Tight Rope Walkers Without Adequately Safe Landing Nets
Tightrope walking, also called funambulism, has captivated people since the ancient Greeks first began this high wired show. Its long traditions have found their way to many other popular variations, such as slacklining and slack rope walking. However, neither are nearly as perilous as tightrope walking. The amount of skill required to walk the line of taut rope is accomplished only by innate balance and dedication. These acts have been accomplished by singular stuntman or by groups of people upping the ante in this daring act.
One of the most popular acts was by the Flying Wallendas. The Flying Wallendas were a tight knit family whose idea of bonding was group tight rope walking. This family of seven joined together to form a human pyramid atop the high anchored rope. Not only did the base of the pyramid need to have unparalleled balance, they also needed supreme strength.
Tight rope walkers are generally very thin, agile, and flexible. They accomplish their task by centering their mass directly over the rope; they can accomplish this by use of either a pole or by reaching their arms out perpendicular in the same manner a pole would be used. Flexible leather shoes were often worn by performers to aid in gripping, but amateur or hobbyist walkers would walk barefoot and grip with their bare toes. Their feet had to be parallel to one another in order to maintain balance.
Tightrope walking is no walk in the park. Many deaths have occurred from these performances. Most tightrope walking acts you see today are done so with the use of safety netting underneath. However, in the past and with more daredevil acts of today, nets were nonexistent. Even falls from very short heights could produce broken legs, arms, and spines, leaving the performer unable to return to their beloved highwire act again. More dangerous still, performers continue to entertain us with highwire acts involving excessive heights across sky scrapers and canyons. A fall from those heights would insure sudden death.