Chat with Matthew Wallden

My blog is a little later that usual this week, as I’ve been preparing to teach the highest level program I offer, C.H.E.K Practitioner Level 4. There are six students from all over the world attending the course with me over the next 12 days, each having completed all the hard work needed to qualify, and I am looking forward to teaching them!

CHEK Faculty Member Matthew Wallden is over here in San Diego at the moment. He’ll be teaching part of C.H.E.K Practitioner Level 4, so before the course starts, he and I took the opportunity to chat about various topics.

Based in Surrey in the UK, Matt is the most senior CHEK Faculty Member. He has been studying with the C.H.E.K Institute since 2001, although he attended his first workshop with me in 1997 in New Zealand. Matt is an osteopath and naturopath and has combined these skills and techniques with the CHEK approach with great success.

Matt also managed to complete his Master’s in Osteopathic Medicine while working clinically and lecturing on osteopathic techniques! And, he has consulted for top sports teams in the UK including Chelsea Football Club, Charlton Athletic Football Club and Surrey County Cricket Club.

So you can see Matt has a lot of academic education as well as clinical experience, which is also reflected in his position on the advisory board of the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies.

We talked about a whole range of topics including:

• How Matt combined his osteopathic and naturopathic training with the CHEK system.
• Hamstring injuries.
• How Holistic Lifestyle Coaching adds an additional dimension to musculoskeletal injuries.
• Is soy a health food?
• How the chakra system and/or a person’s energetics influence a treatment approach from a naturopathic perspective.
• The Pain Teacher.
• Viscero-somatic reflexes.
• The CHEK Totem Pole.

I hope you enjoy our chat and we’ll be back soon with another Q&A session, covering an even wider range of subjects!

Love and chi,

Paul