On the High Wire

by Philippe Petit

  The feeling of a second of ­immobility—­if the wire grants it to ­you—­is an intimate happiness.

  Come to the middle of the wire with the most beautiful of your walks.

  Achieve a state of balance, and then wait. All by itself, the balancing pole will become horizontal, your body will settle on two fixed and solid legs. Immobility will come promptly. Or so you would think.

  You will feel yourself immobile: I’m not moving, therefore I’m immobile.

  And what about your eyes that watch and wander?

  I saw your eyes climbing up through the trees.

  And those thoughts in your skull, stammering back and forth?

  And the blood rushing through your veins? And the wind in your hair? And the bobbing wire? And all this air you eat and chew?

  What a racket!

  No, the tiny inhabitants of the weeds have never seen such an agitated being.

  The quest for immobility is even more deceptive if you give up the balancing pole, but it is absolutely essential.

  You must devote yourself to it.

  Balanced on one foot, the balancing foot, slowly bring your arm and leg to rest. Hold this position. This is the first point. Then put your free leg into contact with the other, your two feet on the wire; your arms will serve as a balancing pole, you will gradually move them less and less. This is the second point. Now you must get rid of these arms: by crossing them in front of you, by letting them hang naturally, or by putting them behind your back. All this happens in surreptitious ways. Clandestinely. This is the third point.

  It is now a matter of patience. It is between the wire and you.

  Approach. Feel how balance no longer exists. Be on the lookout for the moment when you will suddenly stop breathing. An otherworldly heaviness will anchor you to the cable. You will breathe along it: the air will surge from the end of the wire, work its way slowly along it, pierce the soles of your feet, climb up through your legs, inundate your body, and in the end reach your nostrils. You will exhale without any pause, and your breath will travel back along the same path: softly, from your lips, you will expel the air, and it will go down, flow around each muscle, trace the outline of your feet, and then reenter the wire. . . .

  Do not abandon your breath halfway. Pursue it until it escapes through the end of your wire, in the same way it came.

  Your breathing will become slow, distended, long like a thread.

  You and the rigging will become a single body, solid as a rock.

  You will feel yourself a thing of balance. You will become wire.

  Once you have built this flawless balance, so fleeting and fragile, it will be as dense for you as granite.

  If no thought came to disturb this miracle, it would go on and on. But man, who is astonished by everything, himself included, quickly loses hold of it.

  The minute point of balance hovers above the wire, knocks against the wire walker, and navigates like a feather in the wind of his efforts.

  Let this wind slacken, let it die, and the feather will soon enter the wire walker and come to rest in his center of gravity.

  This is the way it happens then: first, you reach a relative calm; then, you achieve a second, finer balance; and finally, if only rarely, you attain a brief instant of absolute immobility.

  For the wind of our thoughts is more violent than the wind of balance and will soon set this delicate feather fluttering again.

  Barefoot

  I am nostalgic for the old ropes.

  You walked on them with bare feet. Not so on the cable.

  How proud the tightrope walker was. On the bottom of each foot there was an astonishing tattoo, a mark made far above the crowds. It was the sign of his art and his daring, and only he knew it was there. Its hardness was proof to him that he was Emperor of the Air, and even on the ground he continued to walk on these tough, callused lines.

  The foot lived well when it lived with hemp.

  The steel cable has replaced the rope, and if it breathes it is only because its soul is made of hemp. And even though the foot can never merge with the metal, you must go back often to working barefoot. This is indispensable. The foot can then find its place on the cable, and the cable can find its place in the foot.

  But that must be attempted delicately.

  The wire penetrates between the big toe and the second toe, crosses the foot along the whole length of the sole, and escapes behind the middle of the heel. One can also make the wire enter along the bottom of the big toe; the sole is then traversed obliquely, and the cable leaves slightly to one side of the heel. If this second method is acceptable for certain walks, the first is nevertheless essential. You must be able to use the big toe and the second toe to grip the wire and hang on to it (this is the only way to avoid a slip during a Death Walk).

  Remain balanced on one foot until the pain is no longer bearable, and then prolong this suffering for another minute before changing feet.

  Repeat the exercise, then attempt a series of walks. Wait until the foot is perfectly placed before taking the next step.

  When the positioning of each foot has become quite natural, the legs will have gained their independence, and your step will have become noble and sure.

  You won’t get results from a few hours of serious work. You must continue until your flesh understands it.

  But I promise that when your feet slide to rest on a cable bed, you will astonish yourself with a smile of deep weariness.

  Look: on your sole there is what my friend Fouad calls the Line of Laughter. It corresponds to the mark of the wire.

  The high-wire walker’s salute

  Before entering the last phase of combat,

  the bullfighter removes his montera

  and, in a neat circling gesture, presents it to the crowd.

  Then he throws it onto the sand.

  The matador’s salute is a dedication.

  When the balloon is ready, the pilot orders: “Hands off!”

  Rising above a forest of arms, he flourishes his cap

  in broad figure eights and disappears.

