Highlining and Chakras

how energy moves through my body in extreme conditions.

That’s a piece I wanted to write for a long time. Finally it come out. It describes my feeling of walking highlines with the awareness of a deep meditation practice. It refers to highlines, but I suppose it can be applied to other sports. At least for personal experience I know it applies to free climbing and acrobatics as well.

As foreword: at the beginning I started meditation, the Yoga of knowing the Mind, because I thought it would help me to highline. Now I understand that I started highlining because it prepares me for meditation and it supports it.

Follow me now on the highline and through the chakras!!

We are at the edge of the cliff… …the highline is set, standing beautifully over this gorgeous gap!

You are on the edge of the cliff, you tie yourself in, or may be not, sit on the line and slide out, your feet are dangling over the abyss... you prepare to stand up and walk…

Here is what happens in my personal experience verified against experiences of other athletes. The more experience you gain the faster the shift to higher Chakra is.

Root Chakra:

You’re still at the edge or sitting on the line. Your energy is in the lower belly, you have fears, often you feel you need the restroom (no joke!), you are blocked and paralyzed, in the worst case you cannot move. The instinct of survivor is predominant and tells you not to go. If your energy does not shift out of this Chakra you will not stand up and your highline experience will end here. This is often the first highline experience for many.

Navel Chakra:

That’s the Chakra of the passions, if you shift your energy here you are now excited, you’re still close to the root Chakra and therefore fear is there, however now your excitement might balance out this fear and you might successfully stand up! At this point you might be “brave”, bite the bullet, throw one foot after the other and eventually get across the line, or not. In any case, in this stage it’s quite a hard task. Please look for my definition of brave and courageous in my previous write if you want to deeply understand the meaning of these words as I use them.

Solar Plexus Chakra:

That’s the “I” Chakra, the ego. If your energy shifts here you feel wonderful, you have all the power of standing up and walk the line because in this very moment you are the best in the world, you are awesome! Normally at this stage you will want to have a head camera and another dozen cameras to be sure not to miss any angle, so that your heroic performance is safely and accurately recorded and available for the good of the whole humanity (Yes it is a joke, but it’s also true!)! If the line is within your capabilities: you walk it. No problem! You walk it and you perform tricks and figures. It’s in your hand, it’s not even so hard!

All experienced highliners are able to shift their energy here. Unfortunately you might get stuck here and never move up… You may start performing for your ego (you can also understand “camera” instead of “ego” here ;) ). But the best is yet to come.

Heart Chakra:

That’s the Chakra of Love, intended as universal, unconditional Love, if you understand what I mean. That’s the Chakra of courage (check my other piece where I explain that the Latin original word for courage means literally “be comfortable in your heart space, be Love”). At this point you forget your camera, finally. You are performing an act of Love, you Love what you are doing and that’s the only thing that exist. You’re no longer walking, you are Loving. There is no longer space for fear. You are Courageous, meaning you are in your heart. If you were there you will understand me!

Throat Chakra:

You speak the truth. You are creative! Your walk is already an act of Love, but here it becomes art! It becomes the highest expression of your being, you are no longer Loving, you are Love itself. As I said above, if you have been there you know what this means.

From the next two Chakras I needed to experience this through deep meditation first, in order to understand. The thing is: extreme sports lead in “some spaces” but the recognition of these is commonly unripe. Normally, these shifts come when you introduce ultimate consequences to your highline experience. Opening these “spaces” and failing to recognize them leads to drop off these “spaces” really quick and ultimately turns into getting an attachment/addiction to the “vehicle” that broth you there. In this case the “vehicle” is highlining but it might as well be drugs or any other… The “vehicle” becomes more important than the journey and destination. This is very unfortunate, when you travel you don’t look at your car, right? You look at the journey and at the destination, right? Same here!

Third Eye Chakra:

You see. You look no longer to the things, but to the space around and within these things (… cannot explain it better, that’s not for the brain to grasp). You observe the totality of the space around you. You experience that the less you do the better, you observe, you are.

Crown Chakra:

You know. Your energy shifts to your crown Chakra, you are out of your body. You no longer look at the totality of the space surrounding you but you operate out of this very space. You watch your body walking the line, there is no need of doing anymore. You are beyond the concept of doing. The space is no longer space, the time is no longer time, you are no longer… and more than that (again, not for your brain to grasp: you can only experience it.

Here you are performing the highest form of Yoga, in my opinion. The world Yoga means Union, unfortunately this is often forgotten. It is the Union of Wisdom and Compassion, in this case the Union of your movement and postures and the awareness of them. Union means you have experienced that these two things are one.

If you haven’t experience it, do not try to conceptualize there words. The words have no meaning. It is not an intellectual understanding, it’s an experience.

I’m not quite sure how to close this piece… I can conclude restating the following: “do not get stuck looking at the vehicle, look at the journey and towards your destination”.

Keep it slack and aware everyone!!