On the High Wire

by Philippe Petit

  The preliminary speeches lasted a long time. One after the other, dignitaries got up and spoke about the Cathedral and the historic moment that was about to take place. Clergymen, city officials, former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance — all of them made speeches. A large crowd had gathered in the street, mostly schoolchildren and neighborhood people, and it was clear that the majority of them had come to see Philippe. As the speeches droned on, there was a good deal of talking and restlessness in the crowd. The late September weather was threatening: a raw, pale gray sky; the wind beginning to rise; rain clouds gathering in the distance. Everyone was impatient. If the speeches went on any longer, perhaps the walk would have to be canceled.

  Fortunately, the weather held, and at last Philippe’s turn came. The area below the cable had to be cleared of people, which meant that those who a moment before had held center stage were now pushed to the side with the rest of us. The democracy of it pleased me. By chance, I found myself standing shoulder to shoulder with Cyrus Vance on the steps of the Cathedral. I, in my beat-up leather jacket, and he in his impeccable blue suit. But that didn’t seem to matter. He was just as excited as I was. I realized later that at any other time I might have been tongue-tied to be standing next to such an important person. But none of that even occurred to me then. We talked about the high wire and the dangers Phillipe would have to face. He seemed to be genuinely in awe of the whole thing and kept looking up at the wire — as I did, as did the hundreds of children around us. It was then that I understood the most important aspect of the high wire: it reduces us all to our common humanity. A secretary of state, a poet, a child: we became equal in one another’s eyes, and therefore a part of one another.

  A brass band played a Renaissance fanfare from some invisible place behind the Cathedral façade, and Philippe emerged from the roof of the building on the other side of the street. He was dressed in a white satin medieval costume, the silver trowel hanging from a sash at his side. He saluted the crowd with a graceful, bravura gesture, took hold of his balancing pole firmly in his two hands, and began his slow ascent along the wire. Step by step, I felt myself walking up there with him, and gradually those heights seemed to become habitable, human, filled with happiness. He slid down to one knee and acknowledged the crowd again; he balanced on one foot; he moved deliberately and majestically, exuding confidence. Then, suddenly, he came to a spot on the wire far enough away from his starting-point that my eyes lost contact with all surrounding references: the apartment building, the street, the other people. He was almost directly overhead now, and as I leaned backward to take in the spectacle, I could see no more than the wire, Philippe, and the sky. There was nothing else. A white body against a nearly white sky, as if free. The purity of that image burned itself into my mind and is still there today, wholly present.

  From beginning to end, not once did I think he might fall. Risk, fear of death, catastrophe: these were not part of the performance. Philippe had assumed full responsibility for what he was doing, and I sensed that nothing could possibly shake that resolve. High-wire walking is not an art of death but an art of life — and life lived to the very extreme of life. Which is to say, life that does not hide from death but stares it directly in the face. Each time he sets foot on the wire, Philippe takes hold of that life and lives it in all its exhilarating immediacy, in all its heroic, high-stepping joy.

  May he live to be a hundred.

  Paul Auster, 1982

  On the High Wire

  This is the journey to be made:

  Rise up as your wire merges with the map of the sky.

  Definitions

  Whoever walks, dances, or performs

  on a rope raised several yards from the ground

  is not a ­high-­wire walker.

  His wire can be tight or slack; it can bounce

  or be completely loose. He works with or without a balancing pole.

  He is called the ropedancer.

  Whoever uses a thin wire of brass or steel

  in the same way

  becomes a ­low-­wire artist.

  There remains the one whose performance is a game of chance.

  The one who is proud of his fear.

  He dares to stretch his cable over precipices,

  he attacks bell towers,

  he separates mountains and brings them together.

  His steel cable, his rope, must be extremely tight.

  He uses a balancing pole for great crossings.

  He is the Voleur of the Middle Ages,

  the Ascensioniste of Blondin’s time,

  the Funambule.

  In English we call him the ­High-­Wire Walker.

  Warning

  No, the high wire is not what you think it is.

  It is not a realm of lightness, space, and smiles.

  It is a job.

  Grim, tough, deceptive.

  And whoever does not want to struggle

  against failure, against danger,

  whoever is not prepared to give everything

  to feel that he is alive,

  does not need to be a ­high-­wire walker.

  Nor could he ever become one.

  As for this ­book—­

  the study of the high wire is not rigorous,

  it is useless.

  Setting up the wire

  There are ropes made of natural fibers, artificial fibers, and metal fibers. When they are stretched, twisted, rolled, compressed, or submitted to rapidly changing temperatures, these fibers create a wire.

  The wires are put together to form a strand. Several strands braided, twisted, or sheathed together become a rope. A rope often has in its center a strand of some other material. This is usually called the core, the “soul.”

