Fence Walkers

---

"Now, to 'walk' board fences requires more skill and steadiness of head and heel than one might suppose who has never tried it."

~L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

---

In addition to my collection of tightwire autobiographies, news articles and manuals, I have a small but growing collection of children’s books. I mentioned Mirette on the High Wire in my very first post—it was this book that first sparked my passion for rope walking. The book The Man who Walked Between the Towers about Philippe Petit’s walk between the Twin Towers of New York City is another high quality high wire classic.

A more recent addition to my collection is Tightrope Poppy, Circus Pig by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen. With rhyme and rhythm, the book tells the adorably preposterous tale of a piglet who wants to become a tightwire star. Preposterous because, “A circus dog, / now that is fine. / But have you heard / of circus swine?”

I knew I had to own the book, as soon as Amazon showed me a preview of this page:

I had to own the book…because I was that child.

The compulsion to balance, to train my balance, has been with me for as long as I can remember. Certain vivid memories have taken on new significance: When I was three and four going to the local library, I absolutely had to hop up and walk all the way around the stone edge of the circular raised flowerbed in front before I would consent to go in the front door. When I was nine or ten, I wasn’t content to walk on the two-by-four support board near the top of the fence, but rather attempted to walk on the half-inch top of the upright wooden slats. In high school when a friend was having boy problems and I had no decent advice or comfort to offer, I got her up on a log fence—one very similar to the fence in the picture above—to walk it off. Much to my delight, she told me that it had indeed helped: the focus had a calming effect. My parents still to this day ask me if I’m feeling unwell if I don’t hop up on a fallen log when we are out hiking.

Yes, my heart has a strong affinity for a fellow fence walker, even if it is a fictitious piglet. My connection to this little piglet's story goes beyond affection for a fellow fence-walker. First, let me tell you her story—I love children’s literature, so I can't resist telling you (in abbreviated form) the rest of this bedtime story:

So, back in the farmyard, veteran fence-walker and aspiring highwire artist, Poppy Pig sees an advertisement for a circus in need of tightrope walkers. Of course she's thrilled and promptly squeals, “I’ll be a star in no time!” and rushes off to join the show.  Certain she knows her craft and ignoring the cautions of the ringmaster, she climbs straight up the highwire and, with the hubris of a porcine Icarus, saunters out onto the wire.  She falls promptly, dramatically, and painfully, though her hubris actually takes more of a battering than her hams and hooves. Quite discouraged, she contemplates quitting, but Poppy listens to the encouraging (emailed) words of a wise mother pig; she goes back to the ring this time ready not to do a starlet-strut but to learn. Many falls and a few ego bruisings later, the learning and practice pay off and Poppy Pig does in deed conquer the highwire.

For me, the first time I ever stepped on a tightwire was just over a year ago at Seattle’s School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts (SANCA). While I did not have any dramatic tumbles off the 18 inch high wire, I was dismayed to discover that my training on slacklines wasn’t as good of preparation as I’d hoped. I definitely had a good foundation for my first official attempt at tightwire, but the bounding of the wire and the discomfort of the much smaller diameter base on my stocking feet weren’t things I was prepared for. (I also discovered that tightwires are by far the least comfortable to sit on. The bruises made the drive back home across hundreds of miles and several states none too comfortable.) Still, it was a significant milestone. I discovered I too had a lot of learning still to do.

Though I aspire higher than fences, they were and still are good training ground and playground. Passing up a beautiful stretch of fence still seems like a travesty to me. Through my research and networking, I’m discovering that I’m in good company—plenty of tightrope walkers have felt drawn to the challenge of fences and rails: Bird Millman, Philippe Petit, Matthew Whitmer, and Bello Nock to name a few.

Bello Nock, London

Each time I discover or meet a fellow fence or rail-walker, my heart just glows.

Though I was drawn to Tightrope Poppy for that single picture of fence walking, the purchase was a good one for the moral of the story as well: “You can’t lose heart / on one bad start / some dreams take lots of trying.” I love children’s literature, so I’m not ashamed to admit that to achieve my balance ambitions, I’m taking as my role model an utterly fictional, but incredibly plucky pig. 

Watching Nik Wallenda Conquer the Windy City Skyscape

---

Reporter: Chicago really embraced you. Could you hear all that noise from the crowd below? 

