Question from Michael Potter: What's the hardest part?
Wim Hof: The first impact can make you numb! It's a horrific feeling, but on that you have to focus, and then it goes away.
Question from Lorraine Jones: Why don't you get frostbite?
Wim Hof: Because, like fish, I have a sort of anti-freeze. It is an unstudied phenomena, but is natural in mankind. But as they do not expose themselves to this cold, it is not working anymore. It's like that with animals.
Question from Celia Oppeneim: What's the most daring thing you've ever done?
Wim Hof: Having children! Many things. Every time I do a thing to the limit, I have to be different and I have to be totally aware. Climbing without climbing gear on steep rocks needs the same determination as going to a tank and letting yourself be covered with ice cubes.
Question from Richard Rae: What is the difference between what Wim did, and what David Blane did (standing in a block of ice for 3 days)?
Wim Hof: He stood 15 or 20 centimetres from the ice, he never had direct contact, so I am not really impressed about his ice endurance! I have deep respect for his having stood for three days but not for the ice endurance!
Question from Drew Brook: What inspires you to do these things Wim? Do you enjoy it?
Wim Hof: Yes, that's one part. But I also want to do it and it brings me deep joy, deep feelings. Not joy as we know but deep feelings of satisfaction. It's like the visions of Indians, or through the night in the cold sleeping Aborigines. It's cold but the Aborigines sleep without clothes. The Inuits in Greenland also do all kinds of confrontations with the element cold. It's sort of the roots of man, it's a natural high. You feel just good, and that's spirituality! No drugs but your own! A nice Bacardi is also OK!
Question from Richard Simpson: Do you think you could go into a very hot environment (like an oven!) and keep your body cool?
Wim Hof: Yes, I have the experience, because I am a mountain guide during the summer. I don't drink all day. At a certain point, with a heavy weight on me - a rucksack, working with people in 40 degrees celsius in the Spanish sun, I just stop perspiring and I feel good, although I don't drink - like a camel! Then at night I take a couple of litres of liquids, with great joy - just like a camel! This is also the natural capability of man. But as they're not exposed, they don't find out about it anymore. The capability got lost, although it is rudimentary. It's not developed and it's not visible.
Question from Helen Ramsey: Does pushing your body to such limits actually strengthen the body, if these sort of exercises are done regularly?
Wim Hof: Yes, it involves not only the body but also the mind. It strengthens both, so I haven't got any frostbite although I did all those things. It's actually making use of the body and mind in such a way that you can improve and develop it. It's natural. This is a different way of exposure towards these elements. Heat, cold, and depletion of oxygen in places like the Himalayas, or swimming under the ice, it's all ways of exposing your body and your mind. The mind and body have to work together. We might have learned that a little bit. I mirror with natural elements like height, cold, heat, no oxygen. I follow the guide in myself, which is my feeling. He shows me, I never had a teacher.
Question from Malcolm Stevens: When did you first learn you had this 'power'?
Wim Hof: When I opened up. When I was about 17. I became aware, wanted more, opened up, and then I came to extremes and limits not normally known. Man begins with a long jump, with what he knows, and he improves and develops. Suddenly after a time he can do twice what he did before. That's what we say is normal. In all these things we are at the beginning. We can do so much more. We have never gone into this before. We keep being at the beginning, while we can do a lot more. After twenty years of training I do things much further than everybody else. It's possible through the BBC, with doctors and physiologists, to make studies. These shows are the eye to the world. We can make a comparative study with rigid experimentation, collecting data and then show humanity. It's an eye opener. There is more than we think.
Question from Pauline Hyland: Do you notice any effect on your body in the days following an event like this?
Wim Hof: No, never. I take a half hour for recovery, but that's it. A good shower, and it's all back to normal.
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