  The aeronaut’s salute is a farewell.

  The wire walker, after setting foot on the cable,

  walks halfway across, stops, and slides down to one knee.

  He removes one hand from his balancing pole.

  The wire walker’s salute is a dedication.

  Of strength, of magnificence.

  He thrusts his fist into the teeth of the wind,

  and in the same movement his fist opens to receive the answer.

  The wire walker reads it in his own hand, there, resting

  on one knee, in the middle of the wire.

  News of death, a promise of joy:

  he lets nothing escape

  of what he has learned.

  Except for the Time of the Rope, the Salute is the first exercise the ­high-­wire walker must learn.

  There is the standing salute, the kneeling salute, and the sitting salute.

  The first is made on one leg, balancing pole resting horizontally on the raised thigh, the arm up.

  The second is the true ­high-­wire walker’s salute. So that it will be perfect, a part of the body’s weight must rest on the top of the foot where it joins the ankle, and the whole top of the foot must be touching the ­cable—­not just the knuckles of the foot. You often see this, and it is a disgrace.

  The sitting salute is the same as the standing, except that the wire passes under the thigh and the middle of the buttocks.

  You can achieve the sitting salute ­unexpectedly—­by jumping onto the wire from the standing position. The leg muscles will absorb the vibrations of this sudden encounter with the cable.

  There are numerous variations to the ­high-­wire walker’s salute.

  I have discovered old e
ngravings in which the acrobat is kneeling, but only the knee is touching the rope; the rest of the leg is in the air perpendicular to the wire.

  A salute is made when you step onto the wire, but there is also the salute that concludes a performance, and as a general rule the strongest moment of any exercise can be accompanied by an appropriate salute. There is no particular salute without a balancing pole. One possibility would be to imitate those gymnasts with big mustaches who posed for the earliest cameras: standing proudly and simply, arms crossed, head held high, feet almost at right angles, the torso inflated. I do this. I call it the Salute in the Old Style.

  But there is nothing, it seems to me, more gravely majestic than the moment when the ­high-­wire walker, with admirable reverence, takes leave of his wire.

  Exercises

  Walking, running, and the salute precede a multitude of exercises; an infinite number, in fact, if one were to include all the variants. Often the balancing pole is required; sometimes special equipment must be used. One must also mention the net, the belt, and other safety systems. They guarantee the conquest of the ­impossible—­but at the same time they cheapen the victory. A rule of thumb would be the following: anything that can be done on the ground can be done on the wire, although sometimes necessarily in a slightly different form. To draw up the complete list of exercises for rope, cable, and low wire would be as impossible as pretending to draw up a list of newly invented exercises, exercises that have not yet been done, or exercises that are unheard of, that defy execution.

  Here, in any case, is a ­list—­presented more or less in order of appearance:

  The Time of the Rope. Walking.

  Running.

  The salute.

  Dancing.

  Splits.

  The pretend fall.

  The headstand (with or without balancing pole).

  Resting on the wire, in a supine position.

  The genuflection; walking while genuflecting.

  Balancing on one knee.

  The planche: balancing on one leg.

  ­One-­arm handstand.

  The cartwheel.

  Balancing, facing the audience.

  High-­bar exercises.

  Descending an inclined cable by sliding on the stomach (a specialty of the Middle Ages); hanging from the back of the neck, or with one foot attached to a pulley.

  The Death Walk (up or down an inclined cable, with or without the balancing pole).

  Blindfolded: walking with the head covered, walking in a sack.

  Dancing in wooden shoes.

  Dancing with scythes, sickles, or daggers attached to the ankles.

  Walking with feet in baskets (with wicker bottoms or fake bottoms made of cloth).

  The bound walk: ankles chained together.

  Jumping through a paper hoop.

  Walking with a pennant, crossing with flags.

  With a pitcher and glass of water: refreshments on the rope.

  Walking with a candlestick or sword (the prop is balanced on the chin, the nose, or even the forehead, for the length of a balancing or, for wire walkers of great heights, for the length of a crossing with the balancing ­pole—­without the balancing pole for ­slack-­rope walkers).

  Tricks with a Chinese umbrella or an Indian fan (often on an inclined rope).

  The ­half-­turn without the balancing pole.

  The ­half-­turn jump without the balancing pole.

  The ­half-­turn with the balancing pole (the wire walker turns; his balancing pole does not move).

  Juggling (usually with balls, clubs, torches, or hoops), with or without the balancing pole. The pole can be balanced ­off-­center on the wire with the help of the balancing foot.

  Walking in a hoop. (The hoop rolls on the wire and is kept in a vertical position by the feet of the wire walker, who walks on the inside.)

  Hoop around the ankles. (The hoop is kept in a horizontal position by the ankles, which means the wire walker must take broad, semicircular steps so as not to lose the hoop.)

  Passing a hoop over the body and stepping out.

  Walking with the balancing pole behind the back.

  Walking with the balancing pole above the head, arms fully extended.

  With the balancing pole on the shoulders.

