Florida daredevil Nik Wallenda prepares for Grand Canyon walk, praises God, says wire is his ‘prayer closet’
Nik Wallenda, the Florida-based daredevil, acrobat and heir to the famed Flying Wallendas circus family,confessed to be afraid of only one thing – God.
“I would say the only thing I fear is God,” said the 34-year-old Wallenda.
photo ABC coverage Nik Wallenda crossing Niagara Falls
He certainly had no fear of walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope, riding a bike on a high wire 260 feet above the ground or hanging from a hovering helicopter by his teeth. On Sunday, Wallenda will attempt an even more ambitious feat, a walk on a tightrope stretched across the Little Colorado River Gorge near the Grand Canyon.
“There’s no question in my mind that God has laid these desires on my heart to carry on this family industry,” Nik declares, ““I think that God has given me a very unique talent and that I can use that to bring glory to his name. There was actually a headline in the paper not too long ago, “The Tim Tebow of the Tightrope” which is really cool. But you know, he used that platform of playing football and was really able to touch a lot of people’s lives. And I consider that I have that, you know, I have an amazing platform as well.””
Nik trains hard for each performance and says that he doesn’t consider his feats death-defying.
“I don’t see what I do as being more dangerous than a police officer,” says Nik. “What I do is extremely calculated. I don’t think God keeps me, holds me on the wire as I’m walking across, but God’s given me a unique talent and it’s up to me whether I train properly for that. But I’ve also trained my entire life to catch that wire. If I were to fall, gravity pulls you down. I train for the high winds; I train on a cable the same length–and over-train. I’ve walked a wire in training in 90-mile-an-hour winds before and that didn’t blow me off. And we have rescue crews standing by that can be at me anywhere on that wire within 60 seconds to grab me off and pull me to safety. It’s important I always maintain that high level of respect for what I do and the dangers involved with it.”
In fact, Nik says that his biggest concern during his walk across Niagra Falls was the tether he was made to wear.
“It was something that I was very unaccustomed with, unfamiliar with and am very uncomfortable with,” he explains.
“So I’m excited that I’m able to do this next walk, you know, in the way that my family’s done it for generations. The tether can actually cause you to trip up. It could tangle around your neck, it could tangle around – you never know what’s going to happen. My great grandfather had an older brother that fell into a net and was bounced out and killed, and his mindset that he’s passed it on to next the generations was, “If you have a net or a tether your mindset is you can use that. So you become complacent, you become relaxed.”
“While I’m on that wire people can’t understand, “How can you be peaceful?”” says Nik. “Well, when I’m praising God there’s no one else to talk to and it’s my own quiet time. You know, there’s that prayer closet. Well, the wire often, is and has been, my prayer closet.”
The event, which will be broadcast on live television on Sunday with a 10 second delay, will take place on the Navajo reservation near Cameron, outside the boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park.
Check out all of his comments to CBN here, more at the NY Daily News here
(h/t Bruce Jones who was sincerely moved by Wallenda’s testimony)
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