A SPECIAL THANKS TO CHEK INSTITUTE INSTRUCTORS AND PRESENTERS!
Welcome to the New Year!
2012 is steeped in mystery, much the way the millennium year 2000 was.
Many people thought the world would end in 2000 for a variety of reasons and 2012 brings the same fears and projections.
Though there is much more behind the concerns over 2012 due to the prophecies of several ancient civilizations and peoples, the result is the same.
We can all fret and worry about our end, or we can live fully each day so we feel complete whenever our individual or collective end arrives.
I personally choose to do my best to live fully each day.
I’m in for the journey no matter what it brings me, but I certainly do my best to make intelligent choices so that I can live each day as fully as I can.
2011 was an interesting year for me. I faced many business challenges with the changing economy, as many have.
In retrospect, its all been good and I’ve learned a lot.
In 2011, the CHEK Institute and PPS were able to help thousands of people around the world have the tools to live more fully, more holistically, and make better choices with regard to living their dreams.
For that, I must share my gratitude with the team of CHEK Institute Faculty and Presenters in this BLOG today and over the next several days.
Below, you will find my thanks for each of them, as well as a photo of the New Years – Thank You! card I created for each of them.
If you are one of the Instructors or Presenters on the list and see your card here first, the original is in the mail to you.
Please join me in giving thanks to these beautiful people who have helped me, and the Institute fulfill our Legacy:
Chris Maund:
Dear Chris,
Thanks for all your support in 2011 and all the years together Chris! You are a great teacher and a living example of high-performance athletics and health.
I’m grateful for your stern but honest approach to teaching. You’ve helped many who are inherently lazy become more committed to achieving their dreams.
I look forward to a great year with you in 2012.
Your Card:
Your card symbolizes your love of nature. The card symbolizes that while “you are looking at and experiencing nature!She is looking at and experiencing you.”
You are standing at the top of “Mt. Meru”, which in shamanic tradition means “the center of the Universe”.
The mountains and trails in the sky represent the afterlife, when all that we have experienced in our minds becomes what we experience.
Keep living true to your self Chris – your soul, and there can be no end to our bliss, be it here, or there!
Thanks for a great year Chris!
Janet Alexander:
Dear Janet,
You are a source of inspiration to MANY! Your commitment to physical excellence is such that all women can learn from your holistic, living example.
You’re a great teacher and have helped many create their dreams through your teaching and guidance.
With you and Chris (Chris Maund is Janet’s husband) being my first two instructors, we’ve come a long way together and helped many.
Thank you for constantly pursuing functional knowledge and being brave enough to build and live your dreams.
Your Card: “Maori Vision Quest”
Janet is half Maori and has deep roots in the Maori tribal culture and tradition. Janet, I’ve tried to capture the Maori spirit of adventure, bravery, and spirit, which lives in your blood.
The warrior leading the way as he paddles into the unknown represents your strength and bravery to explore new worlds.
The bird riding with the warrior (in you) represents your soul and the soul of your People.
Suzi Nevell:
Dear Suzi,
You are certainly the most well-rounded, most skilled physical therapist I’ve ever met and worked with, and there have been many!
Your willingness to embrace challenging concepts that go against the grain of modern thought has allowed me to teach you many things that most wouldn’t have listened to or entertained because they were too smart to listen to some exercise guy without a college education.
For that I’m very grateful, and look at all the people we’ve helped together!
Your teaching skills are excellent and you are loved and appreciated by your students wherever you go.
Your willingness to confront me with challenges is impressive and resulted in your ability to gain clarity where many others just assumed they knew what was happening.
You were the first person to qualify to teach CHEK Level III, which is a statement to your excellent knowledge and skill.
I have truly enjoyed our relationship and forever cherish your friendship. I look forward to a great 2012 together!
Suzi’s Card:
First of all, I can’t draw faces very well, so I draw cartoon faces at best. Suzi is one of the most beautiful women you’ll ever meet and I couldn’t do her justice by trying to draw her face.
This card represents Suzi’s joy in partnership and the love-bond between her, her partner and her recent child.
It is so great a joy for me to see Suzi happy in love. She spent many years looking for the right man to share her life with and have children with and now she’s been given her wishes by the Universe.
This card is really my attempt to show the love that I see and feel in Suzi and her new family. She’s truly a beautiful woman.
Emma Lane:
Dear Emma,
As one of my most senior instructors and my first UK Instructor, I’d like to thank you for helping me help others find and live their dreams in 2011 and all previous years.
You are an outstanding teacher and I commend you for your relentless pursuit of knowledge. When you students emulate you, I know they are making themselves safer and more alive.
I look forward to another successful year of sharing our life wisdom with the world!
Emma’s Card:
Emma, like myself, has a love of native wisdom and spiritual traditions. Her card represents the process of becoming Chief of the “self” as a necessary process to fully realize the soul.
The fire represents both the male energies of life, and mind.
The green heart emanating from the Chief’s forehead represents Emma leaving her body in the love of her soul to help herself and others find their way in life.
The black patterns represent the female (yin) energies of both space and body.
Though they appear as separate realities, the truth is shown in the head of Emma’s soul (green heart), which is empty of any “thing”, but full of everything that can be dreamed of by Great Spirit.
Yves Ethier:
Yves (pronounced “Eves”), you are one of my first Instructors and the first Canadian Instructor. You were the first of two to begin my internship program in 1996.
You are an amazing person, a gifted athlete, and your mind is second to none!
I’m grateful to have you as my friend and what a joy that we both get to do what we love to do each day and share it with others for a living!
Thank you for being such a great coach and guide for all our students. May we enjoy an abundant 2012 together!
Yves’ Card:
Yves has a big heart, for sure. I love Yves’ simplicity. He’s like a zen master in the gym; there is no wasted effort and always perfect form.
The pink represents your ability to access your feminine side as a man, a father and a teacher (and a lover too, but I’ll have to let the ladies you love blog on that!).
The left-handed spirals represent your ability to help people “unwind their challenges” and the right-handed spirals represent your ability to help people “wind themselves up and get moving” with the building of their dreams.
The blue circle with radiation lines represents your wholeness of knowledge and always being empty, like it is your first day in class; being open-minded.
You are one of the most open-minded people I know and I love you for that Yves!
Thank you All for your outstanding commitment to functional exercise and holistic health! It’s because of you that I know that so many are being guided by people that I love!
I hope that you’ve enjoyed my art and thoughts about a few of my Instructors today.
I look forward sharing more of my love tomorrow.
Love and chi,
Paul Chek
