It begins by assuming a meditation posture such as sitting or lying down or any position that enables the lungs to expand freely. The method Hof teaches sounds simple enough. He is a hacker, tweaking the body’s programming to expand its capabilities.” ![]() There’s a spiel about universal compassion and connection to divine energies.” On another level, his training “aims to create a wedge between the body’s internal programming and external pressures in order to force the body to cede control to the conscious mind. “On one level he speaks in a familiar creole of New Age mumbo jumbo. “While technology has made us more comfortable, the underlying biology is still there, and the key to unlocking our lost potential lies in re-creating the sorts of harsh experiences our ancestors would have faced,” Carney writes, which explains why Hof has used his breathing method to break world records for endurance while hiking through the Arctic tundra in nothing but shorts and hiking boots.Ĭarney attended one of Hof’s rather brutal training sessions where he described the Ice Man as a difficult figure to dissect. In both cases the body switches to an instinctual reaction of human resistance to extreme heat and cold which evolved over time. ‘The cold is my teacher,’ he says.”Įventually, a breathing technique emerged that mimics the rapid breaths people take when diving into icy water which are similar to the breaths women take during childbirth. ![]() He went on to repeat the exercise every day since. It felt like ages.’ A wash of endorphins cruised through his system, and the high lasted through the afternoon. I was in the water only a minute, but time just slowed down. (Photo by Aad Villerius, Creative Commons license 2.0)Ĭarney recounts what Hof experienced: “The shock was immediate, he says, but ‘the feeling wasn’t of cold it was something like tremendous good. Ice Man being photographed in tub of ice during demonstration in Rotterdam. Wondering what it would be like to jump in, he decided to strip off this clothes and find out for himself. His wanted to explore the connections between body and mind but wasn’t finding exactly what he was looking for until one day, at the age of 20, while walking alone on a cold winter morning in Amsterdam, he noticed a thin coating of ice on the canal. As researcher Scott Carney, who actually attended one of Hof's brutal training camps, writes: “While the rest of the Hof family learned Catholic liturgy, Wim became fascinated with Eastern teachings, memorizing parts of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras and scouring the Bhagavad Gita and Zen Buddhism for wisdom.” The method was developed by Wim Hof, 62, aka The Ice Man, a Dutch motivational speaker who was born into a Catholic working-class family in the Dutch city of Sittard in 1959. Once mastered, these techniques allow a person to gain mastery over various systems of the body, such as the nervous, immune, and cardiovascular systems. It is a combination of breathing techniques, yoga, meditation, and exposure to cold.įor those who never heard of it, the Wim Hof method of breathing allegedly helps one to develop command over the body through the use of specific breathing techniques. The Wim Hof breathing method is no exception. ![]() ![]() These are good questions to raise, especially today when the New Age has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives. Can you please provide me with any information? These techniques set off many alarms within yet without much knowledge I cannot speak on the topic." (Also, truly, what sources does one trust nowadays?). I attempted internet searches to explore whether or not this has any spiritual grounding whatsoever, to no avail. N writes: “I recently came across a group of Catholics, who…spoke of Wim Hof and this breathing/meditation technique.
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