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The following are notes, usenet posts, etc on slackrope that I have collected from various sources. This needs to be turned into a more comprehensive curriculum, but for now this should be of some help to those learning slackrope. Notes for before you start
Notes on getting up your first time
Notes on walking the rope
safesex@cyberspace.com (Travis M Bear) asks: > > Okay, folks, to take us briefly off the subject of those damn siteswaps, >here's something a bit different to chew over... One skill I want to begin >exploring soon is walking on a rope. There's lots about rope walking I don't >know yet. In fact, there is nothing, really, that I know about rope walking >yet. So. Three easy questions, then one open-ended one. I've been rope walking for two or three years on and off (the `off' bit usually preceded by `falling'), but am completely self-taught so there's probably people with much better opinions than those that I can offer. > 1) Is it properly called "slackrope," "slack rope," or "slack-rope?" I'd say: yes. It probably is properly called those. A somewhat tighter rope is called a tightrope, so I guess `slackrope' fits nicely with that. But then, a tightrope is a more common concept (I think) outside the world of those who actually walk on (fall off) the things, so maybe it doesn't deserve its own word, so `slack rope' fits nicely with that. If you like to compromise then `slack-rope' is for you. I expect any of the three will be understood as well as any other. I'd not throw someone out of my flat for not using the one I prefer. > 2) Are there any good time-saving techniques for learning out there, or > is the best bet just to get on and "go for it?" Someone with more/better experience can no-doubt enlighten both of us, but I'd offer the following: o I found a slacker rope easier to get used to balancing on, and a tighter rope easier to actually walk on. (Up to a point! There's a limit where I found the tighter rope harder to walk on. But turning around I found almost impossible on a rope with much slack in it.) I don't suppose such nebulous phrases are really much use. The best I can say is to try different tensions and see what works best for you. (Don't you just hate it when people say that?) o When you first put a foot on the rope and start to put weight on it, the bugger's going to start wobbling. My natural inclination is to wait for the wobbling to subside before stepping up with both feet. `Cept that doesn't happen. You can stand there with a wobbling foot all afternoon and any passers-by'll think you look like an idiot. Not unreasonable, as you will look like an idiot. Forget the wobble and just step up anyway - the wobble doesn't make things harder. o Keep the rope low enough (at least at first) that you can step up with your second foot, rather than have to make a little jump. The jump'll throw your balance something rotten. (At least if you're as unbalanced (in all sorts of senses) as me). Try starting with the rope six inches or a foot from the ground in the middle when your weight's on it. (That's fifteen to thirty centimetres in new money). It's easier to step on at that height and it's not so sore when you fall off and land on your bum. Even if you like a higher rope, it might be worth making sure that it's lower than your inside-leg measurement - for probably obvious reasons. o I find it easier to balance if you swing the rope somewhat by shifting your weight from side to side. Just a bit! I hesitated to suggest that, as it's something that I do naturally. So don't force it. o Get onto the rope in the middle - maybe this is stating the bloody obvious, but it's much easier there. o You'll probably find it easier if you wear stout shoes. Most people I've persuaded to try rope walking have thought that they need to wear soft shoes or no shoes at all so that they can feel where the rope is. I usually like to let them find out just how painful this can be if you don't have hard feet. The rope goes under your feet, and your feet are on the ends of your legs where they've always been. If you've got fairly sturdy feet (I like to go barefoot a lot, for instance) it's OK to do it with soft shoes or barefoot, but I still need to be careful of the rope getting between my toes. o It's well worth knowing how to fall without hurting yourself. You might be surprised just how often you land on your feet (I was) but every so often you're going to end up flat on the ground. Obvious, I know. o Before you try to lift your second foot off the ground, hold your arms straight out to either side and be prepared to throw them around all over the place. This does, indeed, make you look stupid. But less stupid than not doing it and falling off even sooner. o Don't bother trying to actually walk for a little while. Just get the hang of standing around of you can. Then try just taking one step and standing around again. Once you get towards the end of the rope, walking backwards or turning around is something entirely other! o Don't look at your feet. Like I said before, they're on the ends of your legs. They're likely to stay there. Look either straight ahead or at the end of the rope (that's the end in front of you, behind you. Now that would be a good trick). The temptation to watch your feet is very strong - I still catch myself doing it. Maybe get a friend to keep reminding you about this one. But I'm really no expert. This advice is worth every penny you paid for it. > 3) Is some kind of hemp/fiber rope best, or do nylons work better? I hate plastic ropes. I mostly rope walk out in the local park, with the rope tied between two trees. If the ground is slightly damp, or even just from the moisture from broken grass leaves and stems, plastic ropes can get very slippy and you find yourself sliding off. Fibre ropes are much better when damp.
