NOMAD BREATH LABS
I didn't find breathwork in a yoga studio
I found it at the bottom of the ocean.
After 20 years working as a cash equity sales trader at Deutsche Bank, Sanford C. Bernstein, and CLSA, I had built a career that looked impressive from the outside and quietly dismantled me from within. Trades totalling hundreds of millions of dollars, where one mistake could mean the end of a career. Constant pressure to grow commissions. The feeling that whatever you did was never quite enough.
| What I discovered underwater changed everything.
the pivot
20 years in finance - stress, anxiety, burnout.
Discovering the power of breath changed everything.
By my forties, my body had started sending signals I couldn't ignore. I developed fibromyalgia, chronic anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. I was burning out, and no amount of conventional treatment seemed to reach the root of what was happening.
What eventually changed everything was learning to breathe.
Not in a vague, inspirational sense — but through the very precise physiological process of freediving: breath-hold diving that requires the nervous system to remain calm under real pressure. Training the body not to panic when every instinct says it should.
Over years of practice and teaching, those patterns began to shift. The anxiety lifted. The panic attacks stopped. The fibromyalgia eventually went into full remission. What I had spent years managing with medication and willpower, breath and nervous system training helped resolve at a deeper level.
That experience is not the reason I teach breathwork. But it is why I know it works.
That experience is not the reason I teach breathwork. But it is why I know it works.
I've been teaching freediving through Freedive Nomad for nearly seven years — working with students who travel from Germany, the UK, Switzerland, the USA, Australia, Japan and beyond to train on Xiaoliuqiu. Most of them aren't elite athletes. They're ordinary people navigating anxiety, burnout, and a deep desire to feel more at home in their own bodies.
What I noticed, again and again: students would arrive nervous, hypervigilant, unable to let go. With the right techniques and consistent practice, something would shift. The body would stop bracing. The mind would quiet. Watching someone achieve what they thought was impossible, holding their breath past a minute for the first time, descending to 12 metres on a single breath, taught me more about the relationship between breath, mind, and human potential than any classroom could.
And sometimes, in that stillness, something deeper would release — emotions, old tension, stress that had been held in the body for years.
This isn't mystical. It's physiology.
The breath is one of the few direct access points to the autonomic nervous system — the part of you that decides whether you're safe or under threat, open or defended. When you learn to work with it deliberately, you gain real leverage over your stress response.
That is what breathwork teaches. And why I now offer it as a standalone practice through Nomad Breath Labs.
What freediving taught me
Breath doesn't just improve performance. It changes the state you're in.
This is Ray.
This is Ray.
I'm Ray, founder of Nomad Breath Labs, a breathwork facilitator and freediving instructor based on Xiaoliuqiu, a tiny island off the southwest coast of Taiwan. I run group breathwork sessions in Taipei, Kaohsiung, and right here on the island.
My training spans nearly a decade across several disciplines. This breadth isn't about collecting certifications. It reflects a genuine search for what actually works, and how different disciplines converge on the same question: how do we help the nervous system feel safe enough to heal?
Training & credentials
What that decade of training looks like
Freediving & Nervous System
Where it began
- Molchanovs Wave 3 Master Freediving Instructor
- Certified Trauma-Informed Freediving Instructor
- Nearly seven years teaching through Freedive Nomad
Breathwork & Respiratory Physiology
the Core Practice
- Oxygen Advantage Functional Breathing Instructor
- Breathwork for Stress Certification, Yogabody
- Conscious Connected Breathwork Facilitator (practicum in progress)
Complementary Modalities
The Deeper Toolkit
- 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training
- Certified Sound Healing Therapist
- Certified Thai Massage Therapist
- Reiki Level II Practitioner
Training & credentials
What a decade of training looks like
- Molchanovs Wave 3 Master Freediving Instructor
- Certified Trauma-Informed Freediving Instructor
- Nearly seven years teaching through Freedive Nomad
- Oxygen Advantage Functional Breathing Instructor
- Breathwork for Stress Certification, Yogabody
- Conscious Connected Breathwork Facilitator (practicum in progress)
Freediving & Nervous System
Where it began
Breathwork & Respiratory Physiology
the Core Practice
Complementary Modalities
The Deeper Toolkit
- 200-Hour Yoga Teacher Training
- Certified Sound Healing Therapist
- Certified Thai Massage Therapist
- Reiki Level II Practitioner
This isn't temporary relief. What changes here, stays with you.
If you are carrying chronic stress, anxiety, or emotional exhaustion, and you're curious whether something as simple as breathing could help, you're welcome here. This work changed my life in ways I didn't think were possible. I'd be glad to share it with you.
