Happy Monday!
Well, I hope you all got some downtime this weekend, and feel ready for another productive week of dream building.
I feel as if I’ve been on this great adventure since being in Australia
While Angie and I were teaching HLC3 and HLC2 at Lake Macquarie, we were hit hard, by what they say was, the “Storm Of The Century!”
We had a bit of a stressful last day because the storm was crazy; we were in the epicenter of it with 80 MPH winds, trees falling into roads, on homes in our complex, and waters rising to flood levels everywhere.
We lost power the night before the last day of our courses and had no power at all the last day of our classes.
A HUGE tree narrowly missed the room Angie and Jo Rushton were team teaching in. It was CRAZY weather!
We finished a little early so we could all try and get out of town. We did not even take group completed course pics of our students!
So, we packed up and Jo drove myself and Angie back to Sydney north beaches because we just couldn’t stay another night.
Penny decided to stay at the resort because she wanted to help students get to the airport the next day…forever the camper…
So, it was a rather hectic and stressful few days.
On the way out, Jo’s car battery died at the gas station, and we were trying to jump start her car when a guy pulled into the gas station, and said, “Hay Paul, Paul Chek, Is that you?”…
“I’m Michelle Owen’s boyfriend…. do you need a jump start?”
Great Spirit rescued us in the middle of the storm and pouring rain. Funny, Jo and Angie were blown away by this event at a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
Fortunately, the area my soul chose to stay was one of the few areas that didn’t loose power :-)
Jo had to leave her home because the dam near her was dangerously overflowing and there was fear it could “let go!”… Fortunately it didn’t!
Life on the road can be quite the adventure, upfront, wild and crazy!
This past week, Angie and I have been getting some rest. Penny’s been gong no-stop the whole time and is just NOW resting a bit…. So, we are finally “settling down”
Angie, Penny and I visited the local farmer’s market, which was Awesome!
The “Addiction Food” booth you see Penny and I at in the photo had some amazingly good, healthy treats for children and adults to enjoy.
As I’m sure most of you are aware, childhood obesity is at epidemic levels today, and it’s very sad to see our youth beginning their lives with such a body-mind handicap – and one that can easily be avoided at that!
Angie’s brother sent her the photo above, and I thought it was really appropriate to the issue of childhood obesity, and obesity in general. The problem is that the slip of the S was actually a slip of the $, and “killing your market isn’t so clever!”
Even dealers of street drugs are smarter than that…
A bigger question we should all ask, particularly if obesity is a personal challenge, is…
Why do people keep eating it when they can see what it is doing to them in the mirror every day, and there are now many documentaries clearly highlighting the dangers of fast food, such as Supersize Me?
Being a person with intolerances to nuts, grains, and dairy, it is quite hard for me to find sweet treats that I can enjoy without more discomfort that it’s worth… “Addition Food” had plenty I could enjoy…and yes…I did enjoy!
Here is an amazing fact I’d like to share:
If children switched to eating the kind of treats sold at this booth as their meals, three meals a day, most all of them would see significant weight loss, with improvements in their overall nutritional status relative to what they are currently eating now!
The treats sold by Addiction Food remind me of eating my mother’s home made treats; I ate all I could get, and steal, and never did I gain any noticeable weight from doing so.
I just got real happy, and even happier if I’d got away with extras due to exercising my problem solving skills :-)
If you live in Australia, I highly recommend you check the options for healthy sweet treats they offer for adults and children alike:
www.addictionfood.com.au or email them at: sales@addictionfood.com.au
Keeping Fit On the Road
As most of you know, I’ve spent the majority of my last 28 years on the road teaching holistic health. Keeping fit when moving around constantly, living out of a suitcase, and often having only hotel gyms, or no gym can be challenging.
Personally, I never make excuses about “why I couldn’t exercise” because no amount of excuses will keep you healthy, particularly on the road when it is even more critical.
I’ve done countless workouts in underground parking lots, yards, on roads, hanging from pipes in underground garages to do chin-ups, pikes, hand-over-hand transfers, picking up stones, or even doing isometrics against walls.