In article <2kbk8u$2hn@clt.fx.net>, dcarper@clt.fx.net (David Carper) wrote: > Travis M Bear (safesex@cyberspace.com) wrote: > > : 2) Are there any good time-saving techniques for learning out there, or > : is the best bet just to get on and "go for it?" > > In addition to other suggestions in other followups, when you step up > on the rope, holding your arms out gives you some balance to work with. > To make this even better, hold something in each hand to extend your > effective(or ineffective :)) arm length. I recommend juggling clubs. > It's amazing what an extra 10 oz can do to help stabalize you. Also, > when standing, it is easeir to stand on just on foot, leaving the other > free to swing around for balance. This also lets you keep your arms > steady, so you can juggle(at least in theory). Besides, one foot looks > harder to many observers. > One other important thing to remember is that walking on a slack rope involves different weight shifting than walking down the street. Try walking down a flight of stairs two stairs at a time. Notice how all your weight is over your back foot and you don't shift your weight forward untill your other foot is securely on the next step? Well, it's the same thing for walking on a slack rope. You will almost always be more stable with your weight over your back foot if your are standing with two feet on the rope. Also I found it much easier to learn how to walk (or take five steps and fall off) first and then learn how to stand on one leg. You just have to psyche yourself up for walking and convince yourself that you won't kill yourself, but after doing this, I found that walking wasn't all that hard. Turning around however, is a bitch. Oh yeah, getting on is much harder than actually walking, so you might want to have a friend help you get up at first. > : 3) Is some kind of hemp/fiber rope best, or do nylons work better? > > I prefer natural fiber, and make it *thick*. 1/2 inch is usable, but your > feet will hurt real soon. I prefer at least 3/4 inch, and 1 inch is > wonderful(and expensive). > Not that I know anything either, but I actually like my 3/4 inch flat weave climbing rope that I use. I have a great system worked out for setting it up which uses three carabeeners (sp?) which act like pulleys and I find it is really comfortable on my feet and super easy to transport and set up.
In article <apeters1-280294144507@mac15.mccabe2.swarthmore.edu> apeters1@cc.swarthmore.edu (Andrew Peterson) writes: >One other important thing to remember [...] >You will almost always be more stable >with your weight over your back foot if your are standing with two feet on >the rope. Now that sounds like a good observation. Wish someone had told me that a couple of years ago. >Turning around however, is a bitch. Turning around used to be impossible. Now it's only next to impossible. I'm sure practice would help a lot, but I don't practice nearly enough - especially not in winter (which seems to last from August to June in Glasgow - I'm sure when I lived in England it wasn't 23 months between summers. But I digress. [Readers: "We'd noticed"] ). So what's the best way to turn around? Things I've tried: o spinning on the ball of one foot. Success rate: I think I did it once - but it might've been a daydream. It always feels like a good way to kill yourself; o spinning on the balls of both feet. Success rate: pretty bad. Maybe it works a couple of times a week. If I practice lots in a week, that is. It feels like almost as good a way of killing yourself; o tying my legs in knots in what must be the rope-walking equivalent of Eric's Extension. If whatever deity there may be had wanted me to have both feet facing in opposite directions whilst stood on a swaying clothes- line, he/she/it would've given me power-steering on my hip joints, `cos I'm buggered if my brain can take all the disturbing information coming from my inner ear and still have time to work my legs and arms when I'm driving a body with manual controls. Success rate: somewhere between the two above. It feels like it should work. But it don't, do it? In short, I can barely do it. Is there a trick that I'm missing, or am I just stupid/incompetant? No - don't answer that one. I mean, am I _MORE_ stupid/incompetant than I think? Someone must be able to offer help. In the meantime, I get better and better at walking backwards, `cos there's little else to do when I get to the end of the rope. >Not that I know anything either, but I actually like my 3/4 inch flat >weave climbing rope that I use. I have a great system worked out for >setting it up which uses three carabeeners (sp?) which act like pulleys and >I find it is really comfortable on my feet and super easy to transport and >set up. Do you not find a climbing rope is too stretchy and saggy? I've never tried, because I was told not to bother because of those reasons. Clearly you know better than the people who were advising me. (It wouldn't be hard). M. -- Martin McCarthy - mmc@ehabitat.demon.co.uk PGP 2.2 public key available
