Reviewing the Skill Levels (Closed for comments)
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Started
It would be nice to know if there is a direction the IUF is taking toward updating the Skill Levels, or not. I see Gossi's proposal is on the web site (and looks official) but the Rulebook lists the current Skill Levels without comment. There is a thread on Facebook (Unicycle Chat) about why skills are in certain levels and it generated some discussion so this must be on people's minds. Here is the intro to the thread:
- Do you agree that one-footed IDLING is easier than one-footed RIDING? If so, does it then seem odd that in the Unicycling Society of America skill levels, that riding one footed is a level 4 skill, yet idling one footed is a level 5 skill?
Since the USA Rulebook is a direct descendent of the IUF Rulebook this seems a good place to start the chat. I know this comes up frequently but thought I'd start the discussion here so I can have answers for those asking these kinds of questions.
Comment
If we get a Skill Levels discussion going, I would request to move it to its own section. Skill Levels and Freestyle are two different things.
I read the comparison between one-foot riding and one-foot idling and indeed it sounds backward. Upon reading the levels again, it makes more sense. In Level 4, you must ride one-foot for 10 meters. In Level 5, you must idle 25 times *with each foot*. That's an increment of difficulty beyond one-foot riding, but not necessarily levels 4 and 5. When creating those levels, it was hard enough to put all the skills in a logical sequence, let alone trying to keep them relatively equal in difficulty among the levels. Difficulty is a very subjective thing between tricks and no system is likely to get it perfect.
In the quest to make better levels, any discussion might be best served by suggesting corrections or better approaches.
A note about descendents:
The IUF Rulebook is a direct descendant of the USA Rulebook, not the other way around. But the 10 levels were created at the IUF level, and later adopted by the USA. The original 4 levels were a USA thing, but when they were developed (1979) there wasn't an IUF. In more recent years, the USA has stopped trying to maintain a separate book and has adopted most of the IUF Rulebook as a base, then added their own stuff where they choose to do things differently.
Comment
The skill level discussion is honestly not even part of the Rulebook Committee. This should be discussed elsewhere. Kenny, send me an email and we'll talk about where this can go.
I'm going to close this discussion.