A Hobby Hijacked

Can I just take a minute to vent a bit? In my search and surf for information about tightrope, SO much of what I come across isn’t related to actual tightroping at all! Tightrope and highwire are used as metaphors for everything—much to my dismay…or annoyance and indignation depending on the day. My grand hobby has been hijacked!

Though it hinders my efforts to find useful information for self-training, I could come to terms with my passion being an overused metaphor. After all, I’m definitely guilty of excessive tightrope analogizing myself…this blog is the evidence. Besides, I should feel proud that my obsession and ambition is a feat that captures people’s imagination, that the words are evocative and compelling. If only that were all. When you search Amazon.com using the keywords tightrope or highwire, some¹ of the books are actually about:

• Women and fat oppression 
• Small group teams 
• Vietnamese American family life 
• Gay priests
• Soviet women 
• LAPD leadership 
• Diabetes 
• Zen for actors 

• Human rights in China 
• African Americans in the corporate world 
• Stress
• Bioethics 
• Valued aging 
• + Lots of biographies, novels, and life-balance self-help books

I confront this array of topics with dismay: embattled minorities, controversy, dilemmas, almost impossibly narrow margins for victory. They are important topics, but still…I protest! I object! I feel somehow…betrayed. Balancing is my happy place. Those books are not.

Fine, yes, tightwires are narrow, highwires are high, the risks are real, so I grudgingly admit that it seems like a good metaphor for situations where the solution isn’t easy and the margin for victory is slim. Hopefully some of the above books at least give some suggestions for navigating their chosen “tightrope act.” Just the same, given the depressing array of topics listed above, I feel it is my duty as a tightwire-obsessed, controversy-avoidant, happy-ending-loving equilibrist blogger to provide some balance: I’m doing my level best to gather and put down in this blog space as many purely inspiring, deeper, and richer analogies as I can.

So to end, here are a few of my favorite quotes² that go beyond the mere narrowness of the cable and focus on what makes tightrope inspiring:

Humor	A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. ~William Arthur Ward
Risk	Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope. ~Edith Wharton
Persistence	Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. ~Oprah
Love	I walk that tightrope of love for you The rope is narrow in size But loving you makes it seem so wide ~Charlie Foxx

Humor, love, persistence, and going outside our comfort zone, plus proof of our nearly limitless potential to achieve the seemingly impossible—that is what highwire and tightrope are all about for me.

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¹ If you replicate my search on Amazon you will probably note that I pick and choose from amongst the results for dramatic effect. Call it artistic license or dramatization, it undoubtedly fails scientific standards of an unbiased, representative cross-section.

² I reserve the right to use these as my header quote in later posts. Don’t despise me, extensive internet surfing has only yielded a finite quantity of tightwire quotes and analogies. If you have any you’d like to share, please do—I collect.

Circus Warehouse

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"Where the circus stars come to train and teach…"
 ~www.circuswarehouse.com

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Tightwires and tightwire coaches are in rather scarce supply in small cities far away from major circus centers—like where I currently live. When I have an opportunity for lessons at a circus school, it’s an opportunity not to be passed up. In March I had a chance for not one but two private tightwire lessons at New York’s Circus Warehouse. It was a turning point and milestone on this journey. 

Circus Warehouse is indeed in a warehouse/industrial district—across the train tracks, right down by the river in Long Island City. A circus world hidden in a warehouse—although their logo depicts the reverse. 

For me Circus Warehouse was a glimpse into a world of possibilities quite removed from the improvised solo training I’ve done so far. The changing area near the entrance door was a small columnar circus tent—the transition point where street garb and the outside world were exchanged for exercise clothing and circus discipline. Beyond the changing tent, apparatus filled the high-ceilinged room: vertical Chinese poles, aerial silks, straps, lyra, and static trapeze, rigging and nets for the flying trapeze, open tumbling and dance space. Then there were the performers in training: lean, strong, focused, relaxed, and seemingly comfortable in their own skin as only dedicated athletes can be.

In between the far wall and the flying trapeze nets was the tightwire, set about two feet high for easy practice. A real tightwire. I’ve already invested so much in this dream of wire walking even though, including this trip, I’ve only walked on actual tightwires a handful of times. Perhaps that is one reason why this experience was important—it reaffirmed that my love of tightwire isn’t just an untested hunch or mere fantasizing. 

I had the circus atmosphere, the equipment, next on the list to make this experience complete was a tightwire coach. My instructor was Sonja Harpstead, a professional student at the Warehouse. I can’t give Sonja high enough praise. First of all, yes, admittedly I’m a little star struck with anything—or anyone—circus. To me, Sonja radiated the quiet confidence, discipline, knowledge, and circus ethos that I would like to acquire. Even more importantly, she was a good instructor; she built on what I already know from my balance pipe and slackline training, she added to that what is applicable to tightwire specifically. She also factored in my lack of frequent access to circus instruction: over the course of those two lessons she ran me through as many different drills and skills as we could fit in. The feedback for things to focus on, things to avoid, and a huge list of things to work on was invaluable. 

Through the lessons I gained confidence in my balance skill—Sonja said I have good form and a good foundation. Since incorporating the training drills into my practice sessions at home during the last four weeks, I’ve seen significant progress in my balancing: for snatches of moments I can balance moving only my forearms—a level of near stillness that I didn’t come anywhere close to previously. The time at the Warehouse was also a glimpse into the world of circus with professional equipment, quality instruction, and a community. 

Stacey and Sonja

Although tightwire instruction was a major priority, the real purpose for going to New York was to spend time with my friend Stacey. She should get an award for listening to circus babble for three days. Luckily she enjoys trying new (and preferably random) things, so I delightedly took the opportunity to drag her along to circus school. Seeing her poise on the wire—the poise of a former dancer—I added ballet classes to my list of things to try in the near future, a growing list of tangential thing that tightwire inspires me to try. (I’ll probably have a few posts on some of those tangents I imagine). 

