Slacklining Around the World with Breannah Yeh

0:05That's like my favorite part about slacklining is when someone hops on the line for the first time, their legs are shaking and they're like, I can't do it. There's some people who are like, okay, I can't do it and walk away. And then there's some people who are like, I can't do it. Let me like put some time into it. And then they'll stay there for like half an hour to 40 minutes. And then they can walk across it. It just shifts something in your brain where you're like, that is like so cool to see.

0:30Breannah Yeh:That's Brianna Yeh, also known simply as Yeh. Brianna is a slackliner and content creator who's been pursuing adventure sports full time for the last six years. On a casual Tuesday, you might find her landing slacklining tricks on the beach in L.A. or modeling designer clothes as she balances on a high line thousands of feet in the air. She'll even hang on a hammock from the line, which is a heart-stopping sight. Seriously, imagine waking up in the morning and looking down to see miles of rolling canyon below you. Ye also skydives, she paraglides, and even cliff jumps. Pretty much any crazy thing you can imagine, Ye is willing to try.

1:13Breannah Yeh:With over two and a half million followers on TikTok, Ye is a prominent voice for finding joy on the slackline and beyond. I'm Shelby Stanger, and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living. an REI Co-op Studios production presented by Capital One and the REI Co-op MasterCard. If you've never tried slacklining, you should definitely watch one of Ye's videos. I promise it'll make you want to hit the park and hop on a slackline too. Her personality is goofy and welcoming, and she almost always has a wide grin plastered across her face. Yay, Slackline for the first time when she was only 13 years old. And it's been the only thing she's wanted to do ever since.

2:01Breannah Yeh:Yay, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. You're one of the wildest people I've seen on the internet. Thank you. That's a high compliment. Thank you so much. So you're in LA right now. And when you were 13 years old, you had this wild idea to become a professional Slackliner, which I don't even know existed at the time. So I'm curious like how this dream even came to be. Yeah, I mean, I even thought it was impossible for a while. But yeah, so how I started was I went to a rock climbing gym when I was 13. My cousin brought me there and I actually went to rock climb. So the first time I walked into the gym, I saw the line and I was like, what is this?

2:40And I remember hopping on it for the first time and I like stood on it and I was like, oh my God, I can't walk. What in the world? I couldn't take two steps and I would like fall off and then I would get back on. And then eventually I get three steps and I was like, this is so crazy. Does anyone else in the world know what this is? Do other people walk this? And yeah, I realized the goal was walk from point A to point B. And in my mind, it clicked the more time I put into it, the more steps I can take to get to the end. Right. And so sure enough, like the rest of the time there, I ended up just like trying to cross this line, not rock climbing.

3:15and that turned into me going back like basically every weekend until I graduated high school and it took me about like a week-ish to like a week of like training to like actually walk across the line and I was like oh my gosh this is how it works if you put the time and the effort into something you can make it to the end.

3:39Breannah Yeh:Yay kept going back to that gym determined to improve her skills and build more confidence. One day when she was there, she saw someone doing tricks on the line, which is called tricklining. She immediately approached that kid, his name is Alex, and they became fast friends. Alex and Ye started traveling and competing together, even winning a little prize money. Keep in mind at the time, Ye was still only around 13 years old.

4:10I started as like tricklining which is where you're doing the tricks and doing the flips and stuff and so at the time there was still competitions and people were like pushing it like it was kind of like that like grungy like thrasher-ish culture of skateboarding everybody was like this is such a cool new thing so people were like creating new tricks setting up slack lines in like random places and I don't know just cool stuff and so when I found it I was like super super inspired I would watch YouTube videos of my like slacklining heroes which at the time there's not that many slackliners so there were like people that were like my heroes and I would go to these competitions and all my heroes were like right there there was like a handful of people I would fly there with my friend and there would be like a couple international athletes and like everybody's just dirtbag like kind of hippie vibes everyone's like 20s and I was like 13 and I I was like, this is so sick.

5:04But basically how they would do it was like, I think there would be like 10 people, depending on how many people were in the competition, but they would bracket them. And then if you won your bracket against one person, you would go on to the next level. And basically it was based off like a point system. So like at the time there wasn't really like a actual judging like style or like set in stone way to judge. So it was kind of like, how cool does that look? How like extreme does that look? Do you make money at these contests

5:31Breannah Yeh:that you're competing at when you're young? When I was younger, I don't know. I believe I won my first competition. I got like second place because I got second place and it was like a world qualifier or world competition. I was like second in the world. Like I don't, that's like, that was like the title for women's when I was like, I believe 13 or 14. But to get back to your question, there was like small amounts of money, not anything you can really survive off of, which is why I was like, okay, Even if I become the best female slackliner in the world, I couldn't do this forever.

