The Malibu area offers a wealth of outdoor activities that can keep any physical fitness junkie entertained. Check out some of the area’s best hiking trails, or one of the hippest new sports, slacklining.
By Katie Clary
News Assistant
“Slackers unite!” is the slogan of a small but growing group on campus: the Slackliners.
They congregate in Alumni Park when the wind is calm, ready to share an addiction.
“You know you’re going to fall,” said senior John Opgenorth, an international business and Spanish major. “But you’re hooked.”
What is a slackline? Good question. Ever heard of a tight-rope? Yes, like the Barnum & Bailey Circus. Now, subtract the elephants, the clowns and high-wire and replace them with a few college students, two trees and a rope strung between them to walk across. That’s a step closer to slacklining.
“When you first do it, you hate it,” senior Josh Wilcox said. But the challenge captivated him.
Typically, slackliners or “slackers” walk across flat, nylon webbing stretched taut, often between tree trunks. Unlike the tightrope, this rope isn’t tight. It vibrates from side to side like a hummingbird that’s short on Ritalin and high on caffeine.
But the very wobbly balance beam entertains slackers for hours as they pit themselves against the laws of gravity.
“It’s weird, I don’t know why it’s so addictive,” Opgenorth said.
His apartmentmate, senior biology major Bryan Batdorf, introduced him to the balancing act and they set up a slackline right outside their B Block apartment.
“It’s a very yin-yang sport,” Batdorf said. “[Slacklining] gets to be like drinking water—just something you need. Just like you need to hydrate, you’ve got to feel the nylon between your toes.”
Another member of the eight to nine slacker regulars, senior Josh Zielinski described how slacklining evokes almost a spiritual feeling. The movement requires such concentration that he said he can’t think of much more than his next step.
Zielinski, a business and Spanish major, first saw slacklining last summer in a Patagonia catalog, an outdoor clothing company based in Ventura. On the glossy magazine page, a man balanced across a line strung over a 100-foot gully. To Zielinski, that looked pretty cool. He decided to try his feet at a new sport.
The roots of slacklining trace back to California’s natural gem: Yosemite National Park. The sport emerged in the Yosemite Valley at Camp 4, the campground where rock-climbers stay before scaling the nearby cliffs. In 1983, two climbers from Oregon experimented with walking across short nylon rope lines strung among the trees in the park.
While Pepperdine slackliners tend to walk lines two to six feet off the ground, the sport has evolved to unimaginable heights.
Longtime slackliner and South Pasadena resident Ric Phiegh, who now owns Slackline Brothers in Los Angeles, witnessed slack history in his own backyard. His younger brother, Scott Balcom (different last name, but still related) is a pioneer in highline slacklining, a gutsy variation thousands of feet higher than Pepperdine’s walk in the park.
Phiegh remembers when his brother brought slacking home from Yosemite in the early 1980s and the two dove headfirst into the sport.
By July 1985, Balcom became the first person to walk the slackline between the Yosemite Valley rim and the Lost Arrow Spire, 2,900 feet above the valley floor. Now several hundred guys can repeat the feat, his brother said.
Phiegh calls slackline “my life, my calling, my destiny,” but falls short of calling it his religion, although he says die-hard highliners go that far.
Now Phiegh’s company Slackline Brothers manufactures slack equipment, selling the webbing, carabiners and pulleys.
While the convenient “Slackline Brothers Starter Kit” costs $230, Phiegh said kids can rig a system with three carabiners and some flat webbing, ringing up to a total of about $50.
Phiegh, like Batdorf and friends, is committed to bringing slackline to the masses. He gives slackline clinics most Wednesdays from 7 to 11 p.m. at Rockreation, the nearby indoor climbing gym located in Los Angeles. “I’ll teach people to slackline till the day I die,” he said.
The first step on a slackline leaves most newbies bruised, a little shaken and more often than not, lying flat on their backs, but not to be disheartened. “You learn how to fall quickly,” said Opgenorth.
In two decades, the worst slackline injury Phiegh has seen was a shoulder dislocation (discounting the invariable “taking a line between the legs”). Plus he said the learning curve is amazing. Newcomers can learn to walk the line in a matter of days or even hours.
To novice slackers, Zielinksi offers these pointers: First, get foot placement down. Then “let your arms flow, don’t try to control them,” Zielinski said. “They’re probably going where they’re supposed to. Let your body react naturally.”
Slacklining is just now spreading beyond the rock-climbing community where it originated, Phiegh explained. Snowboarders, surfers and anyone with an itch to try something new are joining the sport.
Both Wilcox and Zielinski said slacklining improves their balance when they ride the waves of the Pacific Ocean. Batdorf even claims walking is easier after a focused slacking session.
They hope to bring the joys of slacklining to the Pepperdine community before the year ends. A Slacklining Club has been developing for quite some time, but the sport is so spontaneous, it’s hard to tack down in an organization, Wilcox said.
Zielinski sees how slacking has potential on campus. Likewise, he said people might see it as stupid.
Wilcox pointed out a different issue. “I’d do a club if they had it, but that’s kind of a problem since I’m graduating in a month.”
That’s exactly what concerns Opgenorth. Once the crew of mostly male seniors graduates in May, who will pick up the slack?
Sitting cross-legged in Alumni Park, the birthplace of Pepperdine slackline, Opgenorth challenged: “Someone will need to carry on next year,” he said.
More information about slacklining is available from Rockreation Sport Climbing Center, at 11866 La Grange Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90025, or by phone at 310-207-7199. On the Web, find tips and information at Slackline Brothers, www.slackline.com.
Submitted April 1, 2004
