we have finished the contents for the future Skill Level System.

Skill Level Contents

Here they are:

Extreme
Freestyle (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print)

Future Work

Of course we are not finished yet. There is still stuff todo, which is:

• Testing
  What is the setup for tests? How do standardized tests work?
• Skill Descriptions
  Give a detailed description for each skill listed in the skill levels
• Integration into the IUF
  Like, are there certs for passed tests?
• Education of Testers

And finally put it all into one document.

Unicon16 will take place in less than a year. We are quite excited already. Today, we would like to update you some news and organizational issues.

Enjoy reading and feel free to send us some Feedback.

We hope to see you all at Unicon16 in Brixen!

Take care,

the IUF Newsletter Team

Contents:

1. Unicon 16 & World Championship
2. IUF Membership Information
3. UNICON 17 Bid Process
4. International Event Calendar

Unicon16 & World Championship

by: David Weichenberger (Organization Committee)

Unicon16

Unicon16 is a huge unicyclist convention for the whole world, a joyful unicycle festival. Unicon16 brings all aspects of unicycling together in one place: Brixen, Italy.

Here, you will get to know unicyclists from foreign nations, ride together, and play together. The exchange of the different aspects of unicycling is important to us and at Unicon16 there will be lots of time and room for it.

Unicon16 is an event for all unicyclists. You are very welcome to put in your ideas and make it the greatest festival you can imagine.

Unicon16 can only take place with your help. Get involved now by writing an email to us at info@unicon16.it .

Unicycle World Championship

The Unicycle World Championships will be held as part of Unicon16. Following IUF rules, many different unicycling competitions will take place. The winners of each category will be the new world champions.

Registration

We have an all-time registration record for Unicons already. While I am writing this, the number of registered participants is over 1500, of which over two thirds are competitors. That’s twice as much as Unicon 15.

Depending on when you are signing up for Unicon16, prices will vary.

It will help us organize a lot, if you register early. Therefore, it is cheaper the earlier you register. Until December, it is €200 for competitors and €100 for non-competitors to register.

In order to make your decision easy, we will pay you back the fee in case you register and decide not to attend Unicon16 until April 30th 2012.

We are looking forward to host a big Unicon. Thank you 1500 times.

Click here to register: http://anmeldung.unicon16.it

Read more about registration on our Website.

IUF Membership Information

by: Ryan Woessner (IUF President)

Alongside registration for UNICON XVI, the IUF is excited to announce a new membership program.  While membership fees have been collected in the past, our new program will help bring unicyclists together from all over the world. Some highlights of the program:

• Each individual membership will cost 10 Euro and will last for a two-year period.
• Membership is open to any one.
• Any competitor or non-competitor wishing to participate in UNICON will be required to be members of the IUF.
• Membership dues are collected on our website (iufinc.org), which can be accessed via the UNICON XVI Registration Form.
• Individuals not registering for UNICON XVI may become members of the IUF on our website (iufinc.org).

Your membership fee allows for:

• Seed money for UNICON hosts;
• Development of unicycling around the world;
• Furtherance of the convention aspect of UNICON;
• Creation of an IUF Publication;
• Directors & Officers Insurance for the Executive Board;
• Expansion of online resources and database.

Upon becoming a member of the IUF, an individual will:

• Be able to participate in UNICON (if qualified through country method) and other IUF-sponsored events;
• Receive a quarterly electronic newsletter;
• Obtain a IUF Membership card and ID;
• Gain access to a personalized page on the IUF website;
• Connect with unicyclists from around the world through an international resource database;
• Test for the International Unicycling Federation Skill Levels;
• Support the development and growth of unicycling around the world.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact IUF President, Ryan Woessner, at ryan.woessner@gmail.com.  The IUF very much looks forward to continuing the expansion of unicycling around the world through the financial support of unicyclists.