6:09Breannah Yeh:Ye knew that when she graduated high school, her options for becoming a professional slackliner were limited. She could get a job slacklining in the circus or on a cruise ship, but instead she chose to go to college and study business. Still, she wasn't closing the door on slacklining entirely. early. Even though she stopped competing as much, she attended a school with an active slacklining scene, Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. In fact, that's where Ye first started highlining, which is just like slacklining, except you're way up in the air.

6:46Throughout college, we were like, party on weekends, wake up hungover on Saturday, and then we'd go rig a line, like up on the top of the crazy hill and like go slackline. And that's when I really like found my like love for highlining. I think highlining is so much different than tricklining where I almost say it's like a different sport completely. Because with tricklining, you know where you are and you're like on the ground and you can like do tricks and you end back up on the ground. Right. With highlining, now you're hundreds, if not thousands of feet up in the air. Everything's below you.

7:18Everything's above you and everything's to the side of you. It's a mental battle. You really have to like learn to trust yourself in these different ways, right? Because to walk you through it, you harness in, you tie in, you get on the line and you scoot out a little bit, right? And at that point, you're like aware of like how high it is and you're like, dang, this is really high up. And so your body starts to freak out whether or not you've wanted to, no matter how many times you've done it in the past, right? It's just like a normal human reaction to being hundreds, if not thousands of feet in the air.

7:51And so you have to be as calm as you possibly can so you can walk across to the other side. Make sure to remember your breaths. But like you're also fighting this human instinct of freaking out.

8:05So it's just this huge mental battle where you have to calm yourself enough and calm your heart rate and remember to breathe enough where you can be calm and not shake and like walk across the end. and at some point while you're walking through it you're battling yourself and battling the line that's moving the wind everything and at one point you kind of find this almost like euphoria if you can like reach this balance where you're just kind of like step step walk like breathe step step walk like a lot of highliners have like mantras I guess while they're walking where some people like count some people will be like breathe like a lot of times I'm just like don't fucking fall or I'll just repeat that over and over over and then I'll be like breathe breathe like one two breathe so Yeah, it's just like a crazy like sport.

8:49It's wild. Not only do you have to like hike hours up a mountain, but you hike hours up a mountain, rig this line, and then now like the fun starts.

9:02Breannah Yeh:Slack lining and particularly high lining had a way of calming Ye's busy mind. Out on the line, she could focus and get into a flow state. She even put slacklining on her resume when she was job hunting after college, which she thinks helped her land a job in the mobile gaming industry. In 2020, during the COVID pandemic, Ye moved to Los Angeles where she worked remotely, slacklined, and made TikTok videos about her time on the line. Eventually, she caught a lucky break that allowed her to move into content creation full-time. One day, I was like sitting on my phone. I already wanted to quit my job and I was like sitting on my phone and I was like, all right, like I'm going to post a slackline video and I'm just like going to put my phone down, go back into work.

9:50And I posted a tricklining video to the Cardi B like up song. Then it's up and it's up, you know, that song. And so I put my phone down and I like checked my phone like sometime that night and it was kind of picking up. And I was like, OK, yeah, that's crazy. And then right before I went to bed, I got like a message from someone and they're like, yo, like Cardi B like posted your video on Twitter or something. And I woke up the next day and I guess she had reposted on her like her story. And like the video was doing like numbers on TikTok and stuff. So I was like, OK, this is like really crazy.

10:23A little bit after that, she like posted it on like her TikTok as like an ad that was like getting bigger and bigger. And so like I remember going out of my room and I was like told my roommate, I'm going to quit my job. And like two days later, I ended up quitting my job, like calling my manager and was like, hey, I think they knew at the time to what was happening because I think they had seen like the video and they knew I slacklined, knew I did social media a little bit. So, yeah, short story, Cardi B reposted my video and I quit my job.

10:55Breannah Yeh:Up to this point, Ye had spent several years towing the line between the status quo and pursuing her wild idea of becoming a full-time slackliner. When this video took off, everything changed, and her days have been focused solely on adventure ever since.

11:24Breannah Yeh:Brianna Yeh is a slackliner, adventurer, and content creator based in California. In 2020, she quit her job in the gaming industry to make slacklining videos full-time. She was picking up brand deals, but it wasn't until she linked up with famous YouTuber MrBeast that Yeh's popularity exploded.

11:48that first year was like a lot of traveling and just taking every like opportunity i was getting like there was like companies like nike reaching out a couple weeks after like i quit my job mini cooper reached out and it was like hey we're gonna send you a car can you do like a brand deal with it and i was like yeah and so everything was just like fast everything was just like project after project and then all of that was just feeding on itself leading to like cooler and cooler opportunities and like I ended up doing a Mr. Beast challenge. They reached out, they emailed me. I don't remember what it said.

