WEBVTT - Part One: Wim Hof's Surprisingly Deadly Story 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:07.720 Ah, Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the podcast where I 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:11.480 Robert Evans am pulling a power move on Sophie with 0:00:11.560 --> 0:00:14.680 the script of today's episode. Again, you want me to 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:16.640 send it, Sophie excited, I don't know. 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:19.880 Do you want pain and suffering? I will drive to 0:00:19.960 --> 0:00:25.360 your house. I will. I will literally end this zoom call. 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:28.240 Yeah yeah, you might, you might, you might. 0:00:29.040 --> 0:00:30.840 People can't see it, so if he has an axe 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.880 behind it, I got her that act probably a mistake. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:38.800 I'm so nervous to open this. 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:42.640 Uh uh huh. I know it's it's a Schrodinger's script. 0:00:42.680 --> 0:00:44.440 It could be a fake again, it could be the 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:47.559 real script. You never know, dead cat, who is the 0:00:47.600 --> 0:00:48.120 real script? 0:00:48.840 --> 0:00:52.120 The real script? Because you're a fucking coward. That's why. 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:55.200 Well, you don't want to do it every time. I'm 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:56.760 not going to do it two weeks in a row. 0:00:56.840 --> 0:00:58.000 You'd expect it too much. 0:00:58.160 --> 0:00:58.480 Respect. 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:00.960 I gotta luw you back into a false sense of 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.040 security and then send. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.160 Me the right script, you motherfucker. 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:08.360 This is the one use for chat GPT. I may 0:01:08.400 --> 0:01:10.959 have it write a fake script that looks like on 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.240 the surface like it could be real, and then send 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.280 that to you. Some week and see how long it 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:16.759 takes before you get really angry. 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:18.520 I gotta be honest. I've read the first who said 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:20.280 it's a chat scheep, but you can write that shit. 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:21.720 You are an artiste. 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:26.800 Thank you, Thank you. Speaking of art. Our guest for today, 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:31.200 James Stout, a man whose life is a work of art. James, 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:34.199 how are you doing today? So much better for that? Roman? 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.200 Thank you? Welcome? Yeah? Sor are your spear gun triggers 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:42.039 not working ideally? Yeah? Yeah, I'm going to make it work. 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:45.720 It's okay. The joy of building weapons for yourself is 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.960 the long period through which they don't work, to figure 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:53.840 out what tiny thing you've gotten wrong, hopefully when it 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:57.000 discharges into you. Yes, as long as you don't point 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:01.320 them at yourself. Yeah, they are fun and rewarding. Why 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:06.880 barrel discipline is key? You know what else is key? James? 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:12.120 What is that? Root? Breath control and true? Yeah? Yeah, 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.720 Today we're talking about a guy who has gotten very 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.480 probably rich, I don't know his exact neck worth, but 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:24.440 certainly extremely famous for teaching people a series of very 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.520 specific breathing techniques. A fella that you may have heard 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.080 of that most of I'm gonna guess a lot of 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:34.720 our listeners have heard of named wim Hoff. James, Yeah, 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:37.200 you're you're aware of You're actually the guy who suggested 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:41.000 this episode. So what am I fucking around pretending like James? 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:42.920 What do you know about wim Hoff? Yeah? You know, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:47.120 you know he's a dangerous grifter. Yes, I'm gonna guess 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.280 most of our audience don't because I really didn't, you know. 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.880 For for me, wim was a guy who you know 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:56.679 he was, He was on the scene. He's now spent 0:02:56.760 --> 0:02:58.680 a lot of time in like Joe Rogan show, He's 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:00.880 been on like the Goop pod cast, and he's working 0:03:00.880 --> 0:03:03.480 on a TV show with those people. But prior to that, 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:06.239 he was also pretty prominent. I back when I worked 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:09.320 at crack dot com like ten years ago, we featured 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:11.800 him in an article for some of the stuff he 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.360 would do and broad whim as a guy who like 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.920 uses a series of breathing and meditative techniques that he 0:03:18.000 --> 0:03:21.200 claims basically renders him immune to the cold and capable 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:25.519 of extreme feats of heretofore thought impossible athletic prowess. He's 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.080 been studied and by scientists and a number of occasions 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:32.800 there are some things he's done that are impressive, although 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:34.840 we'll talk about it not in the way that he 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:39.040 claims usually. But you know, I was somebody who I 