Warm up drill

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.