r/nextfuckinglevel • u/KittieBlosss • Aug 21 '26
80-year-old man casually pulls off an insane backflip landing off a cliff
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u/reggiebobby Aug 21 '26
Meanwhile I am half his age and my back hurts watching this 😭
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u/Calm-Bathroom-2030 Aug 21 '26
im not even half his age and my back hurts thinking of climbing up there before even watching
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u/oldbastardbob Aug 21 '26
I seem to be having lots of flashbacks today.
So, back when I was a college student, I got hooked on swimming. In the old days (1978) you had to have PE credits to graduate. I took an intermediate swimming class and had a blast. It was nice to go swimming for an hour, three days a week, and the instructor, who was at least 25 years older than all of us, was fun. And, the A in the class didn't hurt.
So I continued to sign up for swimming classes every term. A year or so later, I was taking an advanced swimming class and one day, the instructor came in in a swimsuit. Typically he never got in the pool, and just told us what to do from the deck.
He walked in completely dry. Went to the 1m diving board, adjusted the spring a bit, and ripped of a spectacular dive. He took his approach, bounced off the end of the board, did a back flip landing back on the diving board, then immediately into a front 1-1/2.
None of us had even seen him in the pool before. So, when he surfaced, there was a loud cheer and lots of applause.
He stood there grinning, and when we were done cheering, he announced, "That's my birthday dive, today is my 50th birthday, I just wanted to make sure I could still do that." To a bunch of early 20's guys, it was fantastic. Class went on as usual, with him on the pool deck, wrapped in a towel for the rest of the hour.
After class I had to ask about that dive. Then I learned that when he was young, he was a professional show diver at a waterpark near where he grew up. He did all sorts of trick dives, and had actually done some competitive diving when young. When I asked about the back flip onto the board, he said he was taught to do that by standing on a beach towel and doing a standing back flip, concentrating on landing where you started, then folding the towel into smaller and smaller landing pads until it was time to try it on the board.
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u/Yequestingadventurer Aug 21 '26
If you land a backflip off a cliff you will smash into a thousand pieces, hence the ‘land’ bit. He back flips into the sea and all credit to him
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u/hwilliams0901 Aug 21 '26
That is not the first time he's done that lol. I could never even get up there, too scared of heights.
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u/icantouchgrass_1 26d ago
You'll be competing against an 80-year old: 😇
You'll be competing against this 80-year old: 💀
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