  Wires, strands, and soul are assembled according to methods whose laws are as rigorous as they are varied.

  The number of ropes, therefore, is infinite.

  Whoever intends to master the art of walking on them must take on the task of seeking them out. Of comparing them. Of keeping those whose properties correspond to his aspirations. Of learning how to knot them. Of knowing how to tighten them.

  Acquiring this knowledge is the work of a lifetime.

  For now, take a metal rope of clear steel, composed of six, seven, or eight strands, with a diameter of between twelve and ­twenty-­six millimeters.

  With a soul of hemp.

  Today, one no longer finds ­high-­wire walkers who use thick ropes of Italian hemp. For reasons of convenience, the steel cable has replaced the rope.

  This cable must be free of all traces of grease.

  Each steel cable is lubricated when it is manufactured. The first operation, therefore, is to remove this grease. The best method is to stretch out the cable in the corner of a garden and to leave it there for several years. At the end of that time, you will hunt through the tall grass to retake possession of the “old” cable. To make it new again, wash it in gasoline and rub it with emery until it is clean and gray. It is a good idea to leave a considerable length of cable exposed in this fashion, perhaps five hundred meters. ­Walk-­lengths can then be cut off when needed.

  If you are not in a position to age a new cable in this manner, an alternative is to repeat the cleaning process as many times as ­necessary—­to wipe each strand, one after the other, and to go through the operation again and again until the wire is absolutely dry. This method is not entirely satisfactory, however, since the grease that lurks in the soul can sometimes spill forth abundantly when a tightly stretched cable has been exposed to the sun for a prolonged period.

  A rusted cable can be made excellent once it has been brushed and wiped.

  A cable must be in good condition. Without kinks or meat hooks. Kinks are the traces left by an old loop or hook: the cable has been twisted, and when it is stretched out, a barely
perceptible bump remains that even the greatest tension cannot eliminate. Meat hooks are the wires of a broken strand; they bristle up like splinters. To make sure that the cable is not concealing any meat hooks, run a cloth along the entire length of the wire in both directions.

  When setting up for the first time, use a simple wire ten meters long, stretched out two and a half meters off the ground between two small ­poles—­two X’s of wood or ­metal—­or, even more simply, between two trees. Preferably, trees with character. Attach one end with wire clamps; on the other end attach a tightening device (a large turnbuckle or a level hoist) to a sling. At the tip of the cable make a spliced eye with a thimble inside it. Draw the eye toward the hoist hook with the help of a pulley block. Fasten to the hoist and tighten. Be careful to wrap the tree trunks with large jute cloths so they are not hurt by the wire.

  The first steps

  The first steps, of course, can be made on a small wire stretched out just two inches from the ground. But then, you could just as easily close this book and become a weekend wire walker.

  Don’t look for a ladder; leap up onto the wire. Slippers and balancing pole are for later.

  Right away, balance yourself on one foot, facing the tree. Quick. Try to hold on as long as possible before grabbing the tree again.

  Do not jump. Do not walk. The leg is fixed. The foot is poised along the wire.

  Your arms will wave about wildly. Pay no attention to them. Look for balance. Enough! Change feet. Just a little try. Change again. In this way you will find your better foot, the one that will later become your “balancing foot.” Then you will stop these stupid gymnastics, turn around, and lean your back against the tree.

  High-­wire walking is not a solution to the problem of balance.

  Look intensely at what stretches out before you.

  You are facing the cable.

  That’s it.

  Everything changes now that the wire is there.

  Fix your eyes on the ­target—­the ­end—­and try a crossing. Don’t look for the bark behind you, but jump down the moment you lose your balance. In this way, the crossing will be a series of balancings: on one foot, on the other foot, again, and again, and again.

  You must not fall.

  When you lose your balance, resist for a long time before turning yourself toward the earth. Then jump.

  You must not force yourself to stay steady. You must move forward.

  You must win.

  The wire trembles. The tendency is to want to calm it by force. In fact, you must move with grace and suppleness to avoid disturbing the song of the cable.

  It is better to take your first steps without a balancing pole. Above all, it is natural. This cumbersome bar can help an experienced walker to make an effortless crossing, but it is utterly useless to the beginner. You should not begin to think about a balancing pole until you have mastered balancing on one foot and have been able to make a partial crossing without losing your composure.

  The balancing pole is generally a wooden rod or a metal tube with a diameter that allows for easy handling; it is five to eight meters in length. Its weight varies according to the situation: the exercise balancing pole weighs twenty pounds; the balancing pole used in great crossings can be as heavy as fifty pounds. The way it is made is the wire walker’s secret. Assemble your own and do not tell anyone how you did it.