Just as important as my time in the Warehouse were the heart-to-hearts with my friend. Like I said, she deserves a medal. First, I can’t think of anyone in my life who believes in me more and with such simple matter-of-factness. She let me talk (obsess); she pushed me to articulate my goals, and helped me talk through how I could meet those goals. 

During those three days in New York, a wish to fulfill a childhood dream turned to courage to pursue a concrete goal. A quote from Walt Disney sums up what I brought home from New York—a conviction that was better than any souvenir I could buy: “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” 

Here’s to courage. Thank you Stacey and Sonja.

Winter Training Toy

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Make your passions part of your everyday life…or part of your decor

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With spring underway and the weather improving, I am looking forward to setting up my slackline and enjoying fresh air and sunshine while I balance. Before trading my indoor practice sessions for outdoor ones, I want to take a moment to appreciate how much I’ve accomplished through the winter on my indoor homemade training toy: my practice pipe. 

Last year, knowing that my access to slacklines and handrails would end with the onset of winter’s snows, I built a balance pipe/tightwire simulator--an idea from wirewalker Matthew Wittmer's website--with the help of my father and grandfather:

Conduit pipe, straps, 2x4's,
and conduit connectors.

Modular pieces makes for flexible lengths.  
Mine can be 5 – 20 feet long.

     

Fifteen feet (three sections) live in the spare room of the basement for long training sessions. The final five feet function as permanent décor in my bedroom:

Yes, I traverse the distance between my desk and my closet on my balance pipe, and I willingly admit that I still get a kick out of that fact. It’s definitely quirky but, after all, it is a great way to pack in a few extra seconds of balance training every day. My passion has definitely become part of the landscape of my life...and that's how it should be.

I've learned and improved quite a bit through the winter--reassuring evidence that much can be accomplished even with limited space, simple equipment and through the cumulative effect of even small snatches of practice.  

Never Balanced

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"Balance is a constant movement in and out of equilibrium. If you try to hold on to it, you will fall."

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Philippe Petit, who in 1974 danced a quarter of a mile high on a wire strung between the Twin Towers of New York, confessed to a friend that as much as he strives for perfect stillness on the wire—strives to be perfectly balanced—it is simply impossible¹. It is impossible even for the most elite of equilibrists: daring wirewalkers who cross the Grand Canyon, walk blindfolded, hop with baskets tied to their feet, or tip toe en pointe.

Here is the lesson: in the present at least we are never balanced, we are always balancing.

 I believe the same is true of our metaphorical life-balance. If we strive to have a perfectly “balanced” life and hold on to that perfect balance, we will most likely fail. There are times and seasons of our life; we’ll almost always be out of balance in one area of our life or another, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing: forward momentum only comes when we move outside our current point of balance.

One of my favorite tightwire balance metaphors/applications explains why that constant movement in and out of equilibrium is actually good thing: The Tightrope Walker: Achieving Relative Balance in Your Life. I highly recommend it. 

Let me end with one of the summary points from the article:

"Don’t be upset that perfect balance does not exist, for it is that very lack of perfect balance that will actually propel you forward."

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¹ The Tightrope Walker by Hermine Demoraine (1989).

All the World's a Balance Beam

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"Give a boy a hammer and everything looks like a nail."
 ~"The Law of the instrument" 

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As I’ve given in to my balancing (equilibristic) obsession, suddenly anything and everything looks like a balance challenge. I can’t resist trying out curbs, fences, logs, bicycle racks, and the backrests of benches. 

The worst temptations are handrails. Those narrow mounted pipes meant for people to grip have become instead a favorite training ground. With limited funds, technical rigging expertise, or training facilities, handrails are, in addition to slacklines, the closest thing to a tightrope I have. Plus they’re just so obviously something to balance on….right? 

On the morning of my graduation, my parents had to assemble an hour before I did. We made the walk together, and I had time to kill and a long beautiful handrail just a stone’s throw away from my still vacant assembly point. Of course I had to try…even in a skirt and full regalia. Well, what else was I supposed to do to pass the time? 

So here’s to obsessions that transform how we see the world, how we see everyday objects. If obsession is the parent of perfection, I’m well on my way.

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A Return to Childhood Dreams

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"You don’t find your passions, they find you."
 ~ Duncan Wall, The Ordinary Acrobat

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When I was seven, I discovered the book Mirette on the Highwire. I was enchanted. Seeing the retired wirewalker Bellini practicing, young Mirette begs him to teach her. He initially refuses saying that once she begins, her feet will never be happy on the ground.  She responds, “My feet are already unhappy on the ground.” In that instant my feet became unhappy on the ground as well. My natural childish desire to climb and balance on things was now enhanced by the fantasy of tightrope walking.

Even as other childhood dreams took their turn, even as I pursued more mature and sensible ambitions, my feet remained unhappy on the ground.  I TRIED, truly I did, to grow up, to outgrow the urge to balance on every curb, log, fence, and parking bumper. Sometimes I even succeeded for a while, but I didn't outgrow the longing, just the follow through--in public anyway.

After two years as a graduate student, I had to face the fact that academic political science research just wasn't where my heart was.  As often happens, I realized there were things in my life beyond my career choices that I needed to reevaluate as well. During my introspections, that desire for balance resurfaced…and resurfaced with a strength that frankly surprised me.  I gave up and gave myself permission to pursue my passion and the dream of wirewalking.

As I pursue this childhood dream, I find much to amuse, impress, and inspire me; that is what I hope to share here.

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