Nik Wallenda: Oh my goodness, it was amazing! I was born in an entertainment family and started in front of a live audience at two. The 75,000 to 100,000 underneath cheering me on – there is no way to describe that. When I first stepped out at the top of the show and they saw me up there with the orange jacket, I felt like I was floating it was so loud. 

~Interview from Forbes magazine, November 5, 2014

---

I was one of the thousands down on the ground cheering, adding my voice to the swell in hopes that the sound would carry up to that tiny orange-jacket speck in the sky. I was in Chicago watching when Nik Wallenda set two highwire records. This was my first time seeing a skywalk in person and it did not disappoint.

Chicago has been on my list of cities to visit for a while, and I’d talked with a friend about doing a girls' getaway sometime this fall. When Nik Wallenda announced his Chicago skywalk I jumped at the chance and quickly convinced my friend that the first weekend in November would be a great time to do our trip.

It wasn’t until after I’d purchased non-refundable plane tickets and reserved hotels that the possibility of his falling crossed my mind. That gave me pause: the “live” televised broadcasts are actually streamed with a 10-second delay, so they can cut out in case of an accident. In person there would be no such system in place to protect me from the trauma of witnessing his falling to his death—except for covering my eyes myself of course. I want Nik to have a long and healthy life for the sake of himself and his family…and, selfishly, him dying, especially in front of my eyes, would put a serious damper on my dreams.

The qualms passed quickly—I have a lot of faith in Nik’s abilities. What he attempts would be a certain death sentence for 99.99% of us, so it’s hard to gauge how big of a risk it is for Nik Wallenda. Yes highwire is dangerous, but for Nik it’s a calculated risk, and he makes sure that the math stacks up in his favor: 30 years of experience, tens of thousands of hours of practice, extensive rigging experience, and a world class training, rigging, and safety support crew.

Think of it this way: taking a 5-year old’s training wheels off a little street bike and giving him a nudge down an aggressive mountain biking trail wouldn’t end well either. Bikers build up to those kind of things, they gain skill over time through practice and training. Because most of us learned how to ride a bike as children, we can relate better to mountain bikers. Many of us certainly couldn’t tackle an extreme mountain bike trail, but we understand in theory what it takes to get there. The more I experience and learn about highwire, the better I understand what kind of training, skill, and support it takes for highwire and the less scary it seems.

The skywalk took place in the heart of Chicago where the river cuts through downtown.  I’d wondered why Nik chose to walk it at night, but approaching the walk site, the artist in me fully appreciated the setting: with a pitch black backdrop of the sky, there was nothing to detract from the glowing silver strand of wire and the tiny speck that was the daring man, Nik Wallenda.

Just wending my way through the crowd did my heart good. It was a fantastic feeling to be in this huge crowd of people, surrounded by people interested enough in tightwire to brave the November breezes in the windy city. Some of them came just because it was a cool event and just because they happened to be in Chicago. A few though came, like I did, for this. As I passed people in the crowd I was delighted to overhear a woman recounting Nik's career and family history for a less knowledgeable spectator. She sounded like me!

My friend and I ended up finding space to watch close to a set of guy wires¹ attached to a cement barricade. It was incredible to me how far those slender wires stretched to reach up to the main wire to hold it steady.

It took a long time for the walks to start. For those of us without access to the televised broadcast (my phone battery unexpectedly hit empty just as I tried to take my first picture of the wire) the first hour and a half was an exercise in patience. We'd been told the event would start at 6pm. It wasn't until well after 6 that Nik Wallenda looked over the edge of the building. We all cheered thinking the walk was about to happen.  Fifteen minutes or so later he looked over again...and again we cheered. He got up on the wire and stood backwards, balanced, squatted...and then he disappeared again. We weren’t sure what was going on, if something had gone wrong, if the walk would actually happen. After an hour and a half of waiting and wondering I was a little cold, but still happily admiring the silver strand of wire in the air above me.

The actual walks went quickly. The first walk, the one across the river at an uphill angle of 19°—setting a record for highest inclined walk—took over six minutes to complete. The second, shorter walk between the twin Marina City Towers was done blindfolded and took one minute sixteen seconds. This walk also was record setting for the height at which it was conducted. From where I was he was just a steadily moving speck, an orange jacket and a long balance pole.

