Advanced slackline technique - Philosophy

Reinhard Kleindl February 25, 2009

Introduction

This book is about slacklining, with special emphasis on longlines. Its about how resonances in long slacklines originate, when they appear and why, how to train them, kill them, avoid them or how to estimate their character before you are even on the line. This is not a scientic work. We are not constructing bridges or mobilephones or laptops, so we dont need 100% accuracy. We allow ourselves to be a little more speculative and let intuition guide us to more phantastic and insecure ground. The aim of this book is to explore, open new possibilities and give a deeper view on the mental and physical aspects of the sport. Its main objective is not to improve your performance, but to promote a philosophy that oers objectives apart from sheer performance.

1.1

Philosophy

The most important dierence of slacklining, compared to other sports, is its approach to control. This is also the most interesting input that slacklinetraining can give. You dont train your sense of balance in slacklining; balance is the basic requirement. The value of slacklining is that it teaches you to let go of control. This is beautifully described by Scott Balcom in his book Walk the Line The Art of Balance and the Craft of Slackline: Focusing on balance is not about mental eort. There is no need to reach out to nd balance it is in you. Try to relax almost completely. This problem is especially clear on longlines: While you can indeed control shorter slacklines that have little weight, by using a lot of concentration, body tension and power, this in not possible on long and heavy lines. Short lines do not respond to your eorts of controling them; longlines do. On a short line, it is just you, the line has no memory, no life on its own. Balcom nds his own words for this: The line doesnt shake; you shake the line. The resonances in a longline are a factor that you interact with, like some sort of communication. Longlines will shake heavily if you have stress. In other sports, this stress is linked to higher eort of regaining control over the situation. On a longline, as your eort increases, the line will only shake harder. This causes a chain reaction that will end in failure. You cant solve the problem that way: You have to learn to relax in a stressy situation. Succeeding in this is a highly satisfying experience. 2

Figure 1: A longline in Linz - 100 Meters long) The search for control is deeply involved in all aspects of western culture, and also in sports science. There is some standard method for every movement, and every beginner is forced into this scheme before he is allowed to evolve. This has its origin in the fear of the unknown. The unknown also lies in your own body: No one is fully aware of how he or she manages to stay on the line. You cant do it only consciously, you have to let your body do most of the job. However, there is clearly some risk in letting go of control. Something unexpected can happen, and you can fail. On the other hand, the meaning of sports is often the search for hard challenges. Without the risk of failure, there is no sense in it. There are studies that the motivation for a task is highest if you have a fty-fty chance of succeding. So, there is no point in searching for full control. Slacklining shows that letting go of this approach can sometimes be the way to success. In this spirit, a statement must be made for tubular webbing, low tension and narrow lines. A beginner to the sport will favour broad lines with lots of tension: It reminds him of the solid ground he is used to. Such lines are a good motivation for beginners, who will quickly make progress. However, to develop further, one must start walking also slack tubular webbing. After

just a little practice, it will feel a lot easier than the sti lines. One reason for narrow lines is that you stand on them more safely. The other reason is an aesthetical one: You want the line to be only as broad as necessary. One inch away from ying is how Andy Lewis describes Highlining. Obviously, you want to be as close to ying as possible.

Figure 2: One inch away from ying . . .