12:18It just said Mr. Beast slacklining. And I was like, is this a fake email? For those of you who don't know who Mr. Beast is, they're living under a rock, but no, I'm just kidding. Mr. Beast is basically this internet personality that creates video challenges and he basically owns the world now, I don't know. And he just gives out money and does like game challenges and stuff like that for people who win.

12:39Breannah Yeh:If you don't know who he is, ask someone who's like a 10 year old boy. He'll tell you. Yeah, he's essentially this guy that does really big challenges and like gives out like big sums of money. And so I knew that he's like one of the biggest YouTubers at the time already. And now he's one of the biggest YouTubers and does TV. But going back, I received an email from the team and I was like, is this real? What is this? And jumped on a call and found out that they wanted someone to do like a slackline stunt for one of their videos without telling me too much. and so I ended up being like the consultant and rigging the slack line and also being like the talent luckily enough and so I flew out to Moab and the whole Mr.

13:19Beast team flew out on their like private jet I believe we rigged the slack line across the canyon in Moab and I walked across it and I got twenty thousand dollars for it it was like the most insane thing of my career right because he was the biggest youtuber at the time and one thing led to another where it was just cooler and cooler projects and just stuff to get slacklining seen, right? Because I grew up with slacklining being like right there and like I wouldn't have known about it otherwise. I was that kid who was like saw in my gym and I would search up slacklining and there'd be like a handful of slacklining videos like tutorials but it was like all from the people that I'd met before and so I was like okay if I could be that person to show slacklining to like one other person and get them like stoked on it that is my goal.

14:06Breannah Yeh:That slacklining video wouldn't be Ye's only brush with Mr. Beast. In 2023, she was invited to compete in a challenge for his YouTube channel. Ye won the challenge, and the prize was$250 ,000. She used part of that money to take her fellow contestants out for a game of paragliding laser tag. It was a pretty maximalist experience, but a perfect example of Ye's passion for bringing people along on her adventures. You've taken your mom on adventures. You've provided adventures for other people. Talk to me about this, because it sounds like there's a lot of giving back in what you do. Yeah, I think that is the coolest part about what I do is because when I quit tech, I basically took back a lot of time in my life to do the things that I wanted to do.

15:01And a lot of my life has always been like around family. I'm a huge family person. But the thing about tech was like I was on call, I couldn't really do the things I wanted to do. So when I quit, I got a lot of that time back. And I was like, now I have this platform and I also have time. And with this time, I can do anything I want to do. I can tell whatever stories I want to do. And I was like, well, now I can go hang out with my family. Me and my mom and like my dad are like, and my sister, like my family were really close. My grandparents also like helped raise me. So I was like, I can take back this time and I can like go do the things that they didn't get the chance to do with them.

15:39Right? Like my mom has had she has like the craziest life story ever and you can do a podcast like all on that she was like a refugee jumped off a boat all this stuff anyways so like where was she a refugee from from vietnam their boat like crashed and they were like on the shores near china and then ended up in hong kong philippines and then came to the u.s that's where she met my dad and like basically worked every single odd job that you can think of like my mom worked in pediatrics like She worked at a dental office. They mowed lawns, sold stuff at flea markets, and then eventually opened up their own restaurants.

16:12But essentially, they've worked their whole lives. They haven't really got to explore and do these crazy adventures. I think a part of what I do is now I can come back and give those adventures to them and go and travel with them. And that's a huge part of why I like to do this content is if these are the people that I am trying to inspire to go outside, then it's like I have to bring these people onto these adventures with me so it's just like I feel really lucky that I'm able to be in a position where I can just take off on a random day and be like okay mom let's go do this mom let's go to like China or like I brought my sister and my mom skydiving and I was like this is so sick that I get to be able to do this and then people see that content and it's like okay well maybe it's possible tell me a little

16:57Breannah Yeh:bit more about what you've done with your family so you've taken your mom and sister skydiving Yeah. For Mother's Day, I was like, oh, let's go get like dim sum. Let's go get tea. And we ended up actually driving her out with my sister to like the middle of nowhere. And she was like looking at her phone. So she wasn't really paying attention. And we get there and we're like, just kidding. We're going skydiving. And she's like, what? But she was like super stoked, which is why she wasn't like, I'm never doing this. She had mentioned that she wanted to do skydiving in the past way back when. And so we ended up, yeah, all going skydiving.