He didn’t waver, stumble, or pause, which wasn’t very…dramatic or heart-stopping—no eye-covering necessary. I don’t wish he’d faked a trip or fallen for real for the thrill of it. The fact that he made it look easy, look doable, was exactly what I wanted to see. For me the lure of tightwire—and highwire—is not about craving near-death experiences but is all about the skill to do something so well that I could be confident enough to conquer fear.

No one should be surprised that I got in the spirit of and celebrated the skywalk by balancing on a Chicago handrail.

I'm not quite ready for a skywalk, but I'm definitely working on it.

---

¹ Tensioned cable designed to add stability to a free-standing structure. (Wikipedia)

Autumn is in Full Swing

---

Listen! the wind is rising,
and the air is wild with leaves.
We have had our summer evenings,
now for October eves.
~Humbert Wolfe

---

Where I set up my slackrope orange and yellow leaves are quivering overhead and—increasingly—fluttering to the ground. All too soon the branches will be bare. I’ve been storing up memories of these idyllic autumn practice sessions. This is how a slackrope session might go these days:

After I set up, I focus on walking for a while. I work to hold my silver strand still, so that except for the changing angles of the rope as I cross, it appears solid rather than merely a loose hung rope. I breathe deeply as I try to take big steady steps all the way to the other end. My turns are still usually unsteady, but I get myself around so I can head back to where I started. Back and forth, back and forth as an autumn breeze tickles the leaves overhead and brushes by cool on my skin.

Taking a break from my practice, I lie down on the rope. The rope runs under my ankle, against my calf, up my back, into the hollow next to one shoulder blade, and against the back of my head. While one hand grips the rope above my head, I press my fingers down into the soft grass and push off to start the rope swaying. I relax and enjoy the luxury of forgetting all about balancing for a while. Above me the branches sway, and I contemplate yet again how rarely I look straight up. I close my eyes and enjoy the patches of sunlight that skitter over my face and warm my eyelids as my rope rocks me back and forth.

Then I’m ready for a challenge: I stand in the middle of my rope facing toward one of the anchors. My arms tilt to one side, I flex a little at the waist, press through my hips, and the rope begins to swing. I work on getting the timing right—the movement of my arms, bending at the waist, shifting my weight—to ride the increasing swing of the rope. I concentrate on my anchor point, my North star in a world that is pitching. My face is a mask of focus, but my heart lifts a little, revels, each time the rope swings high, slows, then plummets back down in a smooth arc under the weight of my feet. All too soon my timing is off and I have to slip or fly off, landing with a soft thud on the grass and scattered leaves while the rope, now free of my weight, flaps and then sways to a standstill.

Can you tell that I’m in love with slackrope? It’s a wonderful combination of a mid-air walking path, hammock, and swing set. I may also be enamored with slackrope just because the basics came easy—a first for me. During my second ever slackrope session I managed walking backward, sitting, and standing. Oh, and laying. Laying on a slackrope is a joy. Unlike slackline and tightwire, laying was low effort even in the beginning and (relatively) comfortable. I know, I know you’re thinking that lying on a single ⁷⁄₁₆ inch strand of rope can’t be comfortable, but while it certainly isn’t as comfortable as a hammock, it really isn’t bad.

After that the next skills came more slowly. Falls from a slackrope are somehow more daunting than from a slackline, and sometimes I don’t trust my feet on the steep uphill at either end. I mastered my fear of turns about a month ago and now can do them reasonably well if sometimes a bit shaky. More and more often I can walk with the rope remaining almost completely still. Having the rope hold still is a huge accomplishment…but not all that cool. What I really want to master is swing walking. (See video clip here to grasp the beauty of the thing.)

First I need to master just the standing lateral swing. For more than a month I worked on swinging, wanting so badly to experience the beauty of it but seeing little results come of my efforts. In the last week, like a surprise gift granted in the grace period of an unusually long autumn, I finally made progress. I’m ridiculously proud of that progress. I still can’t maintain a standing swing for very long, but I’m starting to feel the rhythm, and my body is starting to work with the line instead of against it. I’m even ridiculously proud of the fact that when back on solid earth I sometimes feel a little bit seasick as my body adjusts to a world that is holding so unwaveringly still.

