Cycling & bikes - Quick report on Israel Team to Unicon 12 and unicycling in Israel

Hi all,

Here is a quick report on my efforts to promote unicycling in Israel on a recent trip.
I will be brief, and hope that Oded Cohen and Tami Yanai, who are very active
will add comments (Oded, I don't have Rami's email handy so please cc to him).

MEETING IN HERZELIA

On December 10, 2003 (Oded, please confirm) I visited a practice session in Herzelia.
Rami Yanai, who practiced with unicycling in Japan some 20 years ago, is the instructor.
He is head of the Israel Unicycle Center (correct name in English?) and travels all
over Israel promoting unicycling and teaching courses.

Oded Cohen, his partner, is also extremely enthusiastic and runs a unicycling websites
in Hebrew, some of which are under construction. By the way, Oded translated my unicycling
terminology glossary into Hebrew and plans to translate my booklet ANYONE CAN RIDE A
UNICYCLE into Hebrew.

http://www.tapuz.co.il/tapuzforum/ma...?id=440&pass=1
www.unicycle.org.il
www.unicycle.co.il

PROMOTING UNICYCLING IN ISRAEL

Quite a number of unicyclists came together in honor of my visit. one of my goals
was to demonstrate effective techniques for teaching beginners, which are described
in booklet ANYONE CAN RIDE A UNICYCLE, based on techniques developed by
Bill Jenack "The Father of Modern Unicycling". For this I asked for someone who has
never unicycled and demonstrated that beginners can learn to ride in less than an hour.
It took this boy (Oded, what's his name) about an hour and he was riding seven eight
revolutions of the wheel. You can see a picture of him at:

http://users.tapuz.co.il/unicycling/...s/DSCN1123.jpg

The are many pictures of the event at:

http://users.tapuz.co.il/unicycling/...ting/page1.htm

ISRAEL TEAM TO UNICON 12

The other goal I have in mind was to organize the Israel Team to Unicon 12. They don't
have definitive numbers in mind, but it is quite certain that for the first time in Unicon
history there will be a *real* Israel Team -- a team that consists of someone other than
myself. At every Unicon I have always been the sole representative form Israel.

BRAZIL TEAM TO UNICON

By the way, I did quite a bit of promotion work in Brazil, formed the Brazil Unicycle
Association, started unicycling in a school there, and am helping bring the Brazil
Team to Unicon 12. I should write a full report on this but am under enormous pressure.
I will continue working in the background to bring other teams, and will do my best
to report once in a while.

AND ARUBA

Oh, I took my unicycle to Aruba, a former Dutch colony island north of Venezuela,
where I was riding around and the chief editor of the local paper took notice, wrote
articles in the local papers with pictures. No one knew how to say "unicycle" in the
local language, Papiamento, but it must be UNICICLO or MONOCICLO since the
language is closely related to Spanish.

That's it for today, from the roaming unicycling ambassador :-)

Regards, Jack Halpern
President, The CJK Dictionary Institute, Inc.
http://www.cjk.org Phone: +81-48-473-3508

Stay on top, Jack Halpern
Executive Director for International Development
International Unicycling Federation, Inc.
Website: http://www.kanji.org