UNICON 17 Bid Process

by: Ryan Woessner (IUF President)

Every two years, the International Unicycling Federation, along with a selected national organizing committee, sponsors UNICON, the World Championships and Convention of Unicycling.  UNICON is the largest gathering of unicyclists in the world.  Since 2000, the number of participants wishing to partake in UNICON events has skyrocketed, with over 2,000 individuals expected in Italy next summer.  The summer of 2014 will mark the 17^th time unicyclists from around the globe will gather with the purpose of expanding the sport of unicycling to more nations.

Organizing a UNICON is extremely time-intensive.  Because of this, the IUF Executive Committee recommends that Candidate Countries develop an organizing committee that contains a multitude of individuals from both the host country as well as other international volunteers.  Additionally, the IUF is here to help you develop ideas and initiate the bid process.  If you are interested in hosting UNICON XVII during the summer of 2014, please submit a bid to the IUF Executive Board by 1 January 2012.

Any national organization or host committee may bid for UNICON XVII.  This includes North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Oceana and Europe.  Please note that since UNICON XVI will be held in Europe (Italy), the IUF Executive Committee will consider diversifying continents depending on the number of candidate countries as of 1 January 2012. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact IUF President Ryan Woessner via email, ryan.woessner@gmail.com, at any time.

International Event Calendar

by: Olaf Schlote (IUF Director)

Originally, I planned to list all events I can get information about and ask around to collect the needed data. Soon I saw, though, that I couldn’t get a lot of useful information because many events are not placed yet or the organizers do not spread the word internationally. This brought me back to an idea we had when realizing late, that EUC 2011 summer edition and NAUCC 2011 were placed at the same weekend. This might not sound like a big problem because one took place in Hungary and the other in the USA, but it affected several riders’ plans. Today, a lot of riders travel a far way in order to take part in good conventions.

So me and a lot of other riders agreed, that there is a need to set up an international convention calendar which is online and accessible by all riders and editable by all organizers. In this calendar, you should be able to sort events by country and by discipline. You should be able to get a short description to each event and find a link to the event website. Best case scenario would be to provide all the information for an event and register right at that website.

In order to realize this project now, we need some good developers to get it started. We already have a sponsor for webspace and a domain. As often though, a lot of people want to use it, but it’s hard to find people who want to develop and run it. However, there is a need to do it. If you can imagine being in the team that creates the calendar, please send me an email: olaf.schlote@iufinc.org.

As for now, here’s a list of upcoming international events:

Winter EUC (Trial, Street, Flat)
Germany, 20.-22. January 2012

SUCK IV (Muni, Trial, Flat)
Slovenia, 28./29. April 2012

Mondo (Juggling, Unicycling)
USA , April 2012

CUT (Muni, Trial, Flat)

NAUCC (US Nationals)

Salzkammergut Trophy (Downhill and Long Distance XC)

Unicon16 (World Championships and Convention)

we got another lot of Feedback and are about to release the next prototypes. If there is not much negative feedback on them, we consider them as final versions.

Here they are:

Extreme
Freestyle (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print)

Jamey’s prototype didn’t change since the last publication. They can be understand as an update to the ancient skill levels with a recommendation to use the new one as the situation in germany has proven they can raise damage to the user. Check the old post for them.

Really cool support from really cool People: Shaun Johaneson and Kelly Hickman are supporting the skill levels with their new company Relentless by Fate. Check out their page, they have a damn lot tutorials right there, that bring you into flatland and street riding. Independently from us, they share the same opinions and background knowledge about how individuals can learn street and flatland. They agreed to align this more with the skill levels. We need to look out for the appropriate changes in the future, but I’m happy they joined in and can’t wait working with them. Thanks very much guys.

Please send feedback:

Discussion at RSU
Newspost auf einradfahren.de
Diskussion im deutschen Forum (German)

Thanks very much.

the Skill Level Development Committee has taken a break over the last month but we are back and happy to continue with our work towards new Skill Levels. We will continue with releasing prototypes.

We love your Feedback

We love your feedback and it is a pleasure to receive it. We are listening to it, discuss it and merge your ideas into our process. Recently we have received feedback not regarding the contents of the prototypes but the design they are presented. Along with it was an advise to release the prototypes in a table design, so people are able to instantly see the differences across all prototypes. We now present the prototypes in 3 different designs, which I will talk about:

The prototypes presentation

As said, we have 3 different presentation design, which are: List, Map/Graph and our new one Table. I would like to give you a little overview on them:

List

You are already in favor with this design. This has been used by the old Skill Levels form 1998 and deserves well for this purpose. This will be the design you present in gyms to unicyclists, mail around or publish on websites.

Map/Graph

This is actually my personal favorite design. It shows the connection between the levels. It’s easy to see which trick leads to which successive trick. This was originally developed as an experiment on the Trixionary. Click on the “Vollbild” button on the right to see the full trick graph. Play around with the graph, zoom and pan and enjoy the unicycling trick land. (Disclaimer: The Trixionary does not contain every trick). A highlighter for the skill level tricks is planned.

Table

The table design is especially crafted for the skill level development process. You can instantly see, which prototype contains which set of skills and how it compares to others. Very good.

Others?

If you have other ideas, please let us know or try it on your own and send us your result.

Prototypes

Hands on the prototypes, here they are:

Skill Level Prototypes as Table
Skill Level Prototypes as Table German Version

Extreme

Extreme III

Freestyle

Freestyle Levels IV – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)
Freestyle Levels V – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)
Freestyle Levels VI – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)

Prototype-F

In the meantime Jamey Mossengren came up with a new prototype. That’s mainly dependend on the skill levels from 1998 but put in new and modern tricks, as he said. Check out his prototype:

Prototype-F – (German)

Send Feeeeedback

We are pleased to receive the feedback we love from you until 15th of May.

Forum Post @ RSU
Forum Post @ unicyclist.com (German)
News Post @ einradfahren.de
IUF Skill Level Development Group at Facebook

Follow the IUF on Twitter or our like our Facebook Page to stay in Contact with us.

I hope that you are all enjoying a great start to 2011. I am very excited to announce that beginning in a few weeks, the IUF will begin a new membership program. While membership fees have been collected in the past, our new program will help in the process of bringing unicyclists together all over the world. Some highlights of the program:
- Each individual membership will cost 10 Euro and will last for a two year period.
- Any competitor or non-competitor wishing to participate in UNICON will be required to be members of the IUF.
- Membership dues will be collected on our website (iufinc.org) once the UNICON XVI Registration commences.
- Individuals who are not registering for UNICON XVI may become members of the IUF at a future date, TBD.

Membership fee will allow for:
(1) Seed money for UNICON hosts;
(2) Development of unicycling around the world;
(3) Further convention aspect of UNICON;
(4) Creation of an IUF Publication;
(5) D & O Insurance for Executive Board;
(6) Expansion of online resources and database

Upon becoming a member of the IUF, an individual will:
(1) Be able to participate in UNICON (if qualified through country method) and other IUF-sponsored events;
(2) Receive a quarterly electronic newsletter;
(3) Obtain a IUF Membership card and ID;
(4) Connect with unicyclists from around the world through an international resource database;
(5) Test for the International Unicycling Federation Skill Levels;
(6) Support the development and growth of unicycling around the world.

More information will be available soon.

Thanks again for your support of the IUF and the sport of unicycling across the globe.

Warm Wishes,
Ryan

President | International Unicycling Federation

Extreme Levels

Extreme Levels III

Freestyle Levels

These are a merge of the former Freestyle Levels II and III. The contents differ in spins. See the graph in the yellow area.

Freestyle Levels IV – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)
Freestyle Levels V – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)
Freestyle Levels VI – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)

Please tell us what you think about the prototypes and the other ideas included in this post. Feedback is gathered until 17th of october. There are many ways for you to submit your feedback (choose the right one for you):

New unicycle Skill Levels @ RSU
Neue Skill Levels Thread @ unicyclist.com (German)
Neue Skill Levels @ einradfahren.de
New Unicycle Skill Levels Facebook Group

While the skill level committee members are wrenching their brains in order to create skill levels that fit all types of unicycling, the other committees continue their work as well.

The world record committee, for example, has created some general guidelines for unicycle world records and is now looking into which records the IUF will acknowledge. Once this is done, there will be a database of all the records.