I’m still learning how to increase the swing and then ride the swing.  I focus on that…till I fall off. I have to confess: the trees will be bare soon, my slackrope season will be over…and I have yet to learn to STOP a lateral swing. Oh well, perhaps it’s appropriate given the season that I fly off my rope, cartwheeling in the air to land on my feet. I’m sure that the leaves that flutter and dance to the ground around me appreciate my graceless human imitation of their descents.

Given that slackrope and especially swinging is all about movement, a video of some of my more successful practice seemed appropriate for this post. Special thanks to MelissaH for putting this video together and also for her k-pop obsession which lead to choosing the incredibly appropriate background music for this clip.



Bird Millman once said that she could "could walk a wire if they strung it between a couple of stars." I'm with Bing Crosby though: my dream (at least this week) is to swing on the stars:

Would you like to swing on a star
Carry moonbeams home in a jar
And be better off than you are
…
So you see it's all up to you
You can be better than you are
You could be swingin' on a star
~Bing Crosby, "Swinging on a Star"

I hope this post gave you a glimpse into the beauty of slackrope and that you’ve had a taste of the joy I experienced this autumn swinging on slackrope. I hope you're enjoying your autumn as well.

Learning Grit: Juggling

---

“Over time, grit is what separates fruitful lives from aimlessness.” 
~John Ortberg

---

A while back a good friend of mine told me about how she’d been teaching her daughter about “grit”— persisting even when the task is difficult. Like my little friend, I am learning about grit: for more than a year now, I have been learning how to juggle.

My dream of tightwire has spilled over into a fascination with all thing circus, and what is the circus without juggling? I have generally avoided sports that involve kicking, throwing, and catching—basically anything that involves quick reflexes, coordination, and airborne projectiles. It’s just not my thing, and that’s ok. Sadly though my high avoidance for any and all even remotely similar skills means that I don’t have a great foundation for this juggling endeavor.

Juggling is probably the most accessible of the circus disciplines, so at least getting started was easy. First I found inexpensive juggling balls—juggling beanbags actually: they don’t roll so far when dropped; which is good because I drop them constantly. Next I got a book that promised simple step-by-step instruction for the basic cascade juggling pattern. Then began the grueling repetitive practice of teaching my hands to do something utterly foreign.

Lesson #1: Just throw one ball from hand to hand so the ball arcs in a sort of figure-8 pattern. My book suggests spending at least half an hour on this skill…I spent three weeks.

Lesson #2 was tossing two balls, one from each hand, so one is tossed just as the other crests. I spent at least another two weeks just on that.

Lesson #3 was to throw all three balls in succession, holding two in one hand and one in the other. This came more easily, so I only kept myself on it for a week or so before moving forward.

When I could do three tosses reasonably well, I thought I’d soon be able to juggle. I could see what the pattern was supposed to be, it was just a matter of adding tosses. “Just adding tosses,” should be easy enough right? Nope. The balls were flying out of control by toss three or four…or two. Somewhat discouraged, but still determined, I backed up…I practiced one toss, two, three. Eventually it became three tosses and sometimes four, four and sometimes five… progress seemed unmeasurably slow and backing up frequent.


Learning to juggle is taking a lot of time and patience. With all the other things in my life I’m metaphorically juggling, it’s hard to fit one more thing in. Luckily I found a time that doesn’t take away from everything else: I juggle my way to and from work, a ten minute walk—which became a fifteen minute walk once I added in the constant stops to retrieve rogue balls. I juggled my way to and from work all through last summer and autumn, and started up again this spring once it was warm enough.

Juggling has also been an exercise in grit because my painstaking practice hasn’t been conducted in private. My walk to and from work isn’t through a high traffic area luckily, or my erratic tosses would make me a public menace, but there are enough passersby. Somehow I’m most likely to fumble the very first toss or fumble all three balls at once just as someone is approaching. I’ve learned to shrug it off, to focus on what I’m learning rather than how I’m performing.

The weather is getting cool again now, so during my morning walk I juggle till my hands are numb, let them thaw, then go again. It’s worth it though, especially because just in the last few weeks I’ve finally reached the point where I’m really “juggling”—no longer confined to halting tosses, painstakingly counted. My “runs” are pretty short—I can’t keep control of the pattern indefinitely, and all too often I drop a ball after only a few tosses, but I’ve finally had a chance to experience that “satisfying circularity”¹ that comes with control and automaticity.

