Ultra-Primitive Slackline Setup

Aloha Tribe,

As a longboard surfer, I've taken to slacklining to improve my surfing. And, while my path to both actually intertwines, beginning with surfing as a little girl, the progressing to Monkey Style Kung Fu where one learns to move, stretch, fight, and even sleep on a Monkey Bed - which was basically just a rope slung between two trees with the purpose of creating perfect balance, then, about 10 years ago being given my first webbing slackline from my carpenter for my home - tied in the Ultra-Primitive Style, to today, living the life of a Vagabond Feral Soul  Surfer and Vagabond Feral Soul Slackliner. 

Such a life calls for following both the waves, and, the wind. For both elements become your home, harmoniously blending as the Shamanic quest for balance. You'll find, as you dare this quest, that the first door that opens for you is the mysterious and magical door to your subconscious.

To live the life of a Vagabond Feral Soul Rope Dancer or Slackliner, one simply, lives to Rope Dance or slack. And, just as a Soul Surfer, who travels Feral as a Vagabond carries one board and one board only, so goes such a slackliner or rope dancer. All you carry is but a  single slackline or a single piece of rope, rolled into a carefully tied bundle such as a Lap Bundle or perhaps, if you like a Backpack Bundle, and tossed into a canvas satchel slung crossbody, low over one hip along with a simple canvas backpack. The search becomes a quest seeking more than the mere perfect walk, more even than a sense of physical balance, the quest, becomes mixed in with Chi Gung, and thus, the search for internal and external exploration of yourself and the world around you based on energy.

Chi Gung, the ancient 4000 year old Chinese study of internal and external energy within, around, and beyond the body, holds the true secret to this art and lifestyle of a Ultra-Primitive Rope Dancer. The art of Soft Rope Penetration Arts or Rope Dancing aka Soft Roping is also several thousand years old, holding untold secrets, mysteries, and treasures.

One's kit is simple. Of course, it's environmentally based, thus the natural fiber travel kit, but, the key is to travel as lightly as possible. A canvas satchel works perfectly for your slackline or rope dancing gear. And, as for living, you'll explore traveling and surviving as an ultralight backpacker.

Having a few simple ways to make money helps. Whatever your gig happens to be. For me, my skills lay with the Short Cons, namely, the Shell Game, Five Card Draw Poker - as a Mechanic, and Pickpocketing (all of which can be done theatrically if you are so inclined to not wander the outlaw trail).

As a Vagabond Feral Soul Rope Dancer, one is free to travel the world. For there are always places to practice your art as you search deeper and deeper for yourself and your limits physically, mentally, and spiritually.

Some will probably live the streets as a Grifter or  Street Performer, honing the art of grifting to peak perfection, while, perhaps, keeping things sort of moderately legal. Others may explore the darker sides of the mysteries of life, depending, of course, upon your personal morals. And, for those who leave the cities and head into the wilds, you'll learn to live by whit and whim in the forests, jungles, mountains, plains, deserts, and beaches, especially the beaches if you also happen to be a Vagabond Feral Soul Surfer who also slacks.

Wandering as a slacker, you'll keep your eyes out for places to hang your line. And, while initially seemingly all similar, you'll find that the more you experience, the more depth you'll notice to your walking. Does it feel different to walk a line between two pine trees? Or two oaks? What about one strung between bamboo? Or boulders high in the mountains, how are they different than rocky ledges along the coast and over the sea? How does the humidity of Ghana effect your line? Or the dryness of a desert? Does height make a difference in how your line feels and thus, how the walk feels differently to you? Can you feel the pulse of a crowded city harmoniously dancing your line in ways that the wilds do not?

