Because The Girl (who is 8) is interested in dance (taking Ballet, Jazz, Tap, and Irish dance lessons this past year...) and bikes - and BMX bikes! I started showing her some flatland videos - in particular a lot of videos of women doing flatland - that I mostly found over at Yeah Zine. I figured dance + bmx = flatland, right? The two could certainly complement each other - not to mention the fact that flatland would probably cause her mother considerably less anxiety that the though of her going face-first into the hard concrete of the bowl at the local skate/bike park.
Yesterday I picked up some pegs I know would fit on her front fork - which wasn't really designed to accomodate pegs (maybe it's mroe of a dirt jumping bmx..? I don't know...). I wasn't sure of the size of the rear axel when I was at the bike shop... have to get some more pegs for that later - but the front was a start for us to start practicing scuffing and balancing over the front wheel. So this morning we went out and "sessioned" the sidewalk in the park near our house...
Despite offers to "help her out" she mostly wanted to try stuff on her own - which is a much better way to learn stuff anyway...
I can tell her to try and keep her weight balanced over top of the front wheel or whatever... but until she feels that on her own it won't mean anything...
I took a couple short video clips as well... but I thought I'd save those for when I can put them together with some clips of when she's actually getting better at it.
She spent over an hour out here working on pretty much one thing.... and didnt' get terribly far... but she has a lot of patience and if I can get her out doing this EVERY day (actually it won't be trouble getting HER out - it'll be getting ME out that'll be the trick) and she keeps the same focus and concentration, I don't doubt we'll see some definite improvement before the snow flies again...
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