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What's on the menu at Lucid Cafe? Stories of transformation; healing journeys; thought-provoking conