About the Authors

Founder of The Embodied Present Process™

Philip Shepherd is recognized as a leader in the global embodiment movement. He is the creator of The Embodied Present Process™ (TEPP), which he developed over 40 years of teaching embodiment practices and shares worldwide in both workshops and Facilitators Trainings. TEPP uniquely combines the two resources necessary for embodiment: effective practices, and a deep understanding of our culture’s blind spots, which tend to keep us in our heads. TEPP is based on Philip’s two books—Radical Wholeness and New Self, New World—which articulate the causes, perils, and challenges of our culture’s disembodiment. Philip’s personal journey to embodiment includes cycling alone as a teenager through Europe, the Middle East, Iran, India, and Japan; studying classical Japanese Noh Theater; co-founding an interdisciplinary theater company in Canada; writing two internationally produced plays and a television documentary; and playing lead roles on stages in London, New York, Chicago, and Toronto. He shares workshops and runs year-long Facilitators Trainings with his co-director and wife Allyson Woodrooffe, and lives with her in a car-free island community in a house they designed and built.

Founder of New Element Training

Originally from Ukraine, Andrei Yakovenko left for Israel at the age of 20 with less than $5 in his pocket. Three years later he decided, along with his fiancée, to permanently move to Canada. Determined to succeed, he got a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Toronto, went to graduate school at McMaster University, and then built a successful career as a partner in a geophysics business. Years later, Andrei came across the book Body by Science, which introduced him to the scientific principle of high-intensity strength training (HIT). After putting the training principles into practice with a group of friends, Andrei saw profound physical changes, and began learning as much as he could about high-­intensity strength training and its unmatched health benefits. He discovered how proper exercise, and in particular HIT, had the power to transform lives, including his own. Andrei decided to leave his highly paid career in geophysics and set up New Element Training, a group of premier, high-intensity strength-training studios in Toronto, Canada. NET features the largest selection of MedX equipment in Canada and specializes in the time-efficient method of Mindful Strength Training to Failure.