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:40.920 read about him. I read like, saw this video of 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.960 him like submerged in ice, you know, for a crazy 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.880 long period of time, or like hiking up Kilimanjaro in shorts, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.240 and was like, Oh, that's impressive. Cool. I guess a 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:54.000 guy figured out some new endurance techniques, nifty, And I 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:55.920 kind of didn't think about it much more than that, right, 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.600 It was not. It wasn't one of those things. Wim 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:01.640 was not initially claiming I have cured cancer, you know, 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:05.480 or I've got like you know, you don't need vaccines, 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:08.880 just do my exercise techniques. He was just a guy 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:11.120 who was like, you actually have more control over your 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:13.240 body's reactions to cold than you think, and here's how 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.360 to do it, which didn't seem to me on the 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:19.360 service to be something particularly sketchy. And I'm gonna guess 0:04:19.440 --> 0:04:22.120 most people were kind of in that broad bucket where 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:24.279 you were like, you saw some video of him, you 0:04:24.320 --> 0:04:25.960 read some article, you're like, oh, neat, and then you 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:28.919 went on with your life. The truth is that he 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:34.400 is in fact a rather dangerous con man. Now, since 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:36.520 mister Hoff is a bit of a fame hound, it's 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.000 not hard to find interviews with him, and nearly all 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.120 of them summarize his career in similar ways. To set 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:43.960 the scene, I'd like to read an excerpt from an 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:46.880 article in The Mirror, which is a shitty tabloid but 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:50.840 reasonably representative of the tone a lot of websites use 0:04:50.880 --> 0:04:53.000 when talking about whim Hoff. That's why I'm quoting it, 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.479 not to not because the Mirror is a reliable source on. 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:58.200 Anything Brinn's left wing press. 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:02.480 Yeah. Quote, but a daredevil record holder dubbed the Iceman, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.839 showed he can keep a cool head after scrambling to 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:07.920 the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in record time. Wim Hoff, 0:05:07.960 --> 0:05:10.640 fifty five, holds a whopping twenty six Guinness World records 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:14.000 for extreme sports challenges, including running a full marathon above 0:05:14.000 --> 0:05:16.479 the Arctic Circle wearing only a pair of shorts. But 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.440 father of five, whim from Sittard, Holland, proved he has 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.039 ice in his veins after his eighteen strong climbing groups 0:05:22.080 --> 0:05:24.960 scaled Africa's highest mountain in a record time of thirty 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:26.520 one hours and twenty five minutes. 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.880 Now, James, it does sound by chat GPT. We show 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:32.599 that that one wasn't. I am absolutely not sure that 0:05:32.600 --> 0:05:35.279 could have been chat GPT, but it is. If it was, 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.080 it's because they cut up a bunch of other newspapers 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:38.920 talking about whim. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.760 They all use that kind of tone. Now, James, do 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:45.039 you want to guess what percentage of the claims made 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:53.159 in those three sentences are true? Zero? Yeah, zero, every 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.920 single thing. I just read you as a lie. A 0:05:55.920 --> 0:05:57.920 couple of them, my hood, nos like that. That doesn't 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.800 sound right. See, I'm sure about that. But you will 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:03.680 see those not just repeated by the Mirror. You know, 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.960 for example, the Guardian pretty well respected paper, not someone 0:06:08.000 --> 0:06:11.400 something would consider just like a tabloid generally. And here's 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:15.320 their summary from a recent article about the Iceman. Wim 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:17.599 Hoff is known as the Iceman. He earned his name 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:20.560 after setting twenty six Guinness World records, which includes swimming 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.360 under ice, running a half marathon, a of the Arctic Circle, bear, 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:26.800 submerging himself in ice for an hour and fifty two minutes, 0:06:26.800 --> 0:06:30.599 and climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in just shorts and sandals. Now, 0:06:31.839 --> 0:06:34.440 this will tell you something about like what good journalism 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:38.040 is worth versus bad journalism because the amount of things 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:41.599 that are correct in that sentence is higher than zero percent. Right, 0:06:41.720 --> 0:06:45.120 that's good to hear. Yeah, there are four claims in there, 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:50.040 and one of them is accurate. Okay, so that's good. 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.320 Well it's we strive. We strive for a little more 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.280 and then you can say two of them are accurate, 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:59.960 but not in a meaningful way. We'll talk about it later. 