Breathwork coach, father and endurance athlete. I help people who are done with rushing, but do not know how to stop.
I am the man who kept working in the taxi to the hospital. While my body gave up, phone to my ear. My body had been saying no for years. I just did not want to hear it.
Late twenties, Amsterdam, everything at once. A stressful relationship, a busy job in tech marketing, poor sleep, not eating well. I was training for the marathon but kept getting injured. I asked a lot of my body and ignored what it gave back.
One morning my body gave up. Everything stopped. All I could do was go to the hospital. I did not guard my limits. I lived without limits, until my body drew the line.
Years later I read When the Body Says No by Gabor Maté. Only then did I understand what had really happened that morning.
I lived without limits, until my body drew the line.Sjoerd Righolt
For years I kept ignoring my body. The partying, working and training just carried on. Every now and then my body gave out again, but I did not take it seriously. Until, during COVID, I did an online breathing session for the first time.
For the first time in years I really felt my body. No great revelation, just a connection. Mind and body, together, through something I had been doing all my life: breathing.
I knew straight away: I want more of this.
Does this sound familiar? Then you do not need to wait for the rest of my story.
That one session did not stay one session. I wanted to understand what had happened in my body that morning. So I dived in: an intensive one-year breathwork training and several NLP courses.
Then I started guiding others. First 1-on-1 sessions and small groups, now also teams in offices and full rooms, in Dutch and in English. And every time I see the same thing happen: people walk in with a full head, and somewhere in that hour it goes quiet. That moment is why I do it.
We moved from Amsterdam to Zandvoort. Less noise, more space. That choice was a pause for breath in itself. My wife and I had two sons, now 2 and 5 years old.
I still do what I teach my clients. Several moments a day: when I wake up, on the bike or on the train, and before I go to sleep.
Today I guide people who, like me back then, notice that performing and pushing on is no longer a strategy. Not therapy, not a spiritual quest. Just a pause for breath now and then, and learning to listen to what your body already knows. With techniques that work, whatever your diary says.
Certified breathwork coach through the intensive one-year breath coach training at Ademwerk. Works with techniques from Buteyko, Wim Hof and pranayama traditions.
NLP Master Practitioner. Insight into how language, behaviour and patterns influence each other, and how to do something about it.
Ten years in senior marketing at FrieslandCampina, T-Mobile/Odido and Samsung. I know performance culture from the inside. I know how it feels when stopping does not seem an option. That is exactly why I know how to reach you there.
