One of the most significant experiences I have had in recent years was when I taught myself to ride a unicycle. It was something I had wanted to learn for a long time, and I was excited to get started. I was a little concerned that it might prove too difficult to learn a new physical activity of this nature as an adult. In the end it was more challenging than I imagined, but it was also more rewarding that I ever could have hoped. Learning to ride a unicycle taught me, balance and coordination, but more importantly, it taught me to overcome obstacles, and most importantly it changed the way I approach goals. In high school all my extra curricular activities were in art, band, chorus, and drama; I was never an athlete and never considered myself physically coordinated. I did not have a natural aptitude for unicycling when I started. Obviously, in order to ride the unicycle I had to learn balance, and the need to spend enough time to practice required that I build up my physical endurance. In the beginning, I found it hard to put in the daily practice time of thirty minutes, but by the time I was able to fully ride the unicycle it …show more content…
From the very beginning, it was a challenge to find enough space to practice daily; I only had a small driveway, and I would never have even considered learning in the middle of my busy street. Eventually, I cleared enough room to create a straight path from one end of the hallway, through the living room, and into the kitchen. By far, the hardest challenge to overcome was the fear of falling. Some unicyclists would say that riding is simply a continuous controlled fall. A potential rider who is afraid to fall will not be able to take the necessary risks to lean out and move forward on the unicycle. The way I overcame this was to just fall, and fall a lot; many times it hurt, but I would have to climb back on and keep trying. Finally, there came a day when I stopped