Walking Well: A Conversation with Bruce Fertman
- Discover Abiquiú and The Grand Hacienda
- May 1
- 9 min read
In today’s fast-paced world, it’s easy to overlook the simple act of walking. For many, it’s just another means of getting from one place to another. But for Bruce Fertman, a renowned Alexander Technique teacher and co-author with Michael Gelb of Walking Well: A New Approach for Comfort, Vitality, and Inspiration in Every Step, walking is far more than a physical activity. It’s a profound practice that connects us to our bodies, the earth, and our deeper selves.
I had the privilege of sitting down with Bruce to discuss his philosophy on walking, movement, and how we can all learn to move well and comfortably through our lives. From his decades of teaching the Alexander Technique, Bruce has a unique perspective on how something as simple as walking can change the way we experience the world.
Discover Abiquiu: Bruce, it’s such a pleasure to have you with us. You've called many places around the world home, but now you’re living just down the road from me in beautiful, remote New Mexico. The villages of Abiquiu, Youngsville, and Coyote are incredibly lucky to have you here! What was it that drew you to this land, and how did you find yourself settling here?
Bruce Fertman: Thank you! It’s a pleasure to be here with you. I grew up in Philadelphia but my teaching practice allowed me to teach in many countries. I spent almost 10 years of my life in Japan. But once I moved to Coyote, (I had a friend who lived here), I knew that I had found the place where, one day, I would live out my days. It’s the red rock, the blue sky, the huge, flat-bottomed white clouds, the cottonwoods, the Milky Way, the sound of crow wings swooshing above your head, the mountain blue birds.
Discover Abiquiu: In a fast-paced world where stillness is rare and productivity is prized, what does it mean to "walk well" — not just physically, but in how we live our lives?
Bruce Fertman: I call this ‘metaphoric walking’. We use the word walk in a number of ways metaphorically. For example, when we are confused and don’t know how to do something, someone might say to us, “Let me walk you through it.” This means, let’s go at a pace we need to, to learn what you need to learn. Let’s just go step by step. Walking well, for me, means finding our gait, our stride, our tempo, a tempo that allows us to experience resonance with ourselves, with others, and with the world around us.
Discover Abiquiu: Let’s start with your experiences from decades of teaching! What have you learned about the relationship between movement and meaning – it seems that relationship is key to everything.
Bruce Fertman: Movement for humans and other animals is not only mechanical. It’s communicative, expressive. It tells us something. In other words, it has meaning. When a dog wags its tail a certain way, it means something. When a horse dilates its nostrils, it means something. When I watch a person move, they communicate a great deal to me about themselves. Also, when we move, we always move in relation to something. We don’t act, we interact. Always. We cannot take one step without the ground. So, walking is an interaction. The quality of our interactions is key.
Discover Abiquiu: Your book, Walking Well, offers so much more than just advice on posture or movement. You speak about walking as a way of connecting to something greater, to the earth, and to ourselves. Can you elaborate on why the ground is such a central focus in your work?
Bruce Fertman: Where we live, in Abiquiu, Native wisdom seems to arise from the ground under us, can be heard in the wind around us. Many of us here experience the earth here as a living being. Here we live inside of the Great Mother. We live in her gravitational field. She is the ground under our feet. She is the air we breathe, the troposphere, she is the roof over our heads, the ozone layer. The Diné Night Chant begins with the words, House Made of Dawn. We live in her house, in her light. Without her, walking is not possible. It is impossible to walk alone. We don’t just walk on the ground; we walk with the ground, with her. It is a matter of feeling this and appreciating this, something we often do not do.
Discover Abiquiu: What makes your method of walking unique?
Bruce Fertman: That it is, indeed, a method, a method based upon an anatomically logical sequence of instructions. If followed, step by step, walking becomes more comfortable, vital, and enjoyable. Not only is this method effective; it is easy to learn. It’s not technical. It’s playful. A child could learn it and enjoy learning it.
Rather than relying solely on muscular effort to generate power, it teaches people how to use less effort in a way that generates more power. Instead of getting people to put their foot on the gas pedal, we teach them how to let their foot off the break, a foot they do not even know is on the break. In addition, there are other sources of power besides our muscles: the mind and the imagination, the ground, the air, gravity, swing, rhythm, etc. All we have to learn is how to get these other sources of power to work for us.
Discover Abiquiu: Many passages in your book make you stop and reflect, but this one stood out: “Begin by accepting that your feet are bigger than you thought. As you accept and appreciate just how big your feet are, you can allow them to spread out even more with every step. This isn’t something you need to try to do. The ground will do it for you. As you let your feet spread out, they will feel more comfortable, and they will thank you every day.” It made me pause and think about how we connect our bodies to the earth beneath us, how we can embrace natural movement, and truly find comfort in each step. Honestly, it’s a perspective I’ve never considered before.
