A Balancing Act

Most people have a stupid human trick or some quirky skill. I was kind of frustrated as a kid when I had nothing to show at a camp talent show or, my school So I started looking for a challenge.

While looking through a unique toy catalog when I was little I stumbled across something I had seen people do, but wondered if I could master it myself. It was a pair of stilts. This was something that none of my friends were asking for, but also not something that would be too hard, or expensive for me to at least try. So, on the birthday list, it went.

When November came I opened a very long box and started practicing, I found that I had the balance to start making progress, and I’d walk around my house on the stilts. After all, this was November in Minnesota, I would’ve frozen and slipped outside.

The thing was I wanted a better, more interesting, challenge skill. I kept looking through the toy catalog, and something else caught my eye, a kid-sized, red, unicycle. “Could I ride that?” I wondered to myself. Well, I wrote it on my Christmas list and hoped for the best. Christmas came, and I open it. Now, I think I tried it in my basement, but that toy was really going to have to wait for the sidewalk.

So I anxiously waited for spring. When the snow had melted, and I got home from school. I grabbed it from the garage and started trying. At first, I held onto my Mom’s or Dad’s or sister’s arm, I started trying to balance. It was hard. After I was able to sit up on the cycle, I would hold onto the stair railing at my house and try to go as far as I could, marking my new distance with a rock from my yard. Slowly I made it farther and farther, still wobbly of course. After weeks, nay, months of work, I could get across the sidewalk. Now I wanted to go down the street. So I started at my mailbox and rode as far as I could. I was riding a unicycle!

I then decided I wanted to try and get up on the unicycle without the help of a mailbox, so I worked on that, soon enough I was able to mount, and ride, and dismount, all by myself, and gracefully too.

Well, my Mom and Dad saw my progress and wanted to support me, so my Dad started looking into finding a group or place that I could unicycle, beyond the neighborhood, that’s when we found Twin Cities Unicycle Club and went to a meeting to see what it was like. I loved it and shortly thereafter we signed up and I started trying to pass skill level tests. I got through the first and second level after a few months, and I even graduated to an adult-sized unicycle and did fine with that.

What was also fun is that I got to ride in some local parades with the group, and learn routines, my best friend even came to one of the parades to see me. While part of the club I got to learn how to play unicycle hockey as well. I am so happy I was able to be a part of that group and learn something new and fun.

Fast forward to today and I still have my unicycle and I can still ride. It’s a challenge that keeps me testing my own balance and helps provide me with the skills to do other things, like trying to slalom ski, a more recent endeavor.

We all need unique challenges in life. I’ve realized in fact that this is one of the ways that I’ve broken the mold in the past. None, of my friends caught on to unicycling, but that’s okay because I can surprise others with it for the rest of my life!