Distance and control!

Today I spent two and a half almost uninterrupted hours getting on, riding, and falling off my unicycle. It seems to have paid off!

A nice poster in the unicyclist.com forums saw my pictures, and he suggested that I sit up straighter, because bending at the waist -- as I'm apparently doing in both of my pictures -- is a sure sign of an impending UPD. So today I concentrated on that as much as I could (while still concentrating on the other 78 things that I've learned I have to concentrate on in order to ride this thing), and it really helped. When I was able to remember to sit up straighter, I usually went farther; and regardless of how far I went, I could usually feel why it was "right" to sit up straighter.

So although today brought its share of frustration -- plenty of UPDs after only a few feet, a couple of new scrapes (that were my own fault because I'd accidentally hit myself with a pedal as I was walking back to my launch point), and little annoyances like dropping the unicycle right after picking it up after a UPD -- it also brought some progress:

• Many runs in the 20'-40' range
• Two or three runs that were as far as my longest rides last week
• A final ride of about 70'
• Probably most importantly, a more frequent feeling of being in control of my unicycle, and understanding how to make minor adjustments to avoid a UPD.

All in all, a good day!