In 1985 I was working on my juggling, and my girlfriend told me about a new Circus Theatre School, called Fooltime. That name was to become famous all over Europe as a top centre of teaching and innovation in New Circus (i.e. circus skills performed theatrically with narrative - not just the "Hey look at me, I'm clever" style). But right then Fooltime was brand new, and only a mile from my door. So I went down to check it out one night, when they had a juggling workshop.
Fooltime was in a deprived Caribbean area of the inner city (Bristol, England), rather lively, but I was used to it. As I walked into the heart of the district, the light was dim, and *everyone* was out on the streets. The atmosphere was electric and everyone was looking over where I was headed. All I could see was a shimmering sea - quite unusual when you expect to see a dirty grey road. As I got closer I realised what it was - hundreds of police riot shields in formation, glistening in the lights. It was a historic moment. The police had been creating more and more tension recently, and then had barged in violently to arrest a couple of people for drugs (they found nothing) with several vans of police. This may be quite usual in America, I don't know, but in a small English city it was Overkill (that's a capital 'O'). The small community had had enough and reacted by ejecting them. The riots continued for a couple of days, and inspired copycats around English inner cities. I never got to that juggling session! Neither did another chap I met, who was going for some fire juggling, carrying a can of paraffin - kind of difficult to explain to police bombarded with petrol bombs.
Well next week I made it to Fooltime, and discovered another world. A large hall kitted out with toys of all kinds: trapezes, mats, walking globe, tightrope, slackrope, walking ladders,.. and a long row of unicycles hanging on the wall. I decided at once that this kindergarten for adults was the place for me! I spent most of the next several years around the place, learning everything in sight.
I learned to unicycle in a few days concentrated effort and was soon cycling backwards across the hall, with an upended crash-mat to cushion my arrival at the wall. I never did hit it, my terror always felled me first. A Danish acrobat dropped in for a while, and showed me my first tricks. I wasn't even hovering then. He showed me the suicide mount, and then the kick-up mount. The kick-up looked totally impossible, but he told me it was easy really and pushed me to do it. It was only later I discovered it's a level 6 skill. It took me a couple of hours before I got it, and yes, it's not that difficult. Anyone who hasn't tried it yet-do it! It looks amazing, and 80% of the difficulty is overcoming the terror of attempting something that only LOOKS deadly dangerous.
Another tip: Hovering eluded me for quite a while, I would wobble and migrate across the floor sideways. But I then learned a bit of tightrope walking, and afterwards suddenly hovering was easy - no effort at all. This rope (cable) was only a foot off the ground, and if you don't have access to one, just use a very thin rod or stiff edge of something securely resting on the floor. You keep your head up, looking at the horizon not the floor (like unicycling), and balance on one foot. The rope goes along your sole from between your big toe and the next one, diagonally to the middle of your heel. When you wobble impossibly far to one side, instead of giving up and falling off, you think 'UP' and stretch with your arms and body vertically upwards (not sideways to counteract the direction you're falling). You can recover from ridiculous positions, and your sense of balance is finely tuned up. Try taking steps too of course.
Anyway, my unicycling took a temporary interruption, as I practiced on a uni with a bent crank. It dug into my ankle, and gave me a minor fracture and tendon injury. My leg was completely cased in plaster, and suddenly I had the perfect prop for that week's clowning lessons. The next week was trapeze lessons, which were a little tricky. Pull-ups and pikes get hard with a few extra kilograms on your leg. I was quite happy, but other people got distinctly nervous with me doing handstands next to them...
So I finally bought my own uni, and a few days later was wheeling it up a steep hill of trendy shops in town when a hand descended on my shoulder. Oh my God what have I done? 'Can you ride that thing?' said the stranger. 'Yes, pretty well' I replied. 'Great do you want a job?' He managed a cut-price jeans shop and loved unicycles, although he'd never seen one in the flesh. He booked me to cycle around on saturdays giving out leaflets about his shop on my uni, which paid for my uni four times over and gave me practice manouevering inside slow crowds of people - very handy.
Well that's enough for now, except to say my other job is publishing micro-miniature books. But about that news I promised:
In England there are two blokes who recently started up Mountain Unicycling. They used to compete seriously in standard mountain bike competition events, then gave it a go on unicycles for a laugh. They beat 9 other teams! (Those people looked very sheepish when they saw what they had lost to.) Then they entered a major 2-day event, the Polaris Challenge, on their unis. Out of over 550 teams, they beat 100 other teams (who only had state of the art 18-geared mountain bikes). The full stories (hilarious), with their tips, can be found in 'The Catch', issues 10 and 11, and probably future ones.
I'd recommend reading the Catch anyway, it's witty and lively. It's the major British magazine for 'juggling, new circus, and street theatre' and includes everything else too. No, I don't work for them, but I read it from cover to cover. If you want to read up on mountain unicycling, copies are 1.50 plus P&P. Overseas subscriptions 15 inc. P&P. Write to The Catch, Moorledge Farm Cottage, Knowle Hill, Chew Magna, Bristol, BS18 8TL.
Tim Sheppard