I’ve been thinking about juggling not just because my juggling “season” is coming to a close, but also because it’s about time to retire my first set of juggling beanbag balls. They’ve served me well through two seasons of commutes to work now, and they’re pretty disreputable looking from being dropped on pavement, in the dirt, the grass, the dew, being stepped on, squashed in my bag, and fiddled with in my pockets.

Now that I have the basic beginner’s “cascade” pattern down nearly well enough, it’ll be time soon to add something new—maybe juggling two balls in one hand to work my way up to a four ball pattern or maybe the next easiest 3-ball tricks, “Juggler’s Tennis” or "Columns."  Learning something new will mean going back to the beginning and back to basics all over again. Toss, fumble, retrieve, and try again.

If grit can get me there; if some sensible instruction, a little technique, and endless repetition are what it takes, eventually I'll be able to juggle at least a little.

I got grit. How ‘bout you?

---

¹ Duncan Wall. 2012. The Ordinary Acrobat, page 85.

Balancing to the Music

---

This balance between repetition and variation (new information) is what turns sound into music. …A great musician is a master of balance, of equilibrium; he/she knows when to add something new, when to create tension, and when to give us the predictable and let us feel at home.
 ~ajrdileva, "Music Balance (Repetition vs Variation Culture)"

---

A mini highlight in my week was discovering a new song for my balance playlist. Yes, of course I have a playlist just for songs I balance to. Plugging in my headphones, stepping off the ground, and fitting my movements and my soul into the rhythm of the music and the sway of my slackline is incredibly satisfying.

I’m pretty picky about what I listen to when I’m balancing (hence the playlist). Given that I generally walk slowly, and focus on subtle, controlled movements, it's understandable that people assume I listen to mellow instrumentals. That is not the case however; almost everything on my playlist has vocals (lyrics I connect with), and an upbeat tempo. The songs on the list span several genres: musical soundtracks, pop/rock, country, and Christian contemporary.

Confession: I’m a nerd. After discovering my new song (I will get to that…eventually) and deciding to write this post, I wondered what made songs "right" for balancing.  I couldn't articulate anything concrete beyond vocals and a decent tempo, so I decided to see if Pandora could help me out. I created a station based off of my playlist songs, and when Pandora chose something I liked, I’d check the “Why was this track selected?”

Pandora was baffled by my mix. The genres identified were: hip-hop, electronica, blues, rock, disco, folk, country, and gospel, as well as cross-overs between the genres. The musical qualities were contradictory: syncopated or unsyncopated, repetitive or varying, acoustic  or synthesized, major key or minor key, melodic or harmonic, etc. Pandora started adding "…and many other features identified by the music genome project."

Well, it was worth a shot. Without a precise analysis or explanation of my musical preferences, I’m just going to assume that I've settled on some incredibly appropriate balance of sometimes contradictory musical qualities. That is, after all, what great music is all about according to ajrdileva who so kindly provided the header quote for this post.

In addition to the rank and file songs on my playlist there are also the "premier" songs: songs that have the appropriate (if ambiguous) balance of musical qualities, have lyrics I connect with, and are thematically appropriate to the activity. Idina Menzel’s "Defying Gravity" from Wicked was the first to make the premier list. Next was "Firework" by Katy Perry (partly in honor of the scene from Madagascar III where I first heard the song).

This week’s song to make the premier list is "Don’t Look Down" from the TV show Austin & Ally (which I've never actually watched). If you don’t know the song, below are an abbreviated version of the lyrics and a link to the song online—you’ll have no trouble seeing (or hearing) why it made the premier list:

"Don't Look Down"
Sung by Laura Marano and Ross Lynch

I’m walking on a thin line
And my hands are tied
Got nowhere to hide
I’m standing at a crossroads
Don’t know where to go
Feeling so exposed  

Yeah I'm caught In between
Where I'm going and where I've been
But no,
There's no turning back  

It’s like I’m balanced on the edge,
It’s like I’m hanging by a thread,
But I’m still gonna push ahead
So I tell myself
Yeah, I tell myself  

Don’t look down, down, down, down
Don’t look down, down, down, down
…

It's a good song.

