cj

"Rigging Solo: A Slacklining Experience"

Transcript: Wow, what an afternoon eh, what an afternoon, um, yeah, first time solo rigging a highline, and well I guess a midline, and it worked out alright, I wouldn't say it was perfect, but I learned a lot, rigging took a long time, but yeah, super, super super fun, um, took I think 16 steps was my max, and on that, during that session when I took those steps it legitimate, not only could I have taken more, I only took that many because I was like hmm, if I continue to take more and I fall I might hurt myself, um, and I don't want to do that, solo especially, and yeah, 16 steps, it felt like a park line, it was amazing, I felt like I was in the park, like legitimately was like, I'm just in a park right now, and that was so cool, um, it wasn't like, you know, the exposure isn't there, so it's quite a lot different, not being in exposure, um, and yeah, I mean just walking this green 20 is fantastic, I really love how it walks, it's like so cruiser feeling, it just feels so good, um, and I felt so stable on the line, and yeah, just really, really great, um, I just wrapped up my last session on the line, I think it was like my fourth session, I was doing like pretty short sessions, like maybe 15-30 minutes each, um, mostly just cause I get tired, and my hands hurt and want a break and all of this, so, yeah, but it was nice, it was a really, really solid session, and now it's time to de-rig, and I expect the de-rig to go relatively smooth, I'm just gonna go to the other side, do the soft release, and then everything else should be pretty easy, um, some guy, I met Kevin, who came up, and he took some photos of me, and he had a really nice dog, Bonnie, and we just talked for a minute, and yeah, it was really nice, just chill, chill conversation, and there was also this guy, um, Johnny, Johnny B. Goode, and he's a 70-year-old guy, who ran, who runs, I guess, some kind of iron-working company, and they build foundations in San Diego, and, um, I mean, what a conversation, really intense, but, like, good, and some of the things that he mentioned explicitly were basically, like, serve your community, um, hard work is, hard work is what's valued, like, do hard things, um, don't pay your taxes, well, yeah, um, don't support, um, the military, basically, um, people kill people, um, he wants peace, um, work for yourself, work for good people, and things take time, things take time, and they take work, and that's what you do, and he also mentioned, you know, some of the happiest times in his life were when he had nothing, and, you know, that never surprises me, really, to hear, to be honest, so, yeah, it was a good conversation, well, it was mostly him talking at me, but he looked remarkably good for being seven years old, um. And, yeah. So... That was nice. And did eventually get the line set up. Tensioning it was, like, a bit tough, I think. Um... Given... just me doing it. And also... There we go. What the hell is happening with this tape? Is this not a slider tape? Oh, it is. It's just, like, totally bunched up. I'm probably gonna have to fix that. Oh, there we go. That makes my life way easier. Okay. Um... So... Now we release... the line. I probably should release the backup before I let the mainline go. Because the backup is gonna get real tight if I don't. I think. So, we're gonna release the backup because we're not backing up any humans anymore. A.K.A. me. And instead, we'll let the soft release go, nice and slow. And... And... I put it on the wrong side. That sucks. Okay. Next time, we need to put that on the tree side. Enter side. Not on the webbing side. But that's alright. That lets us let it go really, really soft. Okay. And the line is down. Cool. And... I'm gonna retie my soft release, I think. And go from there. But yeah, it was a nice afternoon. Um... And... I guess I'm just hungry to learn how to slackline even better. Um, that's kind of obvious to me at the moment. Um, it was a good weekend. And... Nice people. No one was upset that I was here, even though many people came by and saw me. It was just so nice. Just goes to show, like... I don't know. I think access can be... Can be kind of figured out a little bit better than it is. And... Yeah. We'll get access. And I want access in more places. That would be really cool. To be able to set up lines in more places. Because, dang, this is really great as a beginner to learn how to get my first steps in a very chill environment. You don't need to be on a trip. You know. And commit all that time. You can just do it in your backyard. Which makes it a lot easier for new people to join. It's in the backyard like this, basically. So... That's access. And... It'll be interesting when it becomes a more normalized thing to just be on a slackline. I don't know where. Six. Because... Yeah, I don't know. People clearly enjoy watching, too. They're always impressed. Plus, like, it's just interesting. And impressive. And... Yeah, I don't know. It's fun. I like it. So... One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. And that is enough to make a soft release. So... We're going to tie it off now. I'm going to try this as a tie-off method. Does this work? I really just don't like tying it off. I really want to learn from someone. Like, what is the best way to tie tails off? Because it's super not obvious to me. And watching the videos on it is not very helpful. Um... of like how to do it well, how to do it quickly, how to do it safely. That's like the biggest thing in rigging at the moment, I feel like, and help with is tying. I mean, I can do something. I mean, what I just did looks pretty good. And now we will carry the line back. We'll stop this recording, but overall, solid highline, midline sesh. It's cool meeting people. Yep, pretty much it.