Bending My Ways

One of the things I love most about the internet is YouTube. If I could go back in time and give one piece of advice to my younger self, it would be: “Buy shares in YouTube, Apple and Amazon.” If that had actually happened, I’d be so rich right now, I wouldn’t be writing this weekly column. Instead, I’d be hanging out with other rich people, and Woffles Wu would be writing about my fabulously cool art collection.

            People are always going on about paying for content on the Internet and I usually tune right out, usually because I’ve just spent a lot of money on Amazon and that season 1 DVD of Wonder Woman I bought counts as content in my books, so I don’t need to listen to a lecture.

But I would so pay for YouTube. It’s my window to the world, my very own personal library. There isn’t a single thing that’s happened in my lifetime, or even that’s happening right this very instant, that isn’t available in a clip somewhere on YouTube.

Especially things that have never happened to me.

Like this clip I saw the other day of a guy doing yoga. Except this was the kind of yoga you’d expect someone like, I don’t know, Bruce Lee to do. He started off doing a plank, and then suddenly, his legs were resting on just the back of his biceps, then he was up in a handstand while his back bent backwards, followed by a dolphin and suddenly, he was back in a plank. And he did this same routine for about five minutes.

As Saffy pointed out, he wasn’t even breaking a sweat. “You know, these days, I have difficulty getting off the couch!” she said, looking very dissatisfied by the state of her physical condition. “And can I also say something? I have been to a lot of yoga classes, but I’ve never been to one where there’s a hot shirtless guy who looks like this guy!”

Amanda peered at the laptop over Saffy’s shoulder. “There are a few guys like that in my hot yoga class.”

Saffy’s bosom inflated and blocked our view of the screen. She turned her head to look up at Amanda. “Seriously?”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t survive five minutes in there. Bikram is really only for super fit people.”

“Who’s Bikram? Is he the teacher?”

As Amanda later pointed out, it’s incredible that in this age of information overload, when it’s just physically impossible to claim ignorance about anything, it’s astonishing when someone like Saffy comes along and completely skews the median IQ in the room. “Down to the low end!” she added, in case I’d missed the point.

I grunted something, on account of the fact that I was unable to say anything since I was struggling to get myself into a headstand. Yoga Guy had inspired me to be more serious in my practice. “If this guy can get into this kind of shape from just yoga, I’m in!” I’d posted on Facebook.

Amanda looked at me in silence for a while. From between my tangle of arms and legs and upside down vision, I could tell she was struggling to say something.

“What?” I said eventually.

“Well…” she began reluctantly. “It’s just that watching you reminds me of those YouTube clips of little short legged dogs trying to get up onto the sofa!”

“Oh my God,” I gurgled from an upside-down position. “I love those dogs, they’re so…owww!”

Amanda screamed as I crashed flat on my back with a loud smack. One moment I was entertaining visions of my rippled muscled self and the next, I was staring up at the ceiling, silently praying I’d not damaged anything vital, like my spine. Amanda’s face hovered into view.

“Are you ok?”

I caught a whiff of Chanel No. 5. “Well, I can still see. Oh, and smell,” I told her.

“Can you move?”

I wiggled my toes and shifted my neck. “I think so….”

Later that night over dinner, Saffy said yoga sounded like it was far too dangerous an activity for the likes of her. “Imagine if I had fallen like Jason! I might broken my neck!”

Sharyn spat out her char kway teow. “Choy! Why you must always say such ting, one?”

Saffy was unrepentant. “YouTube should link every video of some hot shirtless guy to a video of Jason falling! Like a safety message!”

I turned to Amanda. “You didn’t film that, did you?”

“It was actually quite funny, how you fell. Imagine the number of hits you’d get!” she told me.