The Wim Hof Method course for students, which was to be offered this autumn at the University Chapel, has been cancelled. The reason are recent revelations surrounding years of domestic violence by the wellness guru. The planned workshop for the staff association will be going ahead.

Being comfortable with discomfort. That is among other things what students learn in the Wim Hof Method course, which has been offered since last academic year at the University Chapel. By the end of the five-session course, students are able sit in a state of focus in an ice bath, just like the Iceman himself.

Despite a successful first year, the course will not be followed up. According to an article published last weekend in De Volkskrant, Wim Hof physically and psychologically abused his ex-partner, their son, and her two eldest children for at least 13 years. Journalists quoted from sources such as court rulings and a report by the Dutch Council for Child Protection.

Following the revelations, the production of a feature film about Hof has ground to a halt. Hof himself denies all allegations.

Breathing exercises

“Although the course was very popular among students, I can no longer teach it in this form now,” writes Katja Teunissen, who taught the course, in an email. Alongside her work as a student advisor at the Faculty of Science, Teunissen is a certified mindfulness trainer and a certified trainer in the Wim Hof Method, for which she travelled to the cold peaks of the Spanish Pyrenees.

Teunissen is considering teaching the course in a different format in the future. “For example as a combination of mindfulness, breathing exercises, and mind training.”

Beneficial effect

A workshop about the Wim Hof Method for Radboud University’s Staff Association later this month will be going ahead as planned. “After reading the news, I considered cancelling the workshop, but in the end I decided to let the participants decide for themselves,” Teunissen writes. “I can only base my decisions and judgments on my personal experience with Wim Hof and with the method. I don’t know for sure what is true and what is not.”

“I don’t know for sure what is true and what is not”

In an email to workshop participants, she writes that she still stands by the method’s beneficial effects. “Which, in terms of what it can do for someone, is also separate from Wim Hof.”