Dutch free diver Johannes Egberts is not yet 30, but for many, his approach to life is a breath of fresh air. In 2018 he founded Breathless, a business dedicated to breathwork training, courses and experiences.
In a video call from Argentina, he tells me he's received more than 10 different breathing certifications and trained 120 "breathless" instructors throughout Australia. He leads free diving and mountain retreats and has taught more than 100 workshops.
"It's fascinating. It goes into so many areas of life," Egberts says of breath. "What I love is helping people breathe better. I believe it can change the world."
He was in Argentina to climb Aconcagua, which soars over 6900 metres high, but he's based in Sydney. He's taught 10 Breathless instructors in Newcastle, including Bek Nutter, a master instructor, naturopath and nutritionist.
Egberts told me about his personal journey to Breathless. At 14 he got in trouble in the Netherlands so he had to go into a nature program with 10 other boys in the snowcapped mountains of southern Germany. One of his instructors didn't speak much.
"He had all these peculiar habits. He would wake up and take off all his clothes and walk for two kilometres to the water source," Egberts says. "He'd jump into this ice cold water; you'd hear yodelling and then you'd hear a big bear howl."
The teacher told them the cold water was good for their hair, skin, and muscles. After two weeks at the camp Egberts finally had the courage to join him. The instructor told him to stay in the water until he didn't want to get out.
"When you jump into ice cold water it gets you this ice cold shock. There is a shift that happens if you do stay; you catch your composure your heart rate and your mind will slow down. The reason ice is addictive, it's so intense and extreme, but it's very gratifying and calming," he says.
"There was so much noise up here. As soon as I got in the cold water I felt such a profound stillness and calm. I looked around at all these big beautiful mountains and thought 'I'm actually here now'."
He did it every day for the rest of the program, and he attributes it as part of the reason he moved to Australia. Egberts met Dutch athlete and ice bath enthusiast Wim Hof in 2016, before Joe Rogan brought him popularity. Egberts' brother worked for the first cryotherapy studio in Amsterdam.
He told me that the breath works they do is backed by science and plenty of research papers are published on the topic. It's practical and accessible to most people.
"You don't have to have a background in yoga or meditation. You don't even need to be fit to do it. But you might find that when you start connecting to your breath, other things become more available," he says.
I do a lot of yoga, I dabble in meditation and I'm interested in alternative medicine. Before participating in Egberts' Breathless Expedition recently at Redhead Wellness Sanctuary, I had experienced two three-minute ice baths in my life. While I haven't yet gone off the ice bath deep end, I find I feel pretty good when I climb out of them. The first one I did even eliminated my hangover!
I am interested in the power of informed breathing, of course, but I'm also intrigued in the rise of the ice bath, as promoted by a variety of people.
Excited to try Breathless, I arrived to a space packed full of people sitting cross legged on yoga mats. I listened as a passionate Nutter told us her personal story with breath. She told us about how her busy life came to a screeching halt one day when she found herself on the floor having a panic attack, unable to breathe. Since then, through exercises like our workshop, she's become much more in tune with her breath and has learnt to breathe better for her body.
Nutter is so passionate about breath in December last year she opened The Breath Shed in Warners Bay.
For this experience, we made a circle with everyone in the room, closing our eyes and pressing our hands against our neighbours'. As we breathed we raised our arms and lowered them as we exhaled. Then we all laid down.
In most yoga classes I've attended, I find the slow breathing meditation and body awareness draining. I once attended a meditation workshop in Sydney where the breath exercises did make me mildly hallucinate, but shavasana is usually time to go through my to-do list for the day. Rarely do I feel I'm actually living in the moment, in my body.
This time it was different. Rather than being told simply to breathe, we counted breaths, slowly, then rapidly. It almost felt like breath chanting. For a moment I felt on the verge of sleep but also moments of absolute nothingness, not thinking about anything. Pins and needles went from my elbows through to my fingertips. After that we went around the room and shared our experiences. Some people cried. Some felt like they were on a psychedelic trip.
Then instructor Gene Kelly talked more about the science of breathing and the benefits of the cold water for all kinds of people, not just athletes. We learnt about behaviours of our "lizard brain" and how stresses of the modern world often have us in fight or flight mode, even if we're not actually being chased by a lion.
At the end of the three-hour workshop, we went outside where six ice baths had appeared. We stripped down to our swim suits and took turns having our two-minute ice bath. The longer I waited, the more nervous I felt. Nevertheless, as soon as the shocking, freezing ice water hit, my body's instincts overpowered my silly trivial worries. The noise around me both inside and out faded away, and there was nothing else to do but breathe.
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