The executive board is developing the IUF’s first competitor limits for next Unicon, which will be held in Southtyrol in 2012. Plus the IUF itself is going to be restructured. In the future, there will be a memberships structure, a new  IUF National and Regional Representative Program and restructured IUF Directorships.

As you can see, there are going to be a lot of changes regarding the basics of our work. So check back regularly!

You can find the whole story in the discussion forums of the committee.

Prototype A (by Wolfgang Schaper)

Obviously the feedback says the following:

• I like the flexibility
• It’s too complicated
• It’s based on the standard skills list which is crap

we still don’t know, what to do with this prototype. We have deferred it so far, to rethink this one and get new ideas to form it into a more practical and easier prototype. Send in your ideas please.

Prototype B (by Hiroyuki Shoji)

These are the japanese skill levels, that’s why they have a division into school and club levels, because unicycling is teached in japanese schools. Though the japanese members of the skill level development committee said, there should be no division and there could be one skill levels for schools and clubs. So, prototype B can be easily merged with D and that’s what we have done (Freestyle-I and Freestyle-II). Anyway, the japanese are famous for their  spins and pirouettes, so yes we wanted to learn from them and will manifest those ways in the skill levels. So, Mayumi Sakaino altered the B and D and put in many exercises for spins. You find them as Freestyle-III below.

Prototype C (by Adrien Delecroix and Spencer Hochberg)

These guys have put together the skills for extreme unicycling, at least the technical aspects of it. So, there are two new versions of the original C-Prototype, now called Extreme-I and Extreme-II

Prototype D (by Thomas Gossmann)

Prototype D was the base for the merge with B and you will find them as Freestyle-I and Freestyle-II.

Prototype E (by Felix Dietze)

Many people like this prototype. That prototype tried to cover all types of unicycling in every aspect, with a choice for the individual and tries to guide you through this world. That’s why most people like it, unfortunately this is called a Trainingsplan and that is what’s prototype E. A trainingsplan is custumized for an individual or group to reach a certain goal (good result at a competition). Skill levels would be a part of your trainingsplan, and therefore prototype E exceeds this world and is not eligible for skill levels. What’s good about this, is that you can use each part of the prototype and build it together in your own trainingsplan. Spoken for myself: I am about discovering possible exercises for a trainingsplan in unicycling and will publish them as far as I go through this, so you will hear from prototype E.

Skill Levels – Some Notes for your understanding

While reading the feedback, I see skill levels are mostly misunderstood. So it’s time to clearify things in short.

• Skill Levels help you proceeding technically in the world of unicycling
• They are not meant to cover all skills (of a discipline), but give you a good foundation and let you to be creative
• No, they are not meant as competition qualification!

Prototypes, the 3rd Generation

Base Levels

Base Levels (German) – this document keeps 3 Variations in it. See the discussion in our forums thread.

Extreme Levels

Extreme Levels I
Extreme Levels II

Freestyle Levels

Freestyle Levels I – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)
Freestyle Levels II – (German) – (Graph) – (Graph print version)
Freestyle Levels III

Future

For the future, we need to look at the specific skills for each level in more detail. We must be absolutely sure with each skill and can give a reason for its existence to deliver a great product. As you can see, with Freestyle-III, there are a lot of skills and exercises, we cannot bring them all into the skill levels. We rather have the idea to start with an exercise catalog. So, skills or exercises that can’t get into the skill levels but on the other hand are extremly helpful, will make its way into the exercise catalog.
At the moment, there could be two different types of exercises in there:

1. The first one are exercises to help you reach a certain skill (at a specific level).
2. These are exercises the help you exploit skills you have learned (at a specific level). As stated above, the skill levels should provide you with a good foundation to continue with advanced skills, these types of exercises will give you additional guidance.

How do you like this idea?

Your Feedback

Please tell us what you think about the prototypes and the other ideas included in this post. Feedback is gathered until 18th of september. There are many ways for you to submit your feedback (choose the right one for you):

New unicycle Skill Levels @ RSU
Neue Skill Levels Thread @ unicyclist.com (German)
Neue Skill Levels @ einradfahren.de
New Unicycle Skill Levels Facebook Group

Or get in contact with us by Twitter @unicycling. You can also send me your Feedback via mail.

