HEWC Book

1. Can you give us a quick bio of your background and beginnings?
I was born in California and raised in the hills of western Marin County. I moved once
as a little kid and ended up in a sub-urban town, very close to much more rural areas.
The Pacific Ocean, Mt. Tamalpais, and Giant Redwood trees were all directly within my
reach during my adolescent years. I was always athletic, participated in many sports,
and ventured into the outdoors-- usually on mountain bike. Then usually by car to surf in
my high school years. Besides friends, school, and sports, I was also a Scout for years.
My Mother and especially My father really helped me motivate through scouting. I attribute
his persistence and the opportunities provided by the Scouts to have provided me a
great platform to the take my life in the direction of adventure sporting. My parents basically
had only a few rules: 1. Finish College 2. Come Home for Christmas, and the newly
added rule due to my lifestyle choices 3. Die After They do. Those rules are only prefaced
by “Do what you love, and follow your heart.”
2. What attracted you and got you into this sport?
What originally attracted me to the sport was that you could do it anywhere-- it just
took some creative rigging sometimes... and I loved that! I was also attracted to the
counter culture attitude associated to slackline passed down from dirt bag rock climbers
of Yosemite. “Dirt bag,” is not a condescending title though, rather a praise to those who
don’t fiend for fame, notoriety, or luxury; but rather freedom instead. I loved the lifestyle
of going outside and seeing beautiful places, hiking and camping, and slacklining just gave
me an excuse to do it more. I found quickly that I needed help. So I learned to start loving
to teach slackline as well. The more I taught, the more friends would want to come out to
some random mountain, hike uphill for an hour and a half, just to rig a 60ft line between
some big boulders. Teaching slackline is still one of the most amazing attractions to me in
this sport, but back about that time when YouTube became a thing, I was given the ability
to show slackline internationally at the press of a button. So i started making movies.
Once I started uploading videos, showing the world what you could do with a slackline,
and the lifestyle behind it, I stumbled upon what I called the “Slacklife.” And that, became
my life, my sport, a lifestyle, and a religion.
3. What do you have to do to train and prepare for this sport?
Slackline requires basic physical strength and demands mental stamina. When walking
you are forced to intensely focus your mind on balance and breathing for extended
periods of time in environments of incredible exposure. Sometimes this attributes to
shedding all other thoughts. This is where there is a similarity between slackline and
meditation comes into play.