Bruce Fertman: Most people think their feet are and therefore experience their feet as smaller than they are. We squeeze them into socks and shoes. Actually, they are as long as you are from your elbow to your wrist. Most people’s feet are tense, more rigid, less supple than they could be. If your hands are really tense, when you touch something or someone, what you will feel, (without knowing it), is mostly the tension in your own hand. If you hand is soft and supple, you will feel what you are touching. In other words, you will receive and experience that which you are touching. And always, when you touch something or someone, you immediately are touched back. Like shaking hands. Who is touching whom? When you walk, always, you are being touched by the Great Mother. She is always touching us and we are always touching her. The softer and more supple and receptive we become the more we experience her touch, from the ground, from the air, from the sun.
Discover Abiquiu: You spend a lot of time in the book teaching about lying down, sitting, and standing. Why focus on those when the book is about walking? What’s the connection?
Bruce Fertman: It’s actually very simple. When you think about it, our entire lives revolve around just a few basic activities: lying down, sitting, standing, walking, and transitioning between them. We lie down to sleep, we sit to eat or drive, we stand to brush our teeth, we walk from one room to another, and the cycle repeats—all day, every day. That’s the rhythm of our lives.
At any given moment—whether we’re lying, sitting, standing, or walking—our spine is always in a relationship with our pelvis, rib cage, and skull. That relationship can either be fluid and balanced, or stiff and strained. If it's out of balance when we're sitting, that imbalance carries over into how we stand and walk. So in a sense, walking well starts with sitting well.
This is why, in our work, we focus on what we call the "four dignities": lying down, sitting, standing, and walking. They’re not separate skills—they’re all deeply interconnected. Just like babies who first learn to sit, then stand, then walk, we too benefit from understanding and refining each phase. Only then can we truly walk with balance, ease, and grace.
Discover Abiquiu: Your book also speaks to the idea of “finding your walking life.” This concept seems to transcend just physical walking—what do you mean by that?
Bruce Fertman: In the Night Chant, there is a line that runs through the ceremony like a refrain. “In beauty, may I walk.” How we walk means how we live. How do we want to live our lives, how do we want to walk forward into our futures? That’s the big question.
We don’t want to plod through our lives, drag ourselves through our days. We don’t want to run through them either. We don’t want life to be a blur, then gone. We want to walk through our lives, experience our lives as we are living them. To go step by step. Not to avoid living our lives. Not to rush through our lives. Just to go step by step, letting life in.
Discover Abiquiu: What are the kinesthetic and proprioceptive senses? What do they do for us—and what do they have to do with walking? Why haven’t I ever been taught about them?!
Bruce Fertman: I don’t know why we don’t learn about them. It’s weird. Maybe because they are not localized senses. We see with our eyes, hear with our ears, smell with our nose, taste with our mouth and touch with our hands. But the skin, the sense organ for touch covers our entire body. Our entire body is capable of touching and being touched. Why are children not taught that? Hmmm…. Our sense of movement is also what I call global not local, and it is an internal sense. We don’t see where it is. Proprioception is the same way. Global. Internal. Maybe the long words are intimidating. But kinesthesia is just your body sense – it just tells you if you are moving and if so how you are moving. Pretty simple. And proprioception is just the sense of where you are, your shape, your size. It tells you where one part of your body is in relation to another. It’s how you know what is you and what is not you, where your body begins and where it ends. We take our senses for granted, that is until they stop working.
These senses are important just the way all the other senses are important, each in their own way. Some senses allow us to receive information from the world. How wonderful is that! Can you imagine going for a walk without your senses. What would be the point! Other senses allow us to receive information about ourselves. Without proprioception and kinesthesia, walking would be virtually impossible.
Senses can be educated. They can be awakened, reawakened, refined, opened. The more educated they become, the more accurately and appreciatively they can receive the wonder of life around us and within us.
The less we sense, the more robotic we become. The more we sense, the more human we become.
Discover Abiquiu: Thank you so much, Bruce. I love the approach of walking as both a physical and spiritual practice. It’s an incredible reminder of how we can use our bodies to reconnect with the world in deeper ways. Is there any final piece of wisdom you’d like to share with our readers?
Bruce Fertman: Well, when all is said and done, what is most important? I am 73 years old. I’ve only got so much time left. How do I want to be as I walk through the days I have left? Calm, clear, kind, creative, and productive. That is how I want to be. Do you know how you want to be? Mostly, I walk in solitude. Walking for me is my way of praying, not praying for something I want, praying for the ability to love life exactly how it is. Walking is my way of remembering that though I am alive inside of a troubled world, I am also alive in a strikingly beautiful world. I don’t want to miss it. I don’t want to not feel it. I want to let it in, all the way in.
We are in our walking life when we have a felt sense that we are on holy ground, in a holy space, in a holy body, in a holy life. This is a fact. This is always true, true for me, true for you, true for everyone. It takes some practice, some training to weave this truth into the very fabric of our own bodies.
If you’re interested in learning more about Bruce’s seminars, coaching, or his book Walking Well: A New Approach for Comfort, Vitality, and Inspiration in Every Step, be sure to visit graceofsense.com. You can purchase your copy of Walking Way through Amazon at this link.
If you're in the Abiquiu area, don’t miss the chance to join Bruce for a complimentary Walking Well workshop on Sunday, May 18th at 3 PM at the Abiquiu Inn.
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This blog is presented by Discover Abiquiu in partnership with The Grand Hacienda Inn, nestled on the stunning shores of Abiquiu Lake.
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