Day 2
One and a half hours worth of bocking, it was raining all morning so I waited till it all stopped and started to dry up.
Probably not the smartest thing in the world to bock around on a moist brick work drive-way but at least I didnt fall down, mind you, I slipped around a couple of times but not enough to throw me off balance.
Ive pretty much solved the ducking issue, I just started walking all over again, taking small steps at first, one at a time, with the adjacent hand following the adjacent knee (thats left hand following right knee for instance).
I kept my head up and looked forward all the time, never seeing exactly how my feet where doing but I knew that my toes were pointing forward because of the way my strides were, small and slow.
I brought my knees up each time with my legs slightly apart, now I only bang the Knee-bars and springs on rare occasions but I guess in time, I'll learn to do it without a single knock.
With learning to walk all over again, I decided to take bigger and longer steps, eventually turning them into long strides, before I knew it I was running!! bounding from foot to foot.
Stopping was alot more easier than I first thought, just slow down and then bend at the knee to absorb the stilts impact.
It was almost like bouncing on a trampoline or bouncy castle, if you wanted to stop going to high or stop jumping completely, you just bent your knees to absorb the impact.
Speaking of jumping, I thought it was time I tried it at least once, I held onto a nearby fence of mine and just tried jumping on the spot.
It didnt work out at first and wasnt getting much height at all, in fact... I wasnt even getting off the ground to begin with.
I discovered it was alot harder to compress both springs at the same time than just one at a time, I was bending my knees to try at least getting of the ground, it worked, but once again, it was only a few centimeters off the ground.
Then I thought "Why am I trying to do what the springs will do for me?!" and then it dawned on me. I somewhere shifted my center of gravity slightly behind me, jumped up once and then locked me knees straight...
Before I knew what I did... I was around a foot into the air!! It was a good thing I was still holding onto the fence as the landing was very bad
I figured out that I should be trying to jump using my heels and not the balls of my feet as you would normally.
With that new found knowlegde in mind, my walk improved, my run improved, my hops improved, my bounce improved and my jumps improved!
Still not gonna let go of that fence mind untill my landings improve
Getting up un-aided is still a major problem, I thought it best to not try it on the moist brick work of the drive way, so I went into the garage, that has a lino covered floor.
In hindsight, not the best place to do it really as lino doesnt offer the best of grip and I think I would have been more secure, though wetter, outside on the driveway.
I dont think I have the leg muscules yet in order to pull it off, I had a hard time even swinging the stilt from behind to infront of me and constantly found myself falling over when I brought my leg up.
I eventually got to the point where I managed to get both "hoofs" to touch the floor again instead of my knees and toes but the amount of energy I was using to just get to that point ment I couldn't go any further.
I cheated while holding onto a desk to get back up again.
Back to the drive way, I improved my sense of balance while standing still using smaller stabilizing steps each time.
Bouncing around was fun, using what I had learnt in the jump, I applied it to simple bounces and hops using my hips to propel myself forward, it was alot easier to hop around than to jump, so hopefully tomorrow I'll discover a way to land correctly without stumbling around the place.
Now completely exhausted from the hour and a half of bocking around, I took the stilts off a found that I had a little bruise/graze/rash (yea, all in one) where my knee bar was, I think I might have done up the leg strap a bit too tightly, or not enough? Or I might just need to adjust the knee bar again...
