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Don’t try this at home, kids (and grandkids)!

To maintain good health, it’s important to stay physically active as you get older. Your muscles and joints may not be as strong and flexible as they used to be, but if nothing else walking can be a good form of low-impact exercise, even if you do so with a cane.

Because of that, most of the elements of this video, showing an elderly man out for a stroll in Fukuoka, on Japan’s southern island of Kyushu, aren’t so shocking. What does have the Japanese Internet talking, though, is that he’s not moseying down the sidewalk or a garden path, but walking across the top of a round pipe stretching over a river far below.

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Ordinarily, you wouldn’t expect someone carrying a cane to have cat-like agility and grace, but the man in the video can be seen calmly and steadily moving forward as though walking on a metal tube not much wider than your shoulders is the easiest thing in the world. Even when he comes to an obstruction blocking his path, he’s shown nonchalantly swinging a leg up and over it, moments before the video ends.

What’s especially puzzling is that all of this looks to be happening within spitting distance of an actual bridge. You know, one of those pathways that’s actually designed to convey people and vehicles across gaps and over bodies of water. In light of that, it’s hard to see why the man would choose to cross the river in the manner he did.

▼ Maybe he wanted a closer view of those cherry blossom trees?

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Online reactions have included:

“Is he some kind of spirit?”

“Not sure why this guy needs a cane.”

“There’s filming footage for The Walk.”

“I bet you the next time he shows up, he’ll be riding his bicycle across the pipe.”

A few skeptics have also expressed their doubts that the video is real, instead claiming that it’s the result of some clever image editing. Still, if the video is legit, we think this online comment might be the best explanation:

“That’s the kind of thing anybody would want to try doing at least once in their life.”

Given the man’s advanced age, maybe after decades of walking through this part of town, he just couldn’t fight the temptation anymore.

Source: Jin
Images YouTube/話題動画chs