Martin complains about the difficulty of turning around on a rope. I have never worked on slack rope, but the way I was taught to walk a tight rope by Cliff Spenger. As I recall, the way he told me to turn around was to have the right foot in the normal position on the rope, put the left foot down at right angles to the rope facing right, then shift the weight onto the left foot for long enough to swivel on the ball of the right foot, then put the weight back on the right foot and use the left leg for balance if necessary. As usual, stand up straight, and switch quickly from spotting on one end of the rope to spotting on the other. I haven't worked on rope in a few years, but I remember this as being an easier trick than, say, doing an under the leg throw or passing clubs on the rope, at least on a tight rope. Andrew conway@cup.portal.com The following used to appear on Petr Kazil's website www.geocities.com/pkazil2001/slackrope.html. The site is now gone, but I saved the notes. Until I have time to write a better page on the subject, this will do. P.S. if anyone knows how to get into contact with Petr Kazil, I would like to get his permission to post it permanently. -SS Slackrope techniques Here I post some new stuff I wrote myself, some e-mails I received from people on rec.juggling and some old stuff from deja.news. I don't have all the names of the authors anymore. I have: Andy Peterson, Lauren Muney, Slammin Andy, Trog Woolley. I'm sorry for the one's I don't mention. If you come forward I'll recognize your copyright. The kick of slackrope walkingIf it's slackrope walking you are interested in, I say GO FOR IT!!!. I am a fairly avid slackrope walker (slacker?) and I highly recommend it becaue it isn't all that hard, it's easy to set up and it goes great with juggling (it is much easier to juggle on a slack rope than on a unicycle for example). Slackrope walking is a totally amazing thing and I highly recommend it. It is a phenomenal crowd pleaser too. Sure, I walk a tightrope -- not slack. I use 1" marine hemp rope. I don't put it very high, so I rely on doing more tricks -- blindfolded walking, etc. I'm not a real pro at that, but it is a fun and interesting technique. Teahing kids how to do it really boosts their confidence -- a little practice is all they need for a simple walk. I find that the nice thing about the unicycle and the rope is that it is a quick way to silence the internal dialogue. You have to shut up for a while and try to stay on top of things. I juggle a lot on slackrope, but don't do a lot of the 'traditional' slack wire moves (handstand, ladder, etc.) because I don't have a spotter and don't want to break my neck. Let me tell you, juggling on the slack wire kicks ass. It IS great exercise. Try teaching some friends and then running passing feeds. Or if you are by yourself, numbers clubs, half pirouettes, juggling with club balance, whatever, it's all a blast.
TechniqueHi, I've been walking slack rope for five years now. I don't know if that makes me qualified to answer you question, but what the hell...
It took me about two weeks to get comfortable walking on a slack rope. My pointers are...
I never got very far with it, but did have good teachers. I remember with slack rope it's much easier to stay in one position; with tightrope it's easier to keep walking. What is definitely true is that you should begin by balancing on two feet on slackrope, whereas tightrope is easier when balancing on one foot. From this you can see that as soon as you begin to raise one foot in order to move along the slackrope, you need greater skill. Walking is an essential skill, but not the first. Slackrope balancing is a knack that depends on being mobile at the hips - your torso stays pretty still, while your legs wobble like a pendulum. If you can focus on keeping your head relaxed but still, along with your body, and allow your legs to move freely (this feels very strange) you'll get it. Actually, logically, I would place my awareness directly in my hips - but I'm not expert enough to say whether this works best. Unicycling also needs this free independent movement between upper and lower body, so the two skills may help each other. As was mentioned before, a slackrope will save much much time and money if you just want a rope to play on. Note that the techniques for slackrope and tightrope are almost entirely different, learning one does not transfer well to learning the other. good luck all... huiswants es! One thing not to do is to use ski poles or some such thing to keep you up. Whatever balance mechanism it is in your head that will eventually allow you to stay up on the thing will be sidestepped. A hallway might be nice, but one wall is what did the trick for me. A tree won't let you get anywhere, but a wall will be there (for at least the length of the wall) to give you a sense of security, and to allow you to learn the moves that will let you keep your butt over the wheel, and that, in a rather crude nutshell, is the secret of the yike. (I don't remember where I heard that, but it was originally applied to slackrope walking, which is another fun thing to try while you're juggling. A few slackrope hints from someone who can almost do it:
