Mattijs M. van Katwijk trains professionals who want to ground their work in integrity.

His path began in the arts and the humanities. During his studies at the Vrije Hogeschool, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Royal Academy of Art (The Hague), he explored how ideas take shape in reality and how easily thought can detach from experience and action. That tension between concept and reality became the thread of his further development: a search for coherence between mind and body, vision and execution.

In Aikido, Taijiquan and Qigong, he found disciplines that do not merely describe that coherence but train it. For over twenty years he has deepened his practice in these internal martial arts.

Since 2005 he has taught the internal arts (Studio MENG), and since 2015 he has trained executives, teams and professionals in embodied leadership through Elementair werk. His clients include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands, International Criminal Court, the Dutch Police and housing association Portaal.

Mattijs is known for making complex principles tangible, even for the most analytical participants.

Today Mattijs lives and trains for much of the year in Indonesia with Lotus Nei Gong International, where he continues to study traditional internal martial arts, meditation and Chinese health arts.

“I want to help the individuals, teams, and organizations that can make a difference get their feet firmly on the ground. I want to give them backbone and feel their blood come alive.”