I was just over at Balance Community dot com seeing what was going down, and came across this inspiring chap, Pierre Carrillo. As I was reading through his biography, I realised that he has a pretty rad story to share, and as I'm relating a lot to what he has written - currently in my own SlackLife - I wanted to share some of it with you;
After looking at tons of pictures of people walking high in the air, my desire to let go of my fear and go for it grew. I read many posts on technical rigging information and found the member writing the most informative posts containing precise numbers and knowledge on rigging. Damian Cooksey, then holding the world record for longest line and longest highline walked, was my man. I wrote him an email and asked if I could join him on his next highline expedition, hoping he would say yes, fearing he would say no. Two days later he replied, telling me to meet him that Saturday at the trail head of a mountain four hours away from where I lived at 6am.
I spent that Friday night at a friends house in San Francisco and woke up at 3:45 in the morning to hit the road. I spent the morning with Damian C. and Andy Lewis learning how to safely rig a highline and that afternoon after everyone had walked it was my turn. With all confidence I tied the leash to my harness then to the line. I sat on the line and tried to stand up before the fear set in. The line quickly moved out from under my feet and I fell and caught the line. Hanging there my fear came back strong and I began to shake. The memories from my childhood came back, every roller coaster I chickened out of, every flight of stairs I walked down instead of taking the elevator and the rope course at summer camp that I was terrified of. I quickly pushed my thoughts aside and pulled myself back up onto the line. Again and again I fell and caught the line. On what was supposed to be my last try I fell and was unable to catch the line. Hanging from my leash exhausted, Damian told me they had to take the line down so I should give it one more go. I remounted and told myself, “If I am able to walk a line double this length close to the ground I can walk this line. I stood up and walked the entire line and then walked it back. This was a major victory for me, finally I had not been held back by my fear and performed something not many people do. I chuckled at the thought that all my brothers would probably be scared of what I just did.
Since that day I have not been able to work a normal job behind a computer or in a restaurant without thinking about being in the mountains. I realized that fear held me back from enjoying life fully and the things I was afraid of were all things I would most likely love. This realization led me to a new passion, getting over fear to discover new sensations.
You can read Pierre's full Bio here
Pierre's Website, MySlackline.com also has some pretty rad vids on it, so I thought I'd be extra nice and give you some of those too!
No comments:
Post a Comment