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.