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:03.520 So mind chik. This is probably a significant surprise to 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:05.720 most people who have kind of casually heard about whim 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:08.280 because for seven or eight years he's been very good 0:07:08.279 --> 0:07:11.320 at not just performing feats of endurance, but doing it 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.000 while hooked up to equipment monitored by actual scientists from 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.880 like reputable universities who have confirmed some of the health 0:07:18.880 --> 0:07:21.960 benefits of the breathing techniques he claims to have pioneered. 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.280 But the real story behind wim Hoff breathing and the 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.480 man himself is much shadier than that. Now, given that 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.120 he is a semi beloved figure too many, I want 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:33.080 to start us off by making the states clear. But 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.560 the stake's clear because the breathing techniques that wim uses 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.040 he did not really invent, but they're not bad, right, 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:42.520 He's not like lying about it. There are uses for 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.520 these techniques. They go back much further than wim Hoff. 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.600 We'll talk about the origins and like, the ice bathing 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.960 stuff that he does is not inherently bad. There are 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.360 some potential health benefits to cold water exposure when you 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:58.080 do it in certain controlled ways. Right. Again, the way 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:01.120 he tends to teach people about it is pretty reckless, 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.440 but fundamentally there are aspects of the things he teaches 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:07.880 that are not like inherently toxic. However, I want to 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.040 start again by making the stakes clear, which is that 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.320 there are multiple allegations in court that the irresponsible training 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.360 methods by Whim and his organization Inner Fire, have led 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:20.960 to the deaths of between twelve and fifteen people. So yeah, 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.480 we are not talking about like, well he's just like 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.760 bullshits around. We're talking about, like there's body count for 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:27.800 this episode, right, That's why we're talking about the guy. 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:29.960 If he was a dude who just got like some 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:33.280 rich people from Santa Monica to like do ice bats 0:08:33.360 --> 0:08:35.680 and like particularly right, I have a lot of respect 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.439 for that. Yeah, yeah, well that's fine. I don't take 0:08:38.480 --> 0:08:39.560 their money. I don't give a shit. 0:08:39.720 --> 0:08:41.800 Yeah, I have a lot of respect for the guy 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.040 on the one wheel who gets rich people to crawl 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:45.800 on their backs along train tracks. 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.360 He's absolutely, absolutely, like, I got no problem with those 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.080 guys who do those like fake Navy seal trainings that 0:08:52.240 --> 0:08:55.680 convince like, I don't know, finance bros in their thirties 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:59.960 to like, yeah, crawl backwards over train tracks, like you said, like, yeah, 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.640 finance whatever praxies there, willing has been ten grand to 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:05.800 do that for four days. Gives a shit. 0:09:06.120 --> 0:09:08.320 Yeah, it's the best thing they could be doing with 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:09.600 that time and money, if we're honest. 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:14.320 Yeah, yeah now. Wim Hoff was born on April twentieth, 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:19.360 nineteen fifty nine, in Sittard Limberg, the Netherlands. He was 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.600 one of ten children and is also a twin. In 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:25.800 his book The Way of the Iceman, he claims he 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:29.200 came out as something of a surprise. Quote. After his 0:09:29.240 --> 0:09:31.920 mother had given birth to his twin brother Andre, no 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.320 one noticed that a second child was on the way. 0:09:34.559 --> 0:09:36.640 When the doctors had left, his mother started to feel 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.880 contractions coming on again. His mother, a Catholic, prayed the 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.719 second child would also be born healthy. She expressed the 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:44.400 hope that if it were healthy, the child would grow 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.480 up to be a missionary. WiM's mother told this story regularly, 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.680 and Wim believed the circumstances of his birth and his 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.560 mother's strength had a great influence on him. So that's 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.200 his claim right born to be a missionary. You know, 0:09:56.360 --> 0:10:01.200 his mom prayed him into being divine, he chose, mm hmm. Yeah. 