Slacking

Is we call the act of slack-lining.  By 'we' I mean my last years roommate, Joe, and myself- maybe other slack-liners do too and I figured I'd write a post about my slacking adventures thus far.  For anyone who is unfortunate enough not to know of this awesome sport/past time its a pretty basic concept.  Similar to tightrope walking, one strings a piece of webbing (basically thin, flat rope) between two static objects tight enough to walk on without touching the ground, and then proceeds to walk back and forth on said line.  It is not quite as a tightrope, hence its name 'slack'-lining.  It can be done over ground, but also over water, or over very high places.  Search pictures of Dean Potter- he will blow your mind. But I digress.

There hasn't much to write home about but I think there is great potential here.  I've found a spot in Frank Kitts park, a very nice green space centrally located on the waterfront in downtown Wellington.  There are several stands of trees, and I found two close enough to string a line up- so I did.  I've been back several times, with two main intentions.  First, I just want to get better, good enough to take slacking to the next level.  By that I mean doing it up high or over cool things, like water.  I found a sweet place, on the harbor, that is a perfect distance and high enough over water to make an attempt to walk it worthwhile and quite exciting.  I want to get a few more days of practice in and then I'll try to walk it.  Well, we'll see.

Secondly, at least in at Colgate in the summer, its a great way to meet people.  For some reason a person walking back and forth on a thin line slightly off the ground attracts friendly people.  Its sort of like fishing, but for people, and in my few attempts so far I have little to show for my efforts.  Today I met a troop of middle schoolers who were quite enthusiastic to learn but were shortly called away as their group was leaving soon.  Then I met Tim, an older gentleman who hopped of his mountain bike to join me for a bit.  He had slacked before and was able to stand up on my line, but he was used to an actual slack-line, which is twice as wide as my thinner webbing.  I have not had as much success meeting kiwis this way as I had originally thought, but I think I need to change locations.  Thats all for now- more to come for sure though.  Cheers!