Sea Swimming Blog #72

Day 439 Sea Swimming.

#72 of the blog.

Air Temp 10 degrees - Sea Temp 9.1 degrees

Another early(ish) start for me today as I aimed for sunrise at Belcroute… I did take the camera but as the weather was a bit naff and uninspiring AND I knew I had to be quick as I had another ‘cool’ bit of photography to get to, I just went in for 5 minutes.

The water was clear and I wish I could have stayed in a bit longer but after swimming out to a couple of buoys and taking in the beautiful clear water I came back to shore and got myself ready for an interesting afternoon of education and enlightenment.

I’d approached Russ the week before as I’d seen some photos on Facebook of him teaching the Wim Hof Method here in Jersey.

Now, I can’t remember exactly when I came across Wim’s work but it was definitely pre-pandemic and I remember thinking (as most people do when they first encounter him in an interview or documentary) that “this guys is nuts!”.

He was talking about some pretty ‘far out’ and intense breathing techniques and had set a number of incredible world records which seemed to confirm that he was some kind of superhuman or mad man.

From ridiculously long immersions in freezing cold water to scaling Mount Everest in just his shorts this was a man unlike most others… and whilst he obviously had that icy steel (forgive the pun) that many adventurers have, one of the most striking things about him was that he was such a fun loving and bubbly guy - overflowing with a lust for life.

During the pandemic he came back on my radar after seeing another of his tv interviewers and before I knew it I was deep-diving YouTube to try and find out more about this inspirational man.

There’s so much to say and find out about Wim Hof that I won’t do it justice here… just know that if you’re remotely interested in his character and backstory then you won’t regret finding out more yourself.

From personal tragedy to scientific triumph, it’s all there.

Now, I began using his breathing methods when I first started the sea swimming back in November 2019. As most experienced sea swimmers will tell you, November is not really the time to start doing daily dips in the deep blue… it’s a little chilly and your body takes a bit of time to adjust to it.

Wim’s deep, circular breathing method helped to slow down both breathing and heart rate and take control of your nervous system so that you are able to deal with the extreme cold without entering the ‘fight or flight’ stage of physiological reaction.

Fast forward to now and having spotted that this was something that people can now do over here, I was really keen to document the experience.

There’s a load of photos to go through - including all the breathing and meditative techniques - but for now I thought I’d just share a few of the ice bath at the end of the experience.

It was great to meet everyone and feel the connection between each other as they all embraced the moment and method.

I can’t wait to have a go myself.

“The limit is not the sky,

The limit is the mind”

- Wim Hof