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:03.880 That just strikes me as something to someone who's parent 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.160 to bullshitting might say, yeah, it does seem like like 0:10:07.200 --> 0:10:09.800 that might be the case with Whim. So he's not 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.240 a great writer. In this book, The Way of the 0:10:12.280 --> 0:10:16.160 Ice Man, he is credited along with Cohen Deong. I 0:10:16.160 --> 0:10:18.720 don't know, you know, you know these names, it's Danish names, 0:10:18.760 --> 0:10:21.720 like I'm doing my best here whatever as the author 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.360 of this book, and I guess the safe assumption is 0:10:24.360 --> 0:10:27.280 that neither of them are good at writing books. His 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:32.760 stories about his early life are inconsistent, although not necessarily conflicting, 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:34.640 with the stories that he gives like the stories he 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:37.640 gives in this book are inconsistent with stories he's given 0:10:37.640 --> 0:10:41.480 in interviews and on podcasts, but they don't necessarily conflict. 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:44.800 It's just he tells weirdly different stories each time he's 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:48.320 asked about his background. It's not one of the with 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:50.160 a lot of grifters, it's like, oh, these are all 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.760 clearly lies, because all of these things can't be true 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.400 with whim. It's more like, why did you ignore that 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:57.880 detail that you included in your book in this recitation 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:00.520 of your background, Like that seems kind of using to me. 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.360 In some interviews, he claims that his father died in 0:11:03.400 --> 0:11:06.040 a mountaineering accident when he was a young boy, and 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.760 says that this made him determine to conquer the mountains. 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:11.760 Bad lesson to learn from your dad dying mountaineering. By 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.400 the way, lesson you should learn is respect the mountains. 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:17.880 Mountains are very dangerous. You can try and coquer them, 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.439 but yeah, they lie, fight back. They are much older 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.280 than you. Yeah. Yeah, they've seen a few people come 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.320 and go. Yeah's dad. Yeah, including his dad. In the 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:29.440 way of the ice Man, though he gives a different 0:11:29.520 --> 0:11:33.200 story as to why he decides to get into conquering 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.040 the mountains and doing weird cold weather stuff. Haff was 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:39.160 fascinated by the cold from a very early age. One 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:41.520 freezing winter's night when he was seven, a neighbor found 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:44.400 him in the snow. Strongly attracted by the white landscape, 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:47.080 Haff had climbed out of bed, crept outside, and fallen 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.840 asleep in the snow. If his neighbor had not discovered him, 0:11:49.880 --> 0:11:54.679 he probably would have frozen to death. I know, man, why, Yeah, 0:11:54.920 --> 0:11:59.560 that seems it's a normal no behavior, seems like congenitally 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:04.240 bad assessment. Yeah. Yeah, there's something in the water in 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:07.440 the Hoff household which has him to make poor choices. Yeah, 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.600 something in the Hoff in the male Hoff brain that 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.079 does not want to pass on their genes. He does 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:16.600 not mention his dad dying at all in this book, though, 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:18.720 in fact I didn't really come across I'm not going 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:21.560 to claim I read this thing like fucking Ulysses, but 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:23.800 I did not come across him even talking about his 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.640 dad here. One thing he is consistent about is that 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:30.439 he experimented a lot with the cold as an adolescent. 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:32.240 He does bring this up in every interview that he 0:12:32.400 --> 0:12:35.640 that he discusses. This started with him sitting in the 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.280 snow for hours and hours at a time, sometimes sleeping 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:40.720 outside in the winter without a tint or a sleeping bag. 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:42.800 We don't know how much of this is true, but 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:45.360 as we'll discuss. He makes other claims later about his 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.280 fascination with enduring extreme temperatures. When he was thirteen, Whim 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.720 claims he spent his fall holiday reading a book about psychology, 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:56.240 and later wrote the psychological terminology gave birth to my 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:59.320 inquisitive mind and the urge to philosophy everything around me. 0:12:59.559 --> 0:13:01.000 It was then that I began to see the world 0:13:01.040 --> 0:13:02.800 in a different light, all at once. I wanted to 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.680 learn about different cultures, traditions, and new languages. Now in 0:13:06.720 --> 0:13:08.440 the way of the ice Man. He claims that this 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:10.840 process started when he was nine, and that his interest 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.440 was sparked by his older brother, who had hitchtiked around 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:16.480 the Middle East and the Far East and came back 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.880 with strange and wonderful tales. Wim goes on to claim 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:21.880 that he was so impressed by how his brother had 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.960 changed that he stopped listening in church and focused instead 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.760 on meditation techniques that he'd learned from Hindu and Buddhist texts. 