The retreat facilitator’s own Highline was facilitating: being the sole leader in a remote desert location with no cell service, no backup, and real physical risks. His first time running the retreat paralleled the participants’ first time on the cliff. This made the teaching deeply alive rather than theoretical.
“If everything goes to shit and you’re feeling yourself, it’s way better than if everything goes according to plan and you’re not.”
When a teacher is wrestling with the same material they’re teaching—in their own way, at their own level—the work carries an energy that polished repetition cannot replicate. The first iteration of something often has a quality that later, more refined versions lack: the teacher’s own skin in the game.
This doesn’t mean facilitation should be chaotic or unprepared. It means the most honest teaching comes from someone who is simultaneously a student of what they teach, who is actively at their own edge rather than comfortably beyond it.