Each of these, of course, has different answers. And, if you're just starting out, you'll probably not notice much if any difference. Most  likely, you'll probably start on webbing, tubular webbing specifically. And, even with some experience,  you'll probably focus simply on line height, line length, or even how fast you can walk the line. But, as a Vagabond Feral  Rope Dancer, you're after something deeper, much much much deeper. This is where the study of Chi Gung comes into play and carries you along a path that leads to the true lifestyle of the Soul Slacker/Soft Roper. You see, the more you walk the line, the more sensitive you become to your body and to the way the line moves and feels. With experience, you might find the shift from a nylon or poly type strap of webbing to a totally natural length of rope, more than likely manilla at first. Manilla, unlike nylon has living chi about it, it has secrets and stories to tell and share, and its chi is pure. With time, you might explore the lushess softness of a jute rope or the pure magic of the greatest of all, Italian Hemp (currently illegal in the U.S. thus opening a door for those of a smuggling mind and bent).  And, it is at this point that you will begin to realize that there are physical changes that you can sense. At first, they'll register tactilly but with more experience, you'll learn to explore the depth of all of your senses, perfecting them, one at a time, to levels currently undreamed of by you. There literally are no limits within this art.

The advantages of a hemp, jute, or manilla rope to a nylon slackline is that instead of separating your from nature, you'll find that your rope, having been living material and thus still dancing strongly with it's own unique individual chi, offers a way to blend as one with all about you. The trippy part of this is that it is done all naturally, and, even if you use hemp, only rather slightly on the outlaw trail.

Walking a line, be it rope or webbing, opens your mind to your imagination, which, is the first step along this marvelous path. For in order to feel it and more so use it later, first, one must imagine it.

For those who do not know, Chi or Qi is the force that is within everything, all that is visible and all that is invisible as well as all that is animate and all inanimate things. Basically, it is in, around and beyond all. And the exciting part of the story is that you can, using Soft Roping and Slacklining skills, tap into this huge mass of everchanging, constantly morphing energy for shaping your life and the world around you. In a way, you could say that the New Age that was anticipated so strongly in the '60's is now here hanging on a rope, slung loosely as a Loose Rope, slackly as a Slackline or Slackrope , or tightly as a Tightrope, between two objects. There are few Loose or Soft Rope Specialists out here by the way, for it is still mostly an unknown art, lost to the antiquites of ancient China. In fact, the Ultra-Primitive Slackline Setup is based specifically the Loose Rope Dancer. You can use rope or webbing.

In a nutshell, tie a Double Bowline with Jack's Variation on the anchor end of the rope or webbing. This part is tied around a tree or boulder. Then, about 90 % of the way down the webbing or rope, tie a Butterfly Knot which is not to be confused with  an Artillery Man's Knot or a Mantrap Knot, nor especially, a False Butterfly Knot. For the Butterfly Knot, by the way, simply turn both loops the same way, essentially counterclockwise. For the False Butterfly knot, which you must not tie, the first loop goes counterclockwise and the second loop goes clockwise, and, while the two knots look similiar, they are not, the False Butterfly Knot is not as strong as the Butterfly Knot. Continue with the rest of the rope or webbing running it around your second working tree or boulder, and, as soon as you go around it, tie a second Butterfly Knot. Now, take the leftover webbing or rope and run it first up through the Butterfly Knot you just tied, then, down through your first Butterfly Knot, then back to the Butterfly Knot near the tree and go down through it again, this time trying to get your webbing or rope beneath your first pass through this Butterfly Knot. Then, take the remaining line and run it up through your midline Butterfly Knot, and run it under your first pass through this knot. Now, draw the system tight by pulling on the remaining tail  of the webbing or rope. If you want this set up as a Ultra-Primitive Slackline or Slackrope setup, the rope is pulled taught.  Or, if you prefer to simply use an Ultra-Primitive Loose Rope or Looseline setup, then simply tie a second Double Bowline with Jack's Variation around the working tree instead of using the Butterfly Knots, and, just let the webbing or rope hang loosely like a letter U. When you walk on a Loose Rope, it will look more or less like a letter V, with you as the low point.

In either case, Ultra-Primitive Slackline/Slackrope or Ultra-Primitive Loose Rope/Looseline, you only use a single piece of rope or webbing, without the need for a second webbing like you need in a Primitive System, and, without the carabiners that a Primitive System also requires.

This Ultra-Primitive method is new, hot, unique, ultralight, and the wave of the future. I feel rather excited to have come up with these knots and this idea of hanging a rope or webbing slack or loose. It sure works for me.

The romance of the line awaits you, the call of the wilds and cities sings to your webbing and rope, heed the call. For you will find balance poetry, art, style, spiritual growth, mental and physical mastery all honed to perfection if you dare.

Bodaciously Stoked,

Lily of the Valley