After that rather lame conclusion sentence, I spent hours deciding what to write next, because, honestly, adding a third song to the premier list made another theme evident: I'm drawn to songs about inner greatness, impressive individuality...and (overcoming) self-doubt. The audacity to aspire to a grand spotlight seems somehow presumptuous, and realizing anew—and highlighting in writing yet again—how pervasive my self-doubts are makes me feel uncomfortably vulnerable.  I generally wait to post until I can wrap up in an inspiring way, but I discovered this song this week, and it might be months or years before my feelings of being "caught in between where I'm going and where I've been" are safely, and inspiringly, in the past.

So I decided to take a risk, be vulnerable, and not wrap up my post with a clear and tidy sense of victory. For this week I'll be glad that I discovered a new song and, in the process, learned about balance in music. Music has a way of speaking to how we feel, so I guess if I sway and bounce and step to a beat that reflects my hopes and my fears, that's no bad way to push ahead.  I'll learn to defy gravity, let loose the fireworks in my soul, and balance on the edge—in time.

Niagara on a Tightrope

---

Daredevils, lunatics, call them what you will; there’s one thing that unites those folks who attempted the tightrope-walking or barrel-riding stunts…an irrepressible urge to stand out from the crowd. Niagara Falls was their stage, and they intended to fill the show with rapturous applause, even if it meant bringing the curtain down for the final time.
~ Karl Fabricius

---

Niagara Falls is an iconic landmark and natural wonder, one that I've wanted to see for a while. This past weekend I had the chance to visit for the first time. While the falls are a draw in and of themselves, there was also a bubble of joy in my heart that I carried quietly through the weekend because of Niagara'a significance in the history of wire walking and also its association with the storybook Mirette on the High Wire—the book that started it all.

Henry Bellini with Niagara in the background

People are generally more familiar with the Niagara barrel stunts of the 20th century than the wire walkers of the 19th, but in their time the wire daredevil performances were every bit as popular—possibly more so because they were legal (advertisable and marketable) spectacles. Niagara was a popular summer resort for the wealthy; whole families with servants in tow would “summer” at the luxury hotels lining Niagara gorge. For the wire performances, the bridge and grandstands were full of men in top hats, women with parasols, and little girls clinging to the skirts of their nurses; bands on both sides of the rivers added accompaniment, and once safely across, the performer might be driven in a carriage with four horses up to one of the hotels for refreshment before making the return trip.

Maria Spelterini, the only female Niagara wirewalker,
pictured here with peach baskets on her feet

At least eight wire walkers performed crossings of the Niagara gorge between 1859 and 1896. Never content with simply crossing safely the 1,000+ foot span nearly 200 feet over rocks and torrents, these performers added headstands, somersaults, sprinted across in 2 minutes, cooked themselves breakfast, did laundry in an old fashioned wash tub, climbed down to the Maid of the Mist and then back up, pushed wheelbarrows, walked blindfolded, and wore baskets instead of shoes.

Incredibly, in the history of the Niagara wire-walkers, there was only ever one fatality and it was an after-hours fatality at that: crossing in the dark, drunk, wearing street shoes, with no known spectators made Stephen Peer’s demise almost anti-climactic. By the time Niagara officials banned unauthorized stunting in 1884 and began refusing authorization in 1896, the crowds coming to view the wire-walkers were dwindling. The wire-walkers with their daring and drive had perhaps done their job too well: the crowds pretty well assumed a successful crossing and no longer watched with bated breath (or aggressively bet on the outcome).

Two years ago, after a 116 year hiatus, the Falls were once again graced by the presence of a wire-walker. Nik Wallenda, heir of a five-generation wire walking legacy, received approval—after several years of petitions and negotiations—to string his wire across the Niagara. It was a momentous comeback, especially because, for the first time ever, a wire-walker would be walking over the Horseshoe Falls rather than “merely” across the gorge just downstream from the falls. It would also be one of the longest walks in the region: 1,800 feet, topping previous records by 300 feet.

 

The dark of night made for a stunning contrast with the illuminated mist and falling water of his crossing. I'm certain the crowds lining the gorge were every bit as breathless as those that had come to see Blondin.