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:32.240 He went to school only with a healthy reluctance. He 0:13:32.240 --> 0:13:36.440 then has his autobiographer describe him as quote a self willed, clever, 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:39.760 and cheerful young boy, which I do find a little 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:43.240 bit off putting when you're clearly writing this description of 0:13:43.280 --> 0:13:46.280 yourself as a kid. At least make it up as 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:47.560 a quote from someone else. 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:51.080 Bro, Yeah, you've gone down that Rabbi hole, like just 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:52.520 to continue to fabricate. 0:13:52.920 --> 0:13:57.439 Yeah. So the specific meditative practices that Whim was drawn 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:02.320 to most is called tumo meditation t ummo, sometimes g tumo, 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.880 g dash t ummo. These are a set of meditative 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:10.400 breathing techniques that are part of the Vajrayana tantric Buddhist practices. 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:15.000 Considered in their full context, toumo, which translates to inner 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.360 fire in Tibetan, is a meditative technique that goes along 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:22.040 with visualizations and rituals that are believed to help alleviate 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:26.040 mental and physical pain. Tumo breathing has been studied by 0:14:26.080 --> 0:14:28.960 researchers and it has been shown to allow practitioners to 0:14:29.040 --> 0:14:31.920 increase their body temperature and for a long time that 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.800 has been associated with at least temporary relief from a 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.080 number of ailments. Western researchers have been studying tumo breathing 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.680 since the early nineteen eighties, but the practices themselves go 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:44.760 back a very long time. These are basically different kinds 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.640 of hyperventilation techniques. Right, So these are things, These are 0:14:48.680 --> 0:14:50.320 things that go back a long time, this kind of 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:54.080 breathing techniques, and there are certain physiological changes that can 0:14:54.240 --> 0:14:56.160 be useful in some ways that they are tied to. 0:14:57.000 --> 0:15:00.000 In most versions of this story, Whim will say that 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.720 his journey from being a guy or to being a 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:04.680 guy who spends all of his time in the cold 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:07.720 started me was seventeen and he found himself possessed with 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:10.920 an inexplicable urge to dive into a half frozen canal 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:14.360 in Amsterdam. Here's how he related that story to The Guardian. 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:17.080 I was quite a thinker, a philosopher, but one day 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:19.640 I felt attracted to the freezing water. I jumped into 0:15:19.680 --> 0:15:22.160 a canal in Amsterdam and thought, this is it. That 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.840 deep connection I felt that day was the starting point. 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.360 Every day for forty five years, I've gone into the cold. 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:30.480 And this is more things are a little bit weird 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.320 because these don't necessarily conflict that like in the earliest 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.360 versions of his story, he would just say like, yeah, 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.160 when I was seventeen, I just felt this urge to 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:40.360 jump into a canal, and that got me started doing 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.680 these cold weather exposure, you know, experiments. But in the 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:47.520 more recent stuff that he's written or said about his background, 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:49.040 he claims that, like, oh, I was like eight or 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.560 nine and my neighbor just found me sleeping outside in 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:53.800 the snow. No one could explain it. Like he keeps 0:15:54.120 --> 0:15:58.600 pushing the timeline back. Yeah, and like going from like yeah, 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.360 like a lot of when we have seventeen year old 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:03.560 boys feel nurge to do stupid shit, right, It's kind 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.720 it's kind of the scene quion of being a seventeen 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.560 year old boy in many ways. But to take it 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.840 from like, yeah, from birth, I was like attracted to 0:16:11.920 --> 0:16:15.400 the cold because I'm specialist. Kind of my version of 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:17.280 this is that when I was seventeen, I felt an 0:16:17.320 --> 0:16:21.080 overpowering urge to pour an entire pint glass of a 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.880 fucking jim bean and see what happens if I drink 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.240 it all at once. How did I go for you, Robert? 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:29.680 You know, I developed a new set of meditative breathing 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:33.040 techniques that I could teach you for just twelve thousand dollars. 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:36.880 He breathed from the stomach upwards and with the content so. 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.920 Shallowly on my side while while while coughing up vomit. Yes, 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:44.920 that's the that's the real technique. You will not notice 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:48.760 if you're in the cold. What's true. Once you're drunk enough, 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:53.360 once you've alcohol poisoned yourself and becomes secondary concerned alcohol 0:16:53.400 --> 0:16:56.760 poison yourself to better health. That's that's my breathing technique. 