>From my experience working with the National Circus Project, and with
>hundreds of physical education teachers in hundreds of schools,
>ambidextrousity is more of a disorder than a desirable characteristic. It is
>normal for a person to have a dominant side, and a non-dominant side. A
>truly ambidextrous person, as I understand it, lacks that dominance.
Please cite your sources, John.
I'm now convinced the that desire and persistence required to learn to
ride a unicycle may be more of a disorder than a desirable
characteristic. 8->
You are certainly not suggesting that a non-ambidextrous person
working hard to become ambidextrous in his sport will develop a
disorder rather than a desirable characteristic.
>This is not to suggest that skills shouldn't be learned with the opposite
>foot (or hand)! Especially the basic unicycling skills, such as idling,
>mounting, and perhaps riding one foot, should be learned with both feet. I
>don't know if any amount of practice can make the non-dominant side as
>skilled as the dominant side, but it's easier than you think to train it.
>The non-dominant side will learn most skills more quickly than the dominant
>side, as long as the dominant side already knows how to do it.
I don't agree, the non-dominant side will take longer to learn a
skill, since by definition the dominant side always learns faster.
Perhaps what you really mean can be illustrated by the following
example: A unicyclist who learned to ride one footed five years ago
with his dominant foot, and just learned to glide with his dominant
foot, decides its about time he learn to ride one footed with his
non-dominant foot. So based on his accumulated experience over the
past five years in other skills using both the dominant and
non-dominant foot, learning to ride one footed with his non-dominant
foot may now be a "piece of cake" (take less time than it did five
years ago for his dominant foot.)
>When you can do the basic skills with both feet, you will be a stronger, more
>stable rider, and better able to recoup your balance in all situations.
It seems you are suggesting that ambidextrousness should be a goal for
only basic skills.
I have and continue to suggest that ALL skills should be done
ambidextrously (in every possible way you can define a skill in an
ambidextrous sense - i.e. hop with the right pedal forward as well as
hop with the left pedal forward - one footed skills are not the only
skills that need to be worked on in an ambidextrous sense!). Also
start learning a skill with the non-dominant foot, when you begin to
have some success learning that same skill with the dominant foot.
The IUF Achievement Skill Levels give a weighting to ambidextrousness
between our two extremes. Often a one-footed skill in one level must
be done with both the left and the foot in the next or second next
level.
To be fair to you, John, I think you probably agree with the amount of
ambidextrousness that the skill levels require.
Hey, is this the beginning of our first controversy, here on the uni
list? The person that posts last wins! 8-)
Stop on Top,
Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>