Stay in contact with the IUF by becoming a Fan on Facebook or follow us on Twitter, to receive updates on the IUF and the new Skill Level System.

Thank you so much in advance for your feedback.
gossi

the IUF Skill Level Development Committeee has been considering your feedback for the first Skill Level prototypes. The drafts got revised based on your feedback. Although much more progress showed up especially the last week(s), which unfortunately was to much for this round and will be included in within the next revision.

Here are the Prototypes:
A: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-A-20100727.pdf (Freestyle)
B: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-B-20100727.pdf (Freestyle)
C: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-C-20100727.pdf (Extreme = mainly Street + Flat)
D: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-D-20100727.pdf (Freestyle)
E: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-E-20100727.pdf (All)

We also have translated versions in german:
A: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-A-20100727-de.pdf (Freestyle)
B: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-B-20100727-de.pdf (Freestyle)
C: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-C-20100727.pdf (Extreme = mainly Street + Flat)
D: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-D-20100727-de.pdf (Freestyle)
E: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-E-20100727-de.pdf (All)

Please place your feedback along with one of the uppercase letters (found in the top right corner of each Prototype), that we can assign your feedback to the respective Prototype and avoid loosing yours.

Your feedback is taken into account, when we continue developing the new unicycle skill levels. Please send until 15th of August.

Important for second versions:
Further or later, we need to consolidate the good parts of the skill levels and combine them to one final version. Therefore we have some questions, we wan’t you to answer, to help us with this task. Please answer these questions for each prototype:

1. What do you like the most about this prototype? Explain why!
2. What do you dislike the most about this prototype? Explain why!
3. In case this would be the final prototype and try to imagine, you need to work with this one. How do you feel working with this prototype? Tell us about possible edges.

There are many ways for you to submit your feedback (choose the right one for you):
New unicycle Skill Levels @ RSU
Neue Skill Levels Thread @ unicyclist.com (German)
Neue Skill Levels @ einradfahren.de
New Unicycle Skill Levels Facebook Group
Or get in contact with us by Twitter @unicycling. You can also send me your Feedback via mail.

Stay in contact with the IUF by becoming a Fan on Facebook or following us on Twitter, to receive updates on the IUF and the new Skill Level System.

Thank you so much in advance for your feedback.
gossi

the IUF Skill Level Development Committeee has published the first Prototypes of new unicycle skill levels. Now the authors can’t wait for your constructive feedback.

Here are the Prototypes:
A: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-A-20100602.pdf (Freestyle)
B: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-B-20100602.pdf (Freestyle)
C: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-C-20100602.pdf (Extreme = mainly Street + Flat)
D: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-D-20100602.pdf (Freestyle)
E: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-E-20100602.pdf (All)

We also have translated versions in german:
A: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-A-20100602-de.pdf (Freestyle)
B: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-B-20100602-de.pdf (Freestyle)
C: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-C-20100602.pdf (Extreme = mainly Street + Flat)
D: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-D-20100602-de.pdf (Freestyle)
E: http://iufinc.org/files/levels/Skill_Levels_Prototype-E-20100602-de.pdf (All)

Please place your feedback along with one of the uppercase letters (found in the top right corner of each Prototype), that we can assign your feedback to the respective Prototype and avoid loosing yours.

Your feedback is taken into account, when we continue developing the new unicycle skill levels.

There are many ways for you to submit your feedback (choose the right one for you):
New unicycle Skill Levels @ RSU
Neue Skill Levels Thread @ unicyclist.com (German)
Neue Skill Levels Thread @ einradfahren.de
New Unicycle Skill Levels Facebook Group
Or get in contact with us by Twitter @unicycling. You can also send me your Feedback via mail.

Stay in contact with the IUF by becoming a Fan on Facebook or following us on Twitter, to receive updates on the IUF and the new Skill Level System.

Thank you so much in advance for your feedback.
gossi