  Putting the balancing pole behind the back (over the shoulders or under the legs).

  Walking backward.

  Wearing disguises.

  Imitating characters, animals.

  Wearing armor.

  Doing comedy routines on the wire.

  Playing a musical instrument (in all positions).

  Balancing on a small wooden plank (motionless, or with tiny leaps forward).

  Balancing on a ladder, or on a step ladder.

  Balancing on a chair, its struts or legs resting on the rope.

  With a table and chair: a meal on the wire.

  With a stove and kitchen equipment: cooking an omelette on the wire.

  Pistol dancing, sword dancing. Knife throwing.

  Precision shooting on the wire, shooting at a moving target, shooting balloons.

  On a velocipede, bicycle.

  On a unicycle (­regular-­size, giant).

  Walking on stilts.

  High jumping. Hurdling a table.

  Jumping rope. Double, triple, crisscross, while moving forward.

  Jumping over a riding crop held in both hands, frontward and backward.

  ­High-­wire walker’s somersault (forward roll with jump start with a balancing pole).

  True somersault (feet to feet), frontward or backward (the principle exercise of ­low-­wire artists and ropedancers, but unthinkable for a wire walker of great heights without protection).

  The caboulot (backward roll with a balancing pole). Crossing the wire with caboulots.

  The reverse (a caboulot without the balancing pole in which the acrobat takes hold of the cable behind him from a lying position and pulls, which rolls him over backward and puts him in a sitting position).

  The human load (carrying someone on your back); the “baptism of wire” (taking someone from the audience and putting him on the wire for the first time); pushing a wheelbarrow with someone in it.

  Falling astride the wire (usually to initiate a series of caboulots).

  Spinning around the wire, starting from a straddling position.

  Balancing a perch on the forehead, with crossing.

  Hanging: from the knees, ankles, or toes.

  Tightrope acts on a slack wire attached below the main cable.

  The ­high-­bar ­catch-­­and-­swing. (After a real or feigned slip, the wire walker, hanging by his hands, gets back onto the wire by flaring out his legs over it; as soon as his feet catch hold of the wire, he turns around it, before springing to a standing position.)

  Fireworks shot off on the wire (knapsack filled with sand in which fuses have been planted; helmet with a pinwheel; balancing pole adorned with flares and catherine ­wheels—­lighted with a cigarette at the middle of the wire). This exercise is often fatal.

  Jumping on one foot, with crossing.

  Crossing a burning wire (with boots and asbestos clothes).

  “True” crossing on a motorcycle (holding the balancing pole, with no counterweight under the machine).

  “False” crossing on a motorcycle (with a trapeze that works as a counterweight and holds the machine on the cable).

  Exercises with a partner, group exercises:

  The human column, either stationary or advancing along the wire (two, three, or four people on the shoulders of the ­under-­stander).

  The human column on a unicycle, on a bicycle (with two or three people).

  The bicycle with trapeze hanging below the wheels (one or two trapezes).

/>   The human pyramid (metal ­bars—­“forks”—­create a scaffolding for three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine people).

  A pyramid of three bicycles, with crossing.

  Two people passing each other from opposite directions, without a balancing pole, by “ducking” (without touching), by “embracing” (grabbing the partners’ hands and turning while leaning outward).

  Passing the sleeper. (You cross your partner, who is lying down on the cable, by placing your foot on his stomach.)

  Passing the sleeper by jumping over him.

  Jumping over the seated partner.

  Passing with a balancing pole (with the partner seated, or lying down).

  Climbing on the partner’s back, then shoulders, and leaping forward, to land feet first on the wire.

  Backward somersault (salto mortale) from the shoulders of an ­under-­stander to the shoulders of another (never done without a safety belt).

  Jumping from a springboard or teeterboard attached to the cable and landing on the ­under-­stander’s shoulders.

  The Ladder of Death. (In the beginning, a simple ladder was placed flat across the wire, with one acrobat at each end. Today, the ladder is solidly attached to the cable and can freely pivot around it.)

  The human belt. (The body of the rider is wrapped around the waist of the ­under-­stander.)

  The human wheelbarrow. (The rider has his legs attached to the waist of the carrier and holds a wheel in his hands that he guides along the wire.)

  Head to head.

  Head to foot. (The top mounter stands on the ­under-­stander’s head.)

  The wire walker’s somersault (forward caboulot) over one, two, three, or four people.

  Working with several wires at different heights and angles.

  Working with a wire that changes heights and angles during the act.

  Working with animals as partners (bears, monkeys, birds).

  It is also important to mention the roles of the various kinds of wires:

  There are exercises for ­low-­wire artists and ropedancers that cannot be done on a ­high-­wire walker’s cable; others can be done on any kind of wire. It is obvious that an acrobat on a slack rope one and a half meters from the ground can raise his eyes for a long time to keep an object balanced on his forehead or to juggle; the ­high-­wire walker, on a cable without elasticity or movement, can do no more than attempt the same exercise without a balancing pole. He will never succeed, however, unless he has immense talent.