Somewhere on these great interwebs, I heard about a trampoline park in San Francisco. It looked amazing. So, I looked up the generic search term "Trampoline Park" just in case there were others like it... and found them to be more widespread than I had thought. In fact, there was one in Boston. And it just so happens that my best friend lives in Boston! Score.
Weeks ago, we made plans to go to the Trampoline Park during my next visit. We did not, however, plan for her to break her ankle the day before my arrival. (Sad face.) Unfortunately, trampolining was out of the question for her. But since she had to work during the day, I decided that I could still find time to check it out. And I enlisted a friend! Our pal Courtney, visiting from the deep South, graciously agreed to accompany me on a spunky afternoon adventure. She had no idea what she was getting in to.
We arrived to SkyZone and immediately realized that this was no typical quiet Friday afternoon. There were children everywhere! Why weren't these rugrats in school? Oh. Spring break. Great.
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| Check out those sweet sneaks |
Before we could jump, a young referee had to give us the "rules speech". I believe the rules were: 1) If you need to rest, come off the court, and 2) Don't jump on anyone's head. Got it.
We were in. It was basically like jumping on a trampoline except you could jump all around, and even off the walls. The sensation immediately brought me back to being 11 years old. Weeee!! I'm jumping so high! I'm like a superhero with super jumping powers!!!
But I quickly realize I am not 11 years old. My heart feels like it might explode. So does Courtney's. We are sweating. We are panting. We look at each other, embarrassed to admit that 7 minutes of this activity is potentially all that we can handle. The kids are flying by us like the gummi bears, bouncing here and there and everywhere, laughing and talking and not winded at all. We are old.
Over in another area we see some women about our age. So we jumped over towards them. Moms!! Yes, moms are more our speed. They're jumping, sort of. In fact, we feel pretty spry next to these ladies. We feel downright nimble! Except for that one show-off mom, who was doing flips and stuff right next to her daughter. She's probably a former Olympic gymnast and beauty pageant queen.
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| Me and the Ref. He kept us safe. |
Next, I begged Courtney if we could play trampoline dodgeball. The ref told us that due to "our size", we had to play with the "big kids." Thanks. An elastic pen with 14 tweenage boys, 10 balls, and no mothers in sight. It smelled like feet and hormones. The boys were about, oh 12-15 years old, and raging with an angry sense of insecurity-fueled competition. Right away, yellow-shirt-kid sensed my weakness. As soon as I stepped on the court, he waled a ball directly at my face. I ducked. Take that, yellow-shirt. I threw a few impotent balls in retaliation, and then Courtney and I just ducked and bobbed our way around until the ref blew the whistle (THANK GOD), and we scurried off the court. The smiling ref said "C'mon, don't you want to play again?" Maybe another day, when I'm wearing a hockey mask and have taken some testosterone injections.
As my grand finale, I decided to try to flip. So, I went over to a crash pad area and was able to successfully hurl my body forward in a 360-degree flip. It wasn't pretty, but I did . I even landed on my feet two of my three attempts! But I didn't stick the landing. Oh well.
Though we had only used 40 minutes of our hour long sesh, we were both exhausted. Now I understand why SkyZone claims that an hour-long jumping session torches 1,000 calories. I believe it.
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| The Queen Bees who snubbed me. |
Just as we were about to leave, amid a sea of boys, I saw a group of tweenage girls gathering near the dodgeball area but not seeming interested in jumping. I always hate it when girls sit on the sidelines as boys get out there and jump into the world (pun inteneded), so I walked up to them and said "Hey do you guys want to play a girls game of dodgeball?!"..... and.... silence. They looked at me with furrowed tween indifference, and I'm pretty sure the ringleader rolled her eyes at me. A few minutes later, they did line up for a girls' game of dodgeball, but they didn't ask me to join. It was sixth grade all over again, except I didn't care this time, because I'm 30 and can buy beer.
Courtney and I came down off the court and took our shoes off; the floor felt so oddly unyielding compared with the rubber floor we just enjoyed. We debated if this would be a fun adult activity after a few beers, but we both decided that we'd probably barf.
Results: Oh man this was fun! Possibly the most fun I've ever purchased for $12. It's a novelty experience that I highly recommend.
Status: Success!!!