17:32That's also one of my favorite parts of bringing people on adventures, because after seeing that person experiencing that, they have this glow or this mindset glow that you can almost feel where it's like, I never thought I would be able to do that. And like when you're like, OK, I can do that or I just did that. It goes with you to other parts of life. I also did a series where I would go to like random locations in LA and I called it the noodle series. And I would hold up a sign that said noodles with a cup of noodles or something on a table and I would wait for someone to come up to me. And if anybody was interested enough to come up to me, I'd be like, if you want this cup of noodles, you have to come on a full day adventure with me.

18:11No questions asked, all surprise. I'll pay for everything. And so I did a couple of videos with that where I brought someone skydiving. We like went on like a swan boat ride and like everybody has the most insane stories every single time. The girl that I brought skydiving had gone to like an accident years before. So like half her body was like metal. So she was like, I don't even know if I can do that. You know, I had brought someone highlighting, brought someone cliff jumping and skimboarding. And it was just like every time you talk to these people and it feels like this mindset shift of I didn't know I was like ever going to do.

18:44Not that I was never going to do this, but I didn't know like what was possible, I guess. And like adventure has this way of shifting how you think about other parts of your life.

18:57Breannah Yeh:Pursuing adventure has opened up Ye's world. It's pulled her out of the nine to five grind and provided her with multiple once in a lifetime opportunities. She has scaled trees in the Costa Rican jungle, balanced 3000 feet above Yosemite's valley floor and become the first woman to highline in Hong Kong.

19:23Breannah Yeh:Where else have you been slacklining around the world? It sounds like you've been so many places. I did one in Brazil, in Rio de Janeiro. It was on top of a mountain called Pedro de Gavia. And two years ago, me and my friend Martine Hernandez, who's a slackliner, I got a sponsorship from Gatorade. And I was like, this is the perfect opportunity to pitch this project to them because it was like around the time of Carnival. So I was like, okay, killed two birds with one stone where I was like, okay, let's go do Carnival and let's go rig Pedra de Gavia. And we can do it like with Gatorade. And I fly out to Rio de Janeiro and we're like, the weather is pretty crazy because it rains on and off basically all the time and especially that time.

20:02And me and my friend get there and we're like, okay, how are you going to do this? So we were basically figuring it out as we were there because you can plan ahead of time, but you really don't know until you're like there and see the setting and like about two days in we meet this guy and he's this he's like oh I can bring you guys up there and he basically leads us up this like super super steep mountain me and my friend are like you know 30 pounds of like gear on our backs and we're like dying um we finally get up there and like we rig this line and after we rig the line like perfect timing the clouds like roll in and cover the entire line or like what the heck and I'm like okay I'm gonna get out there anyways because like maybe these clouds would disappear I get out there and the clouds like just roll through me basically and somewhere in between that like the like the clouds just disappear for like probably like half an hour it was just like the perfect picturesque opportunity and actually at the top we ended up meeting like this drone guy that like agreed to take like drone footage for me.

21:07I was like, oh, like, I'll give you like 50 bucks or something. Do you think you can take a video of me? There's no guarantee he's ever going to send me the videos. But sure enough, a couple days later, he said, you see like the most like insane epic videos of just like aerial shots of the most like iconic like spot in like Rio because it's just overlooks everything. But yeah, that was like a crazy story, like a really crazy story of like right place, right time. Everything had to be like perfectly aligned to like do that.

21:35Breannah Yeh:Your job is so interesting. because it involves you figuring out your wild idea every time. In some ways, you're a stunt woman. I'm going to go do this crazy stunt and I'm going to film it, but then I need to get there. Then I need to figure out how to pay for it. Then once I'm there, I have to figure out what gear I need. And then you have to get the right gear to safely rig a line from two mountains. And then you actually go do what you want to do. Oh, yeah. And then afterwards, you've got to film it, edit it, post it. Your creator wild idea adventure. It's amazing. It's really interesting. It is wild, right?

22:14And like, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about, where it was like, I never thought I could make slacklining a career, right? But it's like, slacklining is part of my career now. But it's like, the creating is the storytelling, which is like, also another one of my passions. Like I love storytelling and making videos and like making something that was like, okay, how can I have like a viewer experience what I experienced? Telling stories and creating is like what I made into my career and slackline is just like a part of it, you know? How do you train for slacklining?

22:45Breannah Yeh:Like you have to be in shape to hike. You have to be in shape to balance. Yeah, I realized on that trip how like out of shape I was like because I was like hiking up this mountain. and I was like, oh my gosh, it shouldn't be like this difficult. And then I like whip myself into shape, start running, like hiking more, even more. It was very much a, okay, we're gonna do this line and I'm gonna hike it regardless of how hard it is. But then I realized, wow, then it starts getting crazier because then there's like alpine lines, crazy stuff. And that takes like actual training. A lot of my training really is just staying in shape.