Look: Slackers
One Step at a Time
Don’t let the club’s name fool you: Slackers at CU is not for the idle or undisciplined. It’s for slackliners.
Slacklining is a little like tight-rope walking, but typically outdoors, without balancing aids and, at least on campus, closer to the ground — typically between one and eight feet.
“It’s meditative,” said Tyler Shalvarjian (Mktg’17), president of Slackliners at CU, which has a fluctuating membership of about 30.
Basically, slackliners run a long strip of heavy-duty mountain climber’s webbing between two trees and try to walk across without falling.
Shalvarjian, who’s from Los Angeles, worked with university administrators to devise rules for slacklining on campus. These limit a line’s distance to 250 feet, for example, require participants to sign a waiver before trying distances over 100 feet and restrict slacklining to daylight hours.
Slackliners elsewhere have been known to string lines of 2,000 feet and longer — sometimes across canyons.
Slackers at CU welcomes beginners.
“It’s an all-inclusive community,” Shalvarjian said. “Everyone wants you to hop on their slackline.”
Photos by Glenn Asakawa