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.880 So he goes into a bit more detail about his 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:01.920 journey here in a Discovery magazine interview from a few 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.520 years ago. Even today, he has a difficult time explaining 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:07.920 the impulse. I felt this attraction to the cold water, 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.320 he says, and then after I went in, I felt 0:17:10.320 --> 0:17:12.960 this understanding, an inside connection. It gave me a rush. 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.640 My mind was free of gibberish. It was so good, 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:17.359 in fact, that he returned the next day to take 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:19.919 the plunge again, and he continued through the winter and beyond, 0:17:19.960 --> 0:17:22.760 along the way, evolving his breathing technique, which is based 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.800 on the centuries old Tibetan Buddhist practice known as Tumo meditation, 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:30.119 but features none of its spiritual trappings. Now, this canal 0:17:30.240 --> 0:17:33.320 story is present in basically every interview where Wim talks 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.080 about his past, but oddly enough, he doesn't list it 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.320 as part of his journey in the Way of the Iceman. 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.720 There he goes for a more exotic story, claiming that 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.399 he traveled to India as a young adult to find 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:46.840 a teacher who knew more about what was really important 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.399 in life. His biographer insists to us he was looking 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.359 for a deeper spiritual understanding. And I feel like I 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:55.119 have to read the next couple paragraphs of this to 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.239 you verbatim so you can truly appreciate how insufferable this 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:02.320 man is. James. He flew to Karachi and took a 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:05.040 train to New Delhi in search of yogis. He slept 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:08.240 in the enormous Berla Mandir Temple complex. He met the 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:10.119 owner of a tea house and the rebellious son of 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.960 a carpet magnate. There these two men persuaded Hoff to 0:18:13.000 --> 0:18:16.720 accompany them to Rishikesh and Badrinath, two places of pilgrimage 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.840 on the Ganges. This colorful trio set off together a 0:18:19.880 --> 0:18:22.560 strong bearded Sia Kuran, a tea house, a black sheet 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:24.959 from the carpet industry who could get anything he wanted, 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:26.760 and he was fed up with the corruption of his 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.920 world and haff They thought Hoff was crazy because he 0:18:29.960 --> 0:18:32.200 went swimming in the Ganges a couple of times a day. 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:34.960 Hoff even swam across to the other side no mean 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:37.680 feet given the strong current. He was also impressed. He 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:40.600 also impressed them with the acrobatic yoga exercises he could do, 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.160 despite never having had a yoga lesson in his life. 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:46.879 In India, Haff discovered that his autodidactic approach had already 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.199 brought him a long way. He could already stand on 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:51.080 one leg and put the other leg behind his neck, 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.720 a position many people left to practice for years to master. 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:57.760 His traveling companions remained behind in an ashram, but Haff 0:18:57.760 --> 0:18:59.919 didn't feel at home there. He didn't like the klingi 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.639 cozy atmosphere of the foreign participants, and although many of 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:05.320 the yogis had learned very special techniques, he didn't like 0:19:05.359 --> 0:19:08.080 the way they profited from them. He also discovered that 0:19:08.119 --> 0:19:09.760 he could not learn much from them, as he had 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.440 already mastered their tricks. He continued his travels alone on foot, 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.399 just me just the best. Why I went to India, 0:19:17.440 --> 0:19:19.359 But I knew more than all of the teachers, and 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:23.040 they were doing it for money, which is bad unlike me, 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:27.240 who's I am pure fucking celebrity guru. 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.840 Now, yeah, I'm soiled killing people in the swimming pools. 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.560 We've all met this guy as well, right, absolutely, anyone 0:19:34.640 --> 0:19:38.000 who has left the United States has encountered this guy 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:39.920 in some place in the global South. 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:43.920 They are insufferable. Also, I love that he's like they 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:48.000 were mystified that I swam in the Ganji. I was like, man, 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.440 I've been to Rishikesh. I have swam in the ganjis 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.840 in the Rishikesh I know exactly where he did. It's 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:56.040 not that you got to be careful, right, Sometimes the 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:58.320 current is too much, Right, there are times that you 0:19:58.320 --> 0:20:00.320 don't want to be swimming in the ganjis. But like 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:02.560 Rishikesh is up in the far north, it's in the 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.480 Himalayan foothills, it's relatively clean. Lots of people swim and 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.160 raft in the gangs up there. Not weird to see 0:20:09.200 --> 0:20:11.560 people doing it. No one's going to be like, oh, 0:20:11.560 --> 0:20:15.359