Melora Koepke

It is, as they say, a good day to fly. Thirty minutes into my first private flip session with House of Air co-owner Dave Schaeffer and I’m flying higher than ever. I’m at the Presidio, the storied military base at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge – now the home of a state-of-the-art trampoline facility that deals in “air awareness.”

I came to House of Air to work on my skiing, because as anyone who’s ever run moguls knows, skiers can spend a lot of time aloft. “Air awareness can’t help you glide down a mountain faster, but it can help you to situate yourself in the air and in relation to the ground,” Schaeffer explains. “And, most importantly, it can teach you how to fall safely.”

While dot-comers come here to play trampoline dodge ball or do the fitness class aptly called Air Conditioning, the place is also popular with skiers and boarders who show up off-season. Because the trampolines here are serious. The Matrix is made up of 42 conjoined trampolines – including wall-mounted ones and a unique double-bowl modelled after a skate park – and is bigger than a regulation basketball court. The Training Ground, nearby, is the perfect place to practice off-axis aerial manoeuvres with little risk of injury, like d-spins, rodeos, corks and the dinner roll – a 720-degree off-axis rotation invented by Olympic gold-medal-winning freestyle skier Jonny Moseley, who also happens to be the “ambassadair.” (That’s him in the safety video.) Read article