"I always loved the Irish", Wim Hof tells me. "I love The Dubliners but I also like Irish mysticism, I love that. I just feel I came to the people. I feel welcomed."
Dressed in summer shorts and a billowing shirt in January, his hair possibly still wet from an ice plunge, Hof speaks with the commanding presence of a minister, and the buoyant giddiness of a rogue schoolboy. He talks as though we ourselves summoned him here - and perhaps we did.
We caught up with the 'Iceman' at the 2024 Pendulum Summit taking place in Dublin's Convention Centre.
An extreme athlete, 26-time world record holder and wellness entrepreneur, Hof is widely credited as the man who has brought cold water plunges and deep breathing into the mainstream, sharing his techniques for harnessing inner strengths through the Wim Hof Method.
Wild swimming (in typically frigid waters) has become a vocation, and whether you recognise it or not, much of the conversation around breathwork and cold water swimming comes from Hof's own decades-long practice, passed from followers to celebrities to the average person reading up on how to manage anxiety.
"I got a mission", Hof proclaims, with characteristic certainty. "I got a mission to bring happiness, strength and health beyond philosophical understanding, through science, to the people. We are built to be happy, strong and healthy but look at society. I got work to do, and I'm doing it well. I do that through science."
The science he mentions is at least somewhat watertight: cold water practices have been a go-to for injury prevention and treatment for centuries, but experts note that interest in the practice have also "outpaced research" on the matter.
Balancing Hof's insistence on rigorous studies is a resounding commitment to spirituality. "There is the soul", he says, when discussing his mission. "There is my soul. It's driven to bring the good, beyond any speculation, through science."
Science, it becomes clear, is a sticking point for Hof. His methods have drawn almost as much criticism as they have praise and interest.
Speaking to RTE Lifestyle, he welcomes the curiosity: "The [more] scrutiny of science, the more the merrier. Come to me, prove me wrong. Prove the soul wrong, because my purpose is driven by my soul and I am a simple guy, yet I got great purpose and so can anybody else."
What ills of society could deep breathing and ice water plunges fix? Many, if Hof's scores of fans, followers and practioners are anything to go by. Among his celebrity devotees are Orlando Bloom, former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Gwyneth Paltrow, who featured Hof on her Netflix show The Goop Lab.
What is it he's looking to fix in us?
"I think we have abstracted too much", Hof says. "Looking outward, instead of inward."
Is there a better way to start the last day of #PendulumSummit than a bath of ice with @Iceman_Hof? If you're @FrankieSheahan then the answer is no! (Insert joke about chilling out etc) 🤣 pic.twitter.com/XzpJDPBv9r
— Pendulum Summit (@PendulumSummit) January 11, 2024
He states that all of us have "five normal outward senses, but you got three inward senses". These are an intuitive sixth sense, proprioception and interoception, which Hof calls "neurological networks".
In seconds, he's back to playing the spiritual leader: "I bring the light." Just as quick, he disavows the role: "It's not me! It's innately capacitated by any person in the world and I show that everybody has the right to fully embrace the light."
There is an inherent irony to so many of the world's top celebrities gravitating to a practice that immerses them in discomfort, but it's undeniable that scores of people from all walks of life have resonated with Hof's methods. Leaning into discomfort is key, he says.
"Yes, we wear clothes all the time and that means [we are] no longer exposed to the elements. We have millions of receptors in our skin and capillaries and they are connected to our internal organs everywhere. If they are not stimulated, logically they get destimulated and it's a natural organism.
"So sometimes I say, go out and stimulate your skin, which is the biggest organ, outside in the cold [and it] will improve your condition of your cardiovascular system enormously."
He adds that this practice "doesn't need to be long".
"But wake it up! Stimulate it. If you do that, then you go and meet real comfort, because the comfort zone behaviour, as we do, weakens us but if we go a little bit in discomfort we find real comfort, real power, real stimulated inner organisms through our skin."
Having endured his own struggles, from his wife dying by suicide* and a number of medical conditions, Hof is clear-eyed on the spiritual draws.
"If you go with a whole group of people, say in cold water, everybody shuts up and everybody starts feeling", he says. "Pure feeling is spirituality."
Are you even in Ireland if you don't have a roaring singalong of Wild Rover to end the day?! #PendulumSummit @Iceman_Hof @MandyHickson @OfficialUMAN @FrankieSheahan ♥️ pic.twitter.com/ahhjJZjJtE
— Pendulum Summit (@PendulumSummit) January 10, 2024
As for how he'll celebrate his first time in Ireland, he's going all in.
"I will sing onstage", he says, simply. "It's a sort of tribute of respect to these people who sang always these songs, and amazing joy they brought. That's creativity, that's soul, that's pure."
It echoes how he see his own work, a commitment to simple ways of unlocking joy.
"We found keys to have a much better control over who we are and what we are. We found it and we showed it in science. My message is to the people: there is more than meets the eye and we can embrace it, and we can touch it, and we can be it."
* If you have been affected by issues raised in this story, please visit: www.rte.ie/helplines.