This is certainly one of the reasons that I’ve never missed a day of work in 32 years due to illness, even with intense travel and lecture pressures.
The secret is not to “tell your body what it must do” based on some written program that assumes you are “the same guy/gal on the road that you are at home.”
Instead, just let you body – the inner-voice of the collective wisdom of your cells guide you. More important that trying to be rigid is being wise, and the wise man listens to the inner-voice.
At minimum, 20 minutes of movement is therapeutic. Adjust the volume and intensity of your normal training with the intention of leaving your session feeling good.
Use movement as medicine, not as another form of self-control that only leads to some form of rebellion, and usually when you need the movement most…when you are tired.
You can learn some useful tips for exercise when tired by studying my audio recording(s) titled, “Movement as Medicine, Part 1 and Part 2.
Here you can see the beautiful beach right out our front door where we are staying in Northern Beaches at present. We LOVE it here!
The beach has a lot of great waves, and the surfers are an almost constant source of entertainment as they express their athleticism.
In the photo, you can see the lifeguard station and flags marking where you are allowed to swim on Narabeen beach (so the surfers don’t run you over as much as helping you spot the “men in gray suits” that sometimes cruse the beaches ).
Yesterday, Angie and I did a lovely sprint workout in intervals between sprinting and walking for about a mile out and back, and then we jumped in the ocean.
I did some body surfing and had some great rides right to the shore. We both felt fantastic after sprinting and playing the ocean for a while. I felt as though I’d taken an Epsom salt bath. It was Lovely.
Today, Angie and I did a lovely pulling workout of deadlifts and high-cable rows followed by Bruce Lee push-ups on the Swiss ball at Donal and Cathy Carr’s beautiful gym in Sydney.
We run a lot of our HLC and CHEK Practitioner programs here, and Donal Carr is our senior instructor in Australia, so a fantastic resource for all the Australian students, and for Australians that want legitimate holistic health coaching or rehabilitation.
To learn more about Donal’s CHEK Practitioner offerings, and Cathy’s yoga offerings, go to: www.placeofchi.com
Workshops Start Friday!
My last workshops while here in Sydney, before we all head home is my one-day “How To Work-In” workshop May 1, and my 2-day “Scientific Stretching” workshop, May 2-3.
In “How To Work-In”, I’ll take you on a lovely tour of how the body-mind works, giving many highly practical explanations and powerful, simple, energizing and healing exercises.
I will show you effective ways to the both get to the core of health challenges, and how to keep yourself vital, creative, and inspired to live your dreams each day.
In my workshop, “Scientific Stretching,” I’ll share many reasons that people often stretch regularly, but don’t see changes in their overall sense of body-restriction, or posture.
In 2 days, I share many specific stretching and mobility assessments, and a wide variety of corrective methods ranging from stretching to joint mobilization and soft tissue mobilization with rollers and other tools.
My course includes important information on pre-event, post-event, corrective, and maintenance stretching, as well as how stretching can be effectively used as part of your spiritual practice.
These workshops are filling up nicely, so don’t miss this chance to learn from me personally.
I’ve cut my travel schedule way back in the past year so I can recover from so much travel, so if you want to learn from me directly, and have your questions answered, I’m confident these two workshops will be life changing events for all who invest in themselves this weekend!
Click here too learn more, and sign up for my last workshops of the tour this weekend in Sydney.
Riding The Bike Of Relationships
I’ve got a fun little video blog for you today, so let’s get started…
In my video blog today, I share a concept I developed in my own coaching practice because it is so simple.
I call it “riding the bike of relationships” because relationships have dynamics that are much like riding a bicycle with someone else on the back.
In my vlog today, I share how to understand and use this simple, but effective concept of self-management in relationships, and share these key tips:
1. It is easier to create balance when both parties know where they are going:
– What is your dream?
2. Over-leaning = Fire on Fire or Water on Water.
3. Too much opposition kills adaptability!
– Can break body and bike (1 holding 2 of U)
– Aim (listen, look) before you fire!
I hope you all enjoy practicing these simple methods.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
