See Me Sumo

If you had tapped me on the shoulder at some point in the last year and said, ‘Anna, at 3pm on Saturday 30th April 2011 you will go sumo wrestling,’ I would have shrieked ‘Get thee to a mental hospital!’ (or, more likely, just looked at you askance with my lip slightly curled and my eyebrows slightly raised). But that’s exactly what I found myself doing on Saturday – sumo wrestling with my beloved. And no, it’s not some creepy way of referring to another unmentionable activity; as the photos attest, we actually donned fat suits and wrestled each other to the ground.


We had been invited to partake in said activity by a friend who was celebrating her husband’s birthday at Big Ups Games in Mt Roskill, an inflatable games venue for ‘kids of all ages’. The vast array of fun on offer boggles the mind when you first walk in: horizontal bungy, jousting, human fly, zorbs, boxing, climbing wall… the list goes on. Oh, and, of course, sumo wrestling. For a girl on a ‘try new things’ mission, this place is a boon.

For $15 per adult you get unlimited access to all the activities mentioned above, and more. My recommendation is not to take a toddler, who will need constant supervision so she doesn’t get knocked over by flying 10 year olds, and who will cry when Mummy and Daddy disappear into the fat suits. The presence of the toddler prevented me from trying everything out, but I did get a go in the zorb, and I got to jump on a bouncy castle for about 45 minutes, which was awesome.

I’m definitely going back. Without the 2-year-old. I’ve just read on the website that it’s available for hire for private functions. I just happen to know someone whose 30th birthday is coming up in September… someone who doesn’t like rugby, so who does not necessarily want to have a party because she KNOWS it will be ruined by whatever BLOODY game will be played that night.

So back to the sumo wrestling. If you do it, be warned that although there is ample padding on the front of the suits, the same cannot be said for the back, so when your husband body-slams you to the floor it kind of hurts. And it’s impossible to get back up gracefully. We didn’t last long because I could hardly move in the heavy suit, so it quickly descended into some kind of bizarre parody of the conjugal activities of the two Galapagos turtles at the zoo. I couldn’t speak for laughing.