House of Air

Last year Nika asked me what I wanted for Christmas and I told her I'd like something we could do together. Brilliantly, she gave me an invitation to a place called House of Air. It's a trampoline park, but not exactly what I had in mind.

The last time I remember bouncing on trampolines, I must have been in college. I went somewhere that had a few trampolines lined up side to side and we jumped up and down until we got bored. This time was completely different. These guys are to trampolines what Turkey is to baklava. After our safety briefing, Nika and I bounced into the Matrix, a huge room with a 4x7 matrix of trampolines on the floor and more trampolines angled against the walls all around.

I stepped in and bounced up and down, which worked about the way I remembered. Progressing, I tried to jump from one trampoline to the next, but landed on the padding between them. I succeeded, more or less, the second time but landed poorly and wanted to stop bouncing, which I had forgotten how to do. Failing, I fell down. Nika reminded me that I could stop by bending my knees as I landed, so I felt prepared to do tricks.

My favorite trick in childhood was the seat drop, but I didn't do so well with my first efforts. I should have been doing more stretching, because I had a hard time coming down with my torso sufficiently vertical. Knee drops came more naturally, but by the end of our hour I was doing combinations and even flips.

House of Air offers variety, however, and we migrated onto the dodgeball court, where adolescent kids pummeled us with big foam balls. After a few games we began throwing the balls more accurately and dodging more successfully, but the kids always ended up winning. Not that we cared. We were having lots of fun. Nika even thought to take pictures of the festivities, but I had hidden her phone so well that she couldn't find it. You'll just have to imagine me flying around like Batman. I should really go back, with a camera. Maybe next trip.