“THIS is not dangerous,” said Daiki Izumida, with a unicycle in his hand. “Sometimes people are too afraid of falling down, hurting their hip, or their elbow, or their bottom.”

The only part of the anatomy he didn’t mention might get hurt during my half-hour unicycling masterclass is the one that is throbbing gently as I write.

“So first I teach you to safely get down,” he continued, showing that you dismount forwards with the foot from the highest pedal – if you lead with the lowest foot, the bike will disappear beneath you and your dismount will be a disgrace.

The only difficulty is that before you can safely get down, you have to get up.

For Daiki, that is easy. To him, balancing at high speeds at great heights on a single wheel with no brakes, is entirely natural. He spins round – stop, start, bounce, turn – so effortlessly it looks as easy as falling off a bike.

Daiki, 38, from Tokyo, is a former unicycle world champion – five or six world titles, he can’t remember how many precisely. He’s a Guinness world record holder. He’s been a pro for 18 years and has been unicycling since he was nine in Tokyo.

This is, though, is his debut at the Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF17), and today and tomorrow he and his unicycling partner Cheeky Chiharu are offering free unicycling masterclasses before the circus shows on Saturday and Sunday.

To begin, he placed the saddle against my crotch. The right pedal was low and slightly behind the centre of the wheel. I put my weight onto it so it acted as a brake as he and Cheeky revolved me up into the saddle.

“Relax,” said Daiki, which was hard to do when the bike, an inanimate machine, had a mind of its own and was bucking and rolling like a stallion on wheels.

The key, said Daiki, is the core. Backbone straight, head upright, look ahead.

To me, the key was my crotch. It kept getting crunched. Up onto the saddle – crunch. Sit down on the saddle – crush. I don’t have this trouble on my pushbike.

Daiki set his world record in Hong Kong for the most bounces over a skipping rope while on a unicycle in a minute. He managed 214 in 60 seconds. A feat of great athletic achievement and also, I imagine, of some endurance – he doesn’t, he told me, have children.

With Daiki holding one arm and Cheeky the other, I got up, I got steady, I got a bit of balance, I got forward motion. I almost got the sensation of freedom, of flying, of being in total control that must come with unicycling unsupported.

But it was only the most fleeting of feelings.

“In Japan,” said Let’s Circus ringmaster Steve Cousins, “they have unicycles and stilts in the schoolplayground, and they understand that it is valuable for the body in terms of balance and agility but also getting the two hemispheres of the brain talking together.”

My hemispheres are obviously not on speaking terms, but my other spherical objects are recovering.

  • Free circus workshops in Parish Gardens, off the High Street, are held from 1.30pm this afternoon. For more info, call 01642-528130, visit sirf.co.uk/carnival-jamboree or drop in at the Magpie tent in the Gardens.