What does “straf” mean in Dutch slang, and why isn’t it “punishment” here?

Straf usually means “punishment,” or as an adjective, “strict” or “severe.” But said about a person or a feat, it flips into praise: “iets straf doen” is to pull off something seriously impressive. Calling a 97-year-old’s wing-walk — standing on a flying plane’s wing through loops and spins — “straf” is exactly that use: awed, not disciplinary.

The form in the clip, strafs, adds the predicate -s that Dutch tacks onto adjectives after iets (“iets lekkers,” “iets raars”) — so iets straf becomes iets strafs. The slangy, impressed sense is especially common in Belgian Dutch, where een strafe prestatie is high praise, though it travels into informal Netherlands Dutch too.