Petaluma’s Eleanor McCall walks the line (slackline, that is)
“Falling is a part of the process,” says Eleanor McCall, as she balances gracefully on a gently bouncing, 2-inch-wide web - better known as a “slackline” - suspended a few feet above the grass at Petaluma’s Wickersham Park. McCall raises her right leg behind her, now standing on the left, her arms and hands lifted above her shoulders, as if about to take hold of an enormous imaginary balloon. She tilts her face up to catch the dappled sunlight peeking through the branches and leaves of the trees above. Then she lowers her leg back to the line, and begins to walk, step-by-step – though “dance” might be a better word – backwards. Finally, moving slowly as the line sways, she lies down, still solidly balanced above the ground. “With beginners, the first thing we tell them is that falling is fine,” McCall smiles, her eyes closed, bobbing slightly up-and-down on the line. “When you are starting out on the slackline,” she adds, “everybody falls on their way to learning how to walk.”
McCall is the founder of Petaluma Slackliners Club, which meets twice a month at Wickersham Park for what she calls “Slackin’ Saturdays!” Here and there are half-a-dozen brightly colored slacklines - ribbon-like webbing made of nylon, polyester and other materials - stretched out between a total of five trees. Most of the lines are only a foot or two off the ground. From a distance, the arcs of webbing give the appearance of “do-not-enter” warning tape, suggesting some uber-whimsical construction site, or maybe the world’s happiest crime scene.
The shortest line is about 10 feet from tree to tree. The longest here is 70 feet. On each tree, about eye-level above where the webbing is strapped to the trunk, McCall has posted pictures of dogs and other animals, to give new slackliners something to focus on.
“It’s one thing to say, ‘Don’t look at the ground,’” she says, now standing back on terra firma. “But unless you have something to focus your eyes on, it’s really hard not to look down at first. So I put up the dog faces. It really helps.”
If you were to google the word “slacklining,” you’d learn that that slacklining is widely considered an extreme sport - especially in such styles as “tricklining,” “urban slacklining,” “highlining,” “windlining” and “rodeo slacklining.” According to McCall, slacklining began in the late 1960s within the rock-climbing community at Yosemite, and has since become an umbrella term for a whole number of activities from yoga practice to circus arts to physical therapy to – in McCall’s case – personal growth and good, multi-generational neighborhood fun.
“My brother got into it first, and said. “Hey El, come try this!’” she recalls. “At first, I just didn’t believe I could ever do it. But then I did, and I fell in love with it. Now, whenever I’m having a tough day, while some go to their yoga mat, I go to my slackline.”
McCall, it should be noted, is a certified yoga instructor, and does use slacklining as part of her own yoga practice. A graduate of SSU, she actually wrote her Master’s thesis on slacklining. The title: “Slacklining as a Mindfullness Practice: A Heuristic Self-Inquiry into Increasing Mind-Body Consciousness to Promote Healing and the Individuation Process.”
With her sister and brother, and the support of her mom, McCall started doing slacklining in parks about four years ago, occasionally leading workshops at yoga festivals and other events, and officially formed the Petaluma Slackliners Club around a year ago.
“We’re about creating a space to celebrate embodiment,” she says. “And the club is just about spreading slacklining into the community.”
Unlike walking a tightrope - to which slacklining bears a strong resemblance - a slack line is intentionally bouncy. It reverberates and mirrors the movements of the person walking the line.
“You can get them online now,” McCall says. “A 30-foot slackline can be anywhere from $40 to $700 for a professional rig. It takes five minutes to set up and five minutes to break down.”
On Slackin’ Saturdays, McCall always leads 45 minutes of yoga at the beginning of the session, followed by two hours or so of slacklining practice, open to anyone who wants to give it a try. All skill-levels are invited, from first-timers to experienced slackliners. Participants are required to sign a release, and McCall emphasizes that beginners are given plenty of one-on-one attention to start out.
“There’s no wrong way to slackline, but there’s definitely a safe way to slackline,” she says.
UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: