Wim Hof demonstrates Eka Hastasarira Uttanasana, his one-arm yoga pose that he calls the "one-arm bandit." He learned yoga from a book, mastered the traditional two-arm version, then spent months falling before holding it on one arm for minutes. He performed it on a frozen mountain summit with his dog Zina in sub-zero wind.
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Hi, hi. One of my signature poses is the one-arm bandit. I call it the Eka Hastasarira Uttanasana. I made up that Sanskrit because I taught myself Sanskrit. Eka Hastha is one arm. Sarira is body. Uttana is to lift up. And then asana is posture. So Eka Hastha Sarira Uttana Asana. The one arm bandit. Why bandit? Because you know the bandit, it takes your money. In this case, it gives you. It gives you energy because money in the end is energy, isn't it? I got here this nice little space. Pot, put my arm in, and I do it anyway. Before it became natural, I had to master it. I saw a book, a simple yoga book with these asanas, these exercises. I thought, "Wow, they look great." I got inspired. Then I started to do it. And nobody was doing it anywhere. Yoga was not even known in the West. It was, yeah, something strange. 'Why do you do these strange exercises?' And I still remember all that. But I liked to do them and I was inspired. I was doing the postures of yoga. First I did the '2' and that Mayurasana took some time to learn. I could stay like for 5 minutes like this. This. And then I thought, hey, let me try it out with one arm. And thus I started to do it. And of course, you fall many times, like any little child learning to walk. It falls, it falls, it falls, but eventually you stand. And eventually Stay longer and longer and longer and longer in the one-arm bandit. For minutes. At that moment it relieves your thinking brain into body awareness. It teaches you a whole lot. Teaches you balance, focus, breathing control and control over your body. You absolutely need only centimeters, only millimeters. You will feel to be in balance. With ultimate stress on your body. The stress of gravity. You will learn to deal with gravity itself. I remember doing it together with my dog Zina on top of the Śniska. And there I thought, I'm going to do it right here, right now. It was like far below -20°C. It was blowing the wind. And just defying the wind speed, the wind chill in these freezing temperatures. Even my dog was doing like— What is this? This force of the cold. 'Bothering me?' And there I stood together with her. A firm believer of that one-arm bandit gives you all the power, all the energy to be here and now. I still love it. And I recommend it for anybody who wants to go into, 'Hey, I want to make a statement of where I am.' Physically, it's an excellent exercise. It's not only about physical training, it's breathing exercise. You got to really control your breathing. One Arm Bandit, giving you much more than just energy. It gives you poise, gives you balance, gives you grace. The one-arm bandit.
