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Go to a rage room ✓

I’m not an angry person, I don’t think. Most people who know me see me as pretty zen. When the topic of rage comes up in conversation, as it often does at cocktail parties, I often receive a cocked head and a “you don’t really ever get mad, do you Dan?“.


So, I am retrospectively very confused as to why I put this as an item in ✓ Project Bucket List, I don’t have anger to take out, and I don’t really think I did at the time. I’ve done some thinking and for me – I think it’s the taboo aspect of it. If there’s one thing that will make your neighbours upset with you, it’s smashing up a printer in the front garden with a large metal pole while blasting heavy metal music.


So, when you’re presented with an opportunity to spend time in an environment where this is very specifically what you’re supposed to be doing, there’s a curious sense of being allowed to do what society ideally doesn’t want you to do. I speak about this on my kayaking mishap at Windermere. You have this sense of freedom, or at least it feels like freedom to go to a place or act in a way that you usually cannot, in this case, down to societal convention.

I must say, I don’t usually feel the need to smash up office equipment with a piece of fencing, but when it is, it’s almost always a printer. Epson, suck it.


Kymberley booked a rage room for us as a birthday present. We booked with The Smash Lab, where we met Rachel, our host, who gives us a rundown on what to expect. We sign a waiver, and I pinky promise that, if the GoPro gets wrecked, it’s all on me.


We get set up, run the safety briefing, choose our music, then get to it. One person smashes at a time, so there’s no chance of accidentally maiming each other, but it’s such a high octane activity that you swap out every few minutes anyway.


There’s tyres and a punching bag in the corner, you beat the ever living guano out of them as part of the warm up, then you get onto the good stuff, my absolute favourite part. Chucking glass bottles at a wall as hard as you possibly can.


Next up, you get the chance to grab a big metal pole and demolish the machinery in the middle of the room. There’s a large office printer that I immediately decide is my mortal enemy, and do everything in my power to make it understand the wrath of a man who hasn’t had an appy slice in 7 months.


Rage Rooms are wicked. You get to let off steam if that’s your thing, but we found that it was actually just really fun. Shaking off inhibitions and letting loose on a pile of glassware and a few boxes full of motherboards is cathartic, and I personally found that it became a challenge to see how much I could break off in one hit.


The whole thing lasts half an hour. At first, I thought that half an hour wasn’t that long, however in hindsight, I realise that half an hour is actually a crazy long time when you’re doing exercise.


Even if you don’t have a ton of pent-up rage, I recommend giving one of these a go; they’re good fun, and it seems they attract a wide variety of people, not just nutcases who aren’t allowed within 15 feet of a Greggs.


Afterwards, we got back into the car, panting. It had been half an hour, and we’d tapped out two minutes early. Downing a bottle of water each, I raised my hands to the steering wheel and found that already my body was punishing me for the inordinate amount of physical activity I’d just tortured it with.


Smashing stuff up, for half an hour, is hard work.


I’m going to lie down for a while now, so I’ll leave you with a little diagram so I can explain what happened from a physiological perspective:


Dan Davison is the creator of Project Bucket List, 100 bucket-list challenges in 4 years, tackling everything from glaciers to motorcycles to rage rooms. Dan writes about what pushing yourself actually feels like. Follow the full project at https://dan-davison.com/project-bucket-list/.

 
 
 

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