  So that the foot will feel the cable and not lend itself to accidental slips, ­buffalo-­hide slippers are recommended, though in rainy weather these should be replaced by slippers with rubber soles. But any unreinforced shoes with the main sole removed, or even thick ­socks—­several on each ­foot—­will do the job quite well. In the same way, a twisted green branch or an old rusty pipe will be perfectly adequate for the first balancing pole.

  Don’t waste your time on the ground.

  Work without stopping. Little by little, the wire must belong to you.

  Hold the balancing pole firmly, arms spread. Never dip it. It is moved to the left, to the right, in a horizontal gesture. The body does not lean. The hips do not move. The leg is rigid without being dead. But you discover that on your own.

  By the end of the day, you will have made your first crossing.

  Read this!

  “The equilibrist on his rope is in an unstable state of equilibrium; that is, his base of support being very narrow in the lateral sense, and his center of gravity being situated above (approximately at the level of the hollow of the stomach), this center of gravity tends to displace itself constantly. Now, the least displacement leads to a breakdown of the force; the weight pushing vertically breaks apart into two other forces which form between them a right angle whose summit is at the center of gravity. One follows the axis of the body, the other tends to make the body pivot around the base of support; its size is equal to the angle of the body’s axis. It is this force that tends to make the equilibrist fall; the talent of the equilibrist consists in never letting this force have greater power than those which he uses to destroy it.”

  The man who wrote these words deserves a taste of the wire!

  Walking

  The horseman knows the pleasure of working his horse at a slow pace. He leaves galloping to the frenzied knight.

  Perfectly calm, the ­high-­wire walker will endlessly practice “the Time of the Rope.” This consists of traveling the length of his cable slowly, one step at a time. This is the first exercise with the balancing pole. It is also the most important and the most ancient. After a great number of crossings back and forth, you will know what it is to go and what it is to return. Continue to do this for a long time before attempting a real walk. For a walk on the wire must be slow and careful, like a line pulled tight by the strength of your eyes: the body straight, the foot firmly inside the wire with each step, the balancing pole motionless.

  To put your whole foot on the wire all at once produces a sure though heavy kind of walking, but if you first slide your toes, then your sole, and finally your heel onto the wire, you will be able to experience the intoxicating lightness that is so magnificent at great heights. And then people will say of you: “He is strolling on his wire!” Dismount and pace off nine meters holding the balancing pole: that is the perfect walk! This test is necessary: you were beginning to feel like a ­high-­wire walker.

  Walking is the soul of the wire. There are an infinite number of styles.

  There is the walk that glides, like that of a bullfighter who slowly approaches his adversary, the presence of danger growing with each new step, his body arched outrageously, hypnotized.

  There is the unbroken, continuous walk, without the least concern for balance, the pole on your shoulder, your arm swinging and your eyes turned upward, as if you were looking for your thoughts in the sky; this is the solid walk of a man of the earth returning home, a tool over his shoulder, satisfied with his day’s work.

  These walks happen to be mine.

  Discover your own. Work on them until they are perfect.

  The backward walk is not practiced.

  Unless it happens to be particularly agreeable to you.

  Running

  Running?

  Ah! Yes, running is entertaining.

  It’s fresh, it’s tempting, it’s joyous, it’s distracting.

  All running is joyful.

  Ah! How he runs on his wire!

  You are running to a certain fall.

  Running will come naturally from a light and rapid way of walking.

  Let it come by itself.

  When you walk, the foot follows the line of the wire: in this way you can do extremely rapid crossings and brief runs. But to run vigorously on a cable, you must put your feet sideways across the wire, like a duck. To begin, run on the wire thinking only of regularity; running will be difficult. Add speed, and it will become impossible.

  You must set
your eyes so that they take in the whole length of the wire. You must feel it in space. Measure its extension. The distance is too great to hazard without courage: hold the balancing pole in front of you and take off with a sure and straight step. With the help of your open arms, clear a path for yourself, push your hips along the wire to the very end; your feet will follow, your body will get through. You want your steps to control this length of steel. Launch yourself then, and cross it with three long strides.

  To understand running is to harmonize the wind of your steps with the breath of the ­wire—­without asking questions.

  Running is not the way to go quickly from one end of the wire to the other.

  Running? It is the acrobat’s laughter!

  Running without a balancing pole is perhaps

  the most demanding exercise of ­High-­Wire Art.

  The quest for immobility

  This is the mystery of the rope dance. The essence, the secret. Time plays no part in achieving it.

  Or perhaps I should say “in approaching it.”

  To approach it, the ­high-­wire walker turns himself into an alchemist. Again and again, he attempts it along the wire, but without ever entering the Domain of ­Immobility—­where, I was told, the arms become useless, hanging alongside a body that is ten times heavier than before.