When I first read the children’s storybook Mirette on the High Wire and fell in love with wire walking, I didn't have any actual experience with wire walking and frankly believed that the reputed accomplishments of the fictional mentor wire-walker Bellini were just that—fictional tall-tale feats attributed to a purely fictional character. Well, doesn't crossing Niagara AND stopping in the middle to cook an omelet sound a bit far fetched?

Illustration from Mirette on the Highwire

You can imagine how delighted I was when I discovered that the exploits of the fictional Bellini were based on the actual accomplishments of Jean Francois Gravalet, known as "Blondin," one of the greats in wire-walking history and the first to cross the Niagara gorge.  Then just recently as I prepared for my trip (by researching lesser-known Niagara wire walkers specifically), I was elated to discover that there actually had been a Niagara wire-walker who went by the name of Bellini. My childhood fantasy was actually history—or at least solidly based in history.

With its storybook associations and rich non-fictional heritage of wire walking, Niagara was a wonderful place to visit. I passed a plaque marking the site of the old suspension bridge next to which many of the old-time wire walkers stretched their cables. I stood on Terrapin Point on Goat Island where Nik Wallenda began his walk. While viewing the grand spectacle of the falls, my eyes would often wander to scan the gorge, imagining a wire stretched taut across. Looking at the dizzying drops and rushing water and imagining what it might be like walking in the midst of the nothingness above made my stomach churn in miniature imitation of the water below.

An important stop for me on the trip was the monument to Nik Wallenda’s crossing, complete with a section of the actual wire he used. After only a glimpse of the monument's unveiling in an online news article, I immediately wondered if the boulder was climbable, if the wire mounting was appropriately weight bearing, and if I’d get arrested for desecrating a monument—because of course I wanted to walk where Nik Wallenda walked.

A picture of Wallenda balancing on top of his monument found a bit later in my internet surfing was the clincher, resolving at least two of my three concerns, and so on a sunny Monday morning I tried it out myself with the sunlit mists of the falls behind me as I stood on a wire that had crossed through those very mists supporting a lone man across the chasm.

To stand where great men have stood and remember their accomplishments is a rewarding experience for the ambitious. Having seen the falls, I better understood why wire-walkers were drawn to this location; I also understood the desire to stand out on this beautiful natural stage. I wanted my turn balancing with grand curtains of falling water as my backdrop, and I'm always craving a balance challenge. Highwires may be banned, but handrails are plentiful, so this second ambition was also fairly easy to fulfill…I just had to choose a rail not on the edge of the gorge.

A gorgeous sunset, a beautiful backdrop, and a balance challenge, it was a perfect moment.

The Next Generation

---

In Greece…the art of rope-walking was held in the highest regard as part of the education of the young.
~ Hermine Demoraine

---

The benefits of equilibristics (balance) training are almost too numerous to list: improved spatial perception, proprioception, and vestibular function; added brain mass and neuropathways; better muscle isolation, joint stabilization, and neuromuscular coordination to name a few. Given the beneficiality of equilbristic training, of course as a conscientious member of society and an amateur funambulist, I’m trying follow the example of the Greeks and do my part to provide a well-rounded education to the young.

Ok, really the biomechanics and neuroscience jargon—while valid—was a chance to see how many big scientific-y words I could fit into a single run-on sentence. Balancing really is beneficial, and I am pretty passionate about giving kids opportunities to learn and experience rope walking. I’m doing my level best to help develop the next generation of funambulists and equilibrists. Mostly though I wanted an excuse to share some of the adorable photos I’ve taken of kids balancing.

The joy and excitement on their faces is infections. Some have a look of ageless concentration on their faces and take their first ventures very seriously, others giggle uncontrollably as they (or the line under their feet) wobbles uncontrollably, others need a more secure helping hand, but, given a little security, soon enough are grinning ear to ear.

One little girl, after she’d tried out my waterline, shyly confided to me that she had dreams of wirewalking. I heartily approved and shared that I had just the same dream—and was pursuing it. I hope that somewhere along the way I convey to these children who aren’t afraid of dreaming big that those dreams are worth pursuing—that they can pursue them. And if I help them dream of rope walking specifically…I certainly won’t complain.

So here’s to the next generation, the next generation of equilibrists, the next generation of dreamers.