the support if my balance was shifting rather than trying to recover using hips and arms. Its only when you really commit to trying to stay up right that progression will ramp up.
ii) Start out by exagerating the motions and later on reduce how extreme they are. I've found generally when learning any new physically skill the tendancy is to under do the required motion. I think this is partly due to not knowing what the full range of motion for each action is. You don't know what you don't know so its not until you go past whats needed that you can work out what's needed. So I suggest, rocking further than 45 degrees, throwing your arms and twisting you hips aggressively, thrust pelvis like there's no tomorrow. Then once you've practice going too far then reign it back in until you're using just what you need.
Firstly, the stuff that is reported in lots of idling posts:
i) Dominant foot at 6 o'clock
ii) Limit the angle that you rock the crank through to c. 45 degrees
iii) Keep you body upright and let your hips and legs pendulum under you. You're torso and head should look a bit disembodied to an observer as you legs and hips rock and your body stays motionless in space
What the inner unicyclist found
i) To keep your body stationary and have your legs and hips pendulum under you you need to actively thrust your hips forward and backwards. I found it impossible to get the rocking started and sustain it if I only used extended leg to push and pull the lower crank through the arc. I made a very deliberate effort to thrust my pelvis forward as my knee came forward and the again lead with my pelvis rocking backwards followed very quickly by my knee being driven backwards. I think this both helps get the initial momentum get happening and also reduces the angel relative to your pelvis that your leg must drive through.
ii) I needed to grip the seat tightly between my legs to stop the the seat shifting unpredictably under me or have the seat favour one side. Both of these required a shift of balance to keep up right. Holding the seat tighter between my legs help the frame move much more in concert with the balance that my upper body was dictating.
iii) Twisting your hips towards the direction you're falling is the the way to regain balance reliably. Get used to responding to the sense of falling in a particular direction by twisting towards that direction at the same time as pedaling to bring the uni back under you. For example suppose you've initiated the back pedal part of the rocking motion and you feel you're balance falling away to the right. Twist your hips so that you turn your back towards the right side and keep the pedaling action happening. The net result of this is that as your body falls to the right the twist and back pedal will bring the unicycle back under you and together and you will end up being upright again.
iv) Contra-rotating your upper body. If all your effort and most of the weight is on the one pedal it will be hard to prevent the uni from twisting to to that side as you put pressure on the pedal. To remove the net turning force towards the outstretch leg you need to have a force rotating in the opposition direction to counteract it. There are two ways ( maybe more) to do this. One is to you use your upper body to contra-rotate. So, if you left leg is outstretched and you are in the process of bringing your left knee forward so that the tendency of the uni is to rotate clockwise under you, your upper body needs to rotate counter clockwise. The overall look of this is that as you knee comes forward your opposite shoulder and arm reach across your body towards it. You can see this in most videos on idling.
v) Alternate between your legs so that the driver of the rocking motion in any direction comes from your leg being pulled from front to back. So, if you lower leg is out front you'd then sweep this leg from front to back to rock backwards. When it swept back and the pedal is behind, I find it difficult to quickly get power to that leg to then push that pedal forward, perhaps because this is a weird movement that is the same movement that you would do to accelerate running backwards. So instead of using that same legs to drive it forward, I have been trying to use the other leg. At this point the other leg is forward so and so the action it needs to perform is to pull the pedal from front to back - the strong stroke. Then for the next 1/2 cycle of the rock its the lower leg pulling from front to back, then next half cycle the upper leg pulls front to back etc. I find that it helps to point the toe of my upper leg to assist with a good grip on the upper pedal.
Takeaways:
i) Actively thrust your pelvis forward and backwards rather than just rely on the force in your legs to do all the work.
ii) To regain balance when you fall to one side twist your hips so that uni turns towards the direction your are falling. This will pull the uni under you again.
iii) Engage both your legs in the idling motion, alternating between then so that the rocking motion is driven through the action of one of your legs being pulled from front to back.
And finally 2 practice tips:
i) I found that after a short while of practicing, holding onto a support of having a support within reach was a liability. I found myself tending to try to fall onto the support if my balance was shifting rather than trying to recover using hips and arms. Its only when you really commit to trying to stay up right that progression will ramp up.
ii) Start out by exagerating the motions and later on reduce how extreme they are. I've found generally when learning any new physically skill the tendancy is to under do the required motion. I think this is partly due to not knowing what the full range of motion for each action is. You don't know what you don't know so its not until you go past whats needed that you can work out what's needed. So I suggest, rocking further than 45 degrees, throwing your arms and twisting you hips aggressively, thrust pelvis like there's no tomorrow. Then once you've practice going too far then reign it back in until you're using just what you need.
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