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Paper short abstract:

My paper discusses Wim Hof, the originator of the Wim Hof Method, as an exemplary figure in the therapeutic regime. Wim Hof typifies a form of corporeal exemplarity that combines “natural” bodily technique with extraordinary performance ability and authorizes this combination by scientific fact.

Paper long abstract:

This paper discusses the Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof, also known as the “Iceman”, as an exemplary figure of the contemporary therapeutic wellness regime. Wim Hof is a Guinness world recorder (e.g. for “swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice”) with a gripping yet relatable personal life story. Moreover, he is the originator of the Wim Hof Method, a reflexive somatic technology that couples frequent cold exposure (i.e. ice swimming) with Tibetan Tummo -inspired breathing practice and mindfulness meditation. In short, Wim Hof has taken the alleged health benefits of cold exposure, breathing practice, and meditation to a new level, claiming to be able to teach anyone to access their autonomic nervous system and thereby alter one’s immune and bodily function. A crucial factor in the fame and (mythic) narrative of Wim Hof and his method, however, relates to the fact that Hof has subjected himself and his student groups under various scientific, clinical tests in support of his somewhat lofty rhetoric. Expanding linguistic/semiotic anthropological work on “indexical orders”, I look at Wim Hof as mobilizing and typifying a form of corporeal exemplarity that ostensibly combines accessible and “natural” bodily technique with extraordinary performance ability (noted in the world records) and authorizes this combination through the cold register of scientific fact. Such friction between mythic/narrative aspects and evidence-based forms of exemplarity renders Wim Hof and his method somewhat threatening to the established order by proposing its revitalization but still playing by its rules.