Above photo: David Whalen has been slacklining since he was 15 and welcomes spectators at the USF St. Petersburg waterfront to hop on the 90 feet of webbing with him. Whitney Elfstrom | The Crow’s Nest
By Whitney Elfstrom
Balance: most strive for it, but few achieve it.
People find it within their journal, meditation or yoga practice. Or, they walk across a thin line from one point to another and hope to God they don’t fall off.
For David Whalen, a freshman mass communication major at USF St. Petersburg, it’s the latter.
Maybe you’ve seen him hanging out by the USF St. Petersburg waterfront suspended eight feet above the ground as he carefully treads across 90 feet of flat, red nylon webbing. This adventurous feat is called slacklining, which is the act of balancing along a rope tied to two anchors, typically trees.
Whalen started slacking at 15 years old with his older brother Jarod and was “absolute garbage at it.” He didn’t take it seriously until he was 17. Whalen said he is first and foremost a rock climber and that slacklining is part of the climbing culture.
“I’ve always been mediocre at a bunch of things and now I’m finally good at something,” Whalen said about his slacklining and rock climbing.
Whalen subscribes to all of the “hippie outdoor shit.” He regularly goes barefoot, eats a vegetarian diet and kicks around a hacky sack. He’s learning how to surf and spin fire. He regularly uses a longboard — not a car — to get from place to place.
Once a week he sets up his slackline when he’s not working at Vertical Ventures St. Pete, a rock climbing gym on 18 Street S. He said it gives him something to do when he’s bored or if the weather permits it.
Whether he’s gazing out over the USF St. Petersburg waterfront or Riverside in the Yosemite Valley, Whalen loves to chase the rush that comes with slacklining and rock climbing.
In high school, he would tie one end of the webbing to the roof of his two-story house, tie the other to a tree and then walk across.
“It’s more fun for me when it’s higher,” Whalen said. “It makes it a little more sketchy and a little more fun.”
When he sets up, he usually catches the eye of fellow waterfront visitors. People stop and ask him what he’s doing and if they can try — he always says yes.
He’s often joined by his girlfriend Katie Pierce and his longtime best friend Tristan Dougherty. Both have only tackled the circus act a few times, but that didn’t stop them from jumping on.
Pierce and Whalen met as a result of slacklining. She saw him practicing on campus and asked if she could try it out. He was happy to let her.
“I’ve only done it a few times,” said Pierce, a freshman health science major. “I still haven’t made it all the way across.”
Whalen said he prefers balance tricks to dynamic ones. While he doesn’t seek out new tricks to practice, he’ll throw in new moves every now and then, pulling from an Instagram video or anything that pops into his head.
Keeping in line with the need to find balance, Whalen practices yoga, both on the mat and on the line. He uses yoga, rock climbing and long boarding to help strengthen his core, which makes him a stronger slackliner.
“It’s kind of like riding a bike, you just have to figure it out for yourself,” Whalen said.
There’s an art behind each movement. According to Whalen, you keep one foot in front of the other, fixate your eyes on a single point ahead and keep your right wrist limp while the left remains stiff.
“You wave your arms like an idiot … you do that and counterbalance everything and that’s pretty much it,” he said.
When it comes to failing or messing up tricks, Whalen has mixed reactions. With slacklining, he said he doesn’t get upset because he falls all the time. But with climbing he’s quicker to anger if he messes up — especially when it’s on a route he’s been working hard to master.
Most of the time, though, he’s pretty laid back. He said that in his day-to-day life, if he fails or does badly at something, he doesn’t let it affect him.
“Life’s a game, just (mess) around,” Whalen said. “Take things seriously that you like, but there’s a lot of stupid shit like slacklining that doesn’t have any real value, so you might as well just (mess) around with it.”
