¶ … Liner: A Role Model for Kids A slack liner is a person who has to have balance, poise, determination, and self-confidence as he walks across a slack line -- just like a tight-rope walker (Balcom, 2005). Such an individual embodies the qualities and characteristics that children and youths admire in older persons and why they themselves want to possess in a world that is constantly throwing them curve balls. In order to get used to the idea of facing obstacles and challenges in life, children and youths could learn a lot from watching a slack liner at work: they could learn about overcoming fears, keeping on proverbial "straight and narrow" in order to achieve one's goals and make it to the end. At the same time, slacklining can be a great way simply to exercise and stay in shape because it requires tremendous skill, concentration, focus and the ability to shift your body weight quickly and with precision (Lynn, 2014). Muscles are taught and calories are burned -- so this is another reason kids might look up to slack liners: they teach kids a great new way and reason to stay in shape and fight obesity, which has literally reached epidemic proportions in the United States (Frieden, Dietz, Collins, 2010). However, there are several other reasons that slack liners would make good role models for children and youths: for instance, there is a philosophical reason for kids to look up to a slack liner.

Take Jason Magness, for instance. Jason is a slack liner, who doesn't...

As Alter (2008) notes, slacklines can be a good way to meditate and increase one's transcendent abilities. This is what Magness does when he takes his slackline "into the wild" to sit atop it, Indian-style, in the posture of one absorbed in meditation. There, hovering above earth by a few feet and balanced on a thin slackline with arms out to either side, he can close his eyes, be away from all the sights and sounds, noise and traffic of modern society and meditate on a spiritual dimension that often is ignored in the rat-race of modern society (Alter, 2008).
Likewise, as Bolster (2007) reports, "Slacklining is really good for finding out where balance comes from." That is one reason yogis use it in their classes with students who want to learn the art of balance: it is not just a skill for walking or riding a bike -- it is also a mental skill that can teach people how to balance out their lives. And this is a lesson that young people especially can and want to learn: children can see from an early age how important it is to grow and develop into a capable adult. This is why they want to learn everything at such a young age -- why they are so curious about life and why they are so bold about walking up to strangers and watching without a single qualm about whether they are invading that person's space: kids have an innocence about them which makes their quest for knowledge and…