Sebastian Hulford looks a bit like a human pinwheel. He’s spinning through the air, doing backflip after backflip as a group of his friends and coworkers look on in amusement. In a town full of Cirque du Soleil shows, you might assume he’s a member of Ka or Mystere – but he isn’t.

He’s at Sky Zone Recreational Center, a unique indoor walled trampoline court. The center, designed to indulge people’s secret fantasies of being a kangaroo or circus performer, interlaces 65 trampolines together to create a bouncy heaven half the size of a football field. Forty-five of the trampolines are stationed on the ground and 18 on the walls. Meaning, you can propel yourself nearly 30 feet into the air, use momentum to run up and around the walls and play a gravity-defying game of dodgeball. Or, you can just jump like you did in the backyard as a child.

The center, formerly known as Sky Mania, opened six years ago in a warehouse for a little-known sport, also called SkyZone, which involves two teams competing to throw balls through rotating goals. Since then, the facility opened to the public and branched out to include franchises in several other cities, including St. Louis and Boston.

According to Manager John Carbullido, Sky Zone is finally picking up steam in the Valley. The center has done little advertising and has grown in popularity mostly by word of mouth. While they do shorten their hours during the school year because of less demand, more and more people are taking trips to the trampoline-filled center. Carbullido estimates that often 500 people will filter themselves through the facility on summer days.

The reasons behind the facility’s popularity are straightforward: Springing yourself across a room, limbs flailing and feeling momentarily weightless, is pure, unadulterated fun. With padded mats cushioning the areas between the trampolines, jumpers never have to worry about falling off and hitting terra firma.

The physical benefits of jumping on a trampoline are also keeping both kids and adults coming back for more. Time in the arena is sold in 30-minute or one-hour increments. Most kids, Carbullido says, can last 45 minutes. Their parents tend to tire after 20. While jumping on the trampolines is fun, it requires a lot of energy.

Sky Zone has tapped into this, as well. Working off trampolining’s fitness benefits, they’ve created SkyRobics, a low-impact aerobics program offered several times a week. The workouts, which take place on a second, smaller arena, last 45 minutes to an hour and utilize laps, sit-ups, push-ups, crunches and other endurance-building activities. The classes are intimate, limited to only 14 participants, and remarkably cheap at only $6 per class with no minimum number of classes to attend.

Andy Gilson, the lone male participant at Tuesday night’s class, already sports an athletic physique. He’s a personal trainer at an Anytime Fitness gym, but he’s started coming to SkyRobics to get benefits that no typical gym offers.

“It’s a great workout,” Gilson says. “I’m looking for new innovative ways, different stimuli to work the muscles. Trampoline surface is really different.”

Burning up to 1,000 calories is possible during one session of SkyRobics, and classes are offered nine times a week. Gilson has come roughly three times a week for the last month.

Carbullido says regulars are common in both the aerobics program and the open jumping sessions. Backflipper Sebastian Hulford was a regular, having attended Sky Zone since its opening six years ago. Now, Hulford is an employee and can be found monitoring courts, playing dodgeball or doing tricks six days a week.

Hulford says he’s seen several injuries, the worst being when someone jumped through a hoop and broke a bone in his leg, but they aren’t common, only one or two a year.

More common at Sky Zone are twisted ankles, but the center takes measures to prevent such injuries. All jumpers must wear Sky Zone shoes, lightweight high-top sneakers built specifically for trampolines, and court monitors both explain and enforce the rules of safe usage. Risk still exists, of course, and everyone must sign a wavier acknowledging this.

And you never know who you’ll jump into at Sky Zone. The center is the only venue of its kind in the Valley, and that distinction helps bring in some high-profile Vegas locals. Several casino executives and Strip entertainers have rented the place out for family parties, and UFC fighter Randy Couture and MMA fighters from his Xtreme Couture gym have come in. According to SkyRobics Fitness Coordinator Jennifer Peers, athletic cross training at Sky Zone is common. She says everyone from baseball teams and Cirque du Soleil performers have stopped by to spice up their normal workout routines. Divers also utilize the space to practice their form and body control.

Utilizing a lot of control of his body, Hulford is doing more backflips in a row on the trampolines. Suddenly, he stops in a headstand. He holds it for a few seconds, kicks his legs and hops back to his feet. Turns out, he’s also a krumper. A few trampolines over, Kevin Clay is doing several flips of his own. Clay explains that he’s involved in stunt work, parkour, bouldering and several other extreme sports.

Not everyone is at the boys’ skill level, however. On the other side of the arena, a four year old struggles to carry several dodgeball balls at once. After failing, he goes back to jumping and trying to touch his toes midair. He’s barely getting a foot into the air and his arms are nowhere near his toes, but his smile radiates to the warehouse’s 30-foot ceiling.

“We have an expression,” Carbullido says. “If you’re old enough to walk, you’re old enough to jump.”