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Background: Kneipp cold water hydrotherapy stems from a 150-year, holistic, traditional medicine practice and is applied to children in kindergartens, but this practice is little understood outside of German-speaking countries. Arts-based research is one way to better understand and communicate tactile practices involving children. Film provides a medium for communicating traditional Kneipp practice.

Objectives: Through a film, the embodiment and experience of Kneipp cold water applications with children is communicated and supplements text-based findings.

Methods: Using an ethnographic embodied phenomenological approach (Lock, 1993; Merleau-Ponty, 1980) children’s interactions with water were filmed and this practice was narrated. Visual documentation of kindergarten-based Kneipp water practices with children were captured through film as an ethnographic medium to communicate sensory with cold water exposure (Pink, 2009, 2015).

Results & Insights: Visuals of cold-water applications on the skin communicate thermoregulatory applications and practices through children’s visual reactions and embodiment. This film demonstrates the self-efficacy that children gain with regular practice, as well as how children learn and teach others by engaging with cold water. At the same time, equally-important ethical considerations of intimacy remain about filming children’s bodies are discussed.

Conclusion & Implications: Embodiment practices with children are well-communicated through film and augment and lend to the scientific evidence experiential practice of hydrotherapy.