I walk tightwire and have learned most of my stuff without a spotter. This is due to the fact generally people aren't interested in learning to walk the wire and so I end up walking alone. Anyway to learn a new balance, I use a broomstick with a walking stick rubber on the bottom so it doesn't slip. I use it to lean on while I am learning a new balance. I don't know if you can use this little gadget for slackwire I find a brolly (=umbrella) very useful for tightwire too. The handle must be at 90degrees to a normal brolly handle (that is parallel to the canopy). I have seen brolly's used on slackwire so they must be useful; they certainly make tightwire about 1000% easier and they are a good looking prop. Yes, there are tightrope walkers out here. Suggest that you check out Hovey Burgess's "Circus Techniques" book (available from Brain Dube'), as well as the free-standing apparatus which Ben Schoenberg at Serious Juggling carries. Another reference is Phillipe Pettit's "On The Wire", but it is difficult to get hold of, and it is not exactly a how-to manual. It does, however, have a photo of his clandestine walk between the twin towers of Notre Dame in Paris, with a not very amused gendarmes standing in the foreground. On The High Wire, Philippe Petit, 1985, Random House, New York, ISBN 0-394-71573-X, trans. Paul Auster, preface by Marcel Marceau, back cover piece by Werner Herzog. SetupI use a really simple set up which only requires two short and one long length of flat 3/4" climbing web and three beeners (those clips from rock climbing) and two poles, trees or other strong objects to tie the slack rope to (about 15-20' apart, firmly implanted in the ground). So total cost of this set up is probably under $40 (minus the trees). The set up involves looping the short ropes around the poles/trees you use and then hooking one end of the long rope to one end-rope with a beener and rigging up a crude pully system on the other end of the long rope with two beeners, one of which get attached to the other end rope which in turn is looped around the other pole/tree. Finally then, tension can be set on the slack rope by using the pully. Oh, yes. Start by rigging the rope so that it is *below* your inseam when you straddle the rope. Best of luck. Setup - in DuchIk heb nu de ideale opstelling gevonden denk ik. Snel op te bouwen en ook snel af te breken. Klimtouw (dynamisch) werkt niet. Ik heb 20m oud touw voor NLG 10 gekocht bij de klimhal maar ik krijg het niet strak genoeg. Wat ik ook doe, als ik in het midden ga staan dan sta ik gelijk op de grond. Het is gewoon elastiek. Er zou wel een oplossing voor zijn: een katrol-constructie, maar dan wordt het gevaarlijk. Stel dat je er van af valt en je krijgt dat strak gespannen touw in je kruis. Au! Ik gebruik gewoon 14mm touw, geslagen, 3 strengen. Een soort dikkere sleepkabel. Ik heb geen idee wat het is. Bij het "Touwhuis" vroeg ik om 14mm touw, het goedkoopste dat er is. En ik kreeg 25m voor NLG 45. (Eerst wilden ze het me niet verkopen omdat ik zei dat ik er een glijbaantje mee wilde maken. Dat vonden ze te gevaarlijk met niet-gekeurd touw.) Voor het koorddansen bevalt het prima. Ik kan het zo strak trekken dat ik in het midden nog net 10cm boven de grond blijf en dan veert het nog steeds een beetje. Het is vrij statisch touw. De opstelling die ik gebruik is:
And the policeFor those of you who recall my story last fall of having my torches confiscated by the University Police, I have a further anecdote: Last weekend there was a big festival at school with a circus theme; I juggled, brought in friends who unicycled and juggled, and tied up a slackrope to play on. The day was lots of fun as I got the hang of the rope and let other people try it out. This morning, I brought out the rope again to practice alone on the University Yard, and was very quickly apprehended in the criminal act by a UPD officer. I was ordered to get down, get rid of the rope and never attempt it again; when I asked why, I was told I was a danger to innocent passers-by, who might unknowingly WALK INTO ME or suffer if I went flying through the air at them. Unconvinced as I was, I tried to be patient as the sergeant was brought out to talk some sense into me. No logic worked with these men. I mentioned that students regularly play tackle football, frisbee and various other dangerous but conventional sports all over the yard, and that it is Extremely Unlikely for a lost student to wander across the grass and trip over my rope as I balance on it. Their response was, "Are you kidding? People walk out into the street and get hit by CARS!" Of course they don't attempt to take away people's cars, now, do they. I spent the rest of the day being shuffled around from one administrative office to the next, pleading my case and waiting for long periods of time to see the appropriate officials about this - I want to play with my rope in my last few weeks of school and I am very angry at this whole situation. I haven't gotten an answer yet - by 4:30 I was tired of waiting for the Captain of the police so I gave up and went home. Tomorrow is another day. (*sigh*) I guess this relates back to the old "I got hassled for juggling" stories, but for the moment I am just sick and tired of the cops here at GW. Another victimized artiste |
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