Lessons Learned Highlining

Highlining is the sport of slacklining at heights that justify the use of a harness. The experience is unique for everyone, but it generally involves being scared and lonely on a 2.5cm moving piece of webbing.

It’s fun!

The average layman often thinks of highlining as a sport for adrenaline junkies, but you actually need to be calm and focused to cross lines, especially longer ones.

In fact, many highliners find their sport akin to meditation. I’d say it’s like a cheat to get into a state of meditation; you have to be focused, so you let your thoughts fly by and focus on very specific things like your breath and your steps. Because you have to.

So, while I’m not exactly enlightened yet, walking on webbing brought me a few insights worth sharing. Most of them I had already heard about, but only got to really understand (really feel) while walking.

Now that you have context, here are a few nuggets of wisdom that came by my head while standing up there:

1- You are What You Think

I once had a hard time walking a beautiful ≈105 metre line overlooking a bay. I was making progress, but every step was a struggle. My mind was busy thinking about someone who did me wrong and possible ways justice could be made. I was feeling resentment…