Clay pigeons being hurled at the wall, Mason jars smashed to smithereens with a baseball bat, and a 75-inch flat-screen TV bashed with a sledgehammer, that’s the scene at a rage room in Florence, Kentucky. And it’s where Nathan Powell came to celebrate his 31st birthday. Powell admits he was hesitant at first.
“Well, you know, the whole concept, when I first was told that it was a rage room, I was questioning it, to be honest. I was like, is this going to be a healthy thing to do? Like oh, I’ll just start punching stuff,” said Powell.
These rooms are designed to create a safe environment where people pay to smash discarded objects. Full Throttle Adrenaline Park is the family entertainment facility where Powell and his friend Nathaniel Honious prepare to enter what’s referred to as the rage cage.
Honious puts on the required coveralls. He reflects on how he’s feeling before breaking items.
“It’s definitely an interesting feeling. The suit’s pretty thick. So, I’m feeling the heat already,” said Honious.
After Nathaniel and Nathan suit up in coveralls, they slip on steel-toed boots, thick gloves, and a helmet with a face mask as rage room assistant Jordyn King lays out the rules.
“ Only one person in the rage area at a time. Make sure the other people are behind our rage cage. You guys have the glass package,” said King.
As King captured the sound of items breaking, she said, sometimes people play loud music while they bash. But Nathan and Nathaniel are content with the sound of shattered glass.
Nathan goes first and takes a swing at the big-screen TV with an aluminum baseball bat. When it’s Nathaniel’s turn, he takes a crack at an entire box of Mason jars that go crashing into the rage cage wall. After about 20 minutes participating in rage room activities, the two men exit the room where slogans include Smash Your Heart Out and Obliteration as an Art Form. These guys are sweating. Nathaniel and Nathan recalled their experience.
“In the aftermath of that, it’s quite exhausting, I’ve got to say. But it is very much cathartic. I’ve never done anything like that quite before. It’s kind of against every instinct you have. You’re not used to seeing a nice expensive piece of electronic or AV equipment and saying, You know what, I’m just going to swing the hammer today,” explained Nathan.
“As we were going, it was kind of like, I shouldn’t be doing this, but as we kept going, it was like, oh, this is a different experience, it was, this is exciting,” reported Nathaniel.
One of the first rage rooms opened in Tokyo, Japan, in 2008, according to WHYY’s science and health podcast The Pulse. The Operations Manager at Full Throttle, Andrew Passman, said he believes the activity has gained popularity around this region in the last five years.
“I’ve seen people are here with their significant other. They want to break things together. I’ve seen people come in by themselves, and buy packages, and just spend thirty minutes letting it all out. So, I think it’s a cathartic experience for a lot of people. But it really depends on your mindset going in,” explained Passman.
Passman said bashing objects may feel like a cathartic experience. But he said, for those people looking for therapy or anger management.
“That’s what the professionals are for. We’re professionals in fun, not therapy,” explained Passman.
Dr. Kim Breitenbecher is a Professor of Psychological Science at Northern Kentucky University. She said if someone is interested in anger management, the research indicates that the best methods to diminish anger are more calming.
“That’s going to be things like meditation, controlled diaphragmatic breathing, mindfulness, there are cognitive behavioral techniques, even sometimes just something like taking time to count to ten, count to one hundred,” said Breitenbecher.
At a Lexington rage room, Ethan Mavity said they take an interactive approach. The owner of Lexrage said he typically helps people warm up with a game.
“The one I’ve been doing this week is the hammer throw. I stack bottles along the back wall. And then I give each person two hammers, and the goal is to knock the bottle down and shatter it from the other side of the room,” said Mavity.
The central and northern Kentucky rage room managers said most people leave smiling.
As for Nathan Powell, he said he’d like to bring his family. And what about Nathaniel Honious? Will he return for another session?
“Oh, a hundred percent, I would do it again,” said Honious.
