Slacklining Described

Basking in the radiant chill of a February afternoon, his aviator sunglasses rendering him inscrutable and his unrestrained black hair blowing in the wind, Satish Shrestha is a picture of serenity. Arms extended, he teeters on an inch-wide stretch of webbing. From a distance, it seems impossibly thin. Satish is “slacklining”, a sport with a small, dedicated following on Gonzaga’s campus.

The practice involves balancing atop a nylon line strung up between two anchor points. More daring slacklining enthusiasts string their webbing across canyons. Satish is a first year ORGL graduate student, who has only been doing this since March. He was content to anchor his nylon between a pair of trees on the Jundt Art building lawn. We were fortunate enough to get some shots and video of his high-wire act before trying it out ourselves.

In spite of being at this less than a year, Satish was competent enough to instruct us in the basics: careful balance, rigid focus and a steely resolve to keep as much of your foot in contact with the line as possible. Whatever you do, though, do not look down. “It’s like riding a bike,” said Satish. “You’re not supposed to look at the handlebars.”

As each of us tried, with varying degrees of success, it became increasingly obvious that getting onto the wire was just the beginning. Slacklining has an artistic element to it as well. “Try to dance with it,” Satish told us, smiling like a graceful swami. And we did, with considerably less elegance than him, and with many more stumbles. But there were lessons in that part too. “Falling is a part of life,” Satish told us. “When you fall, you get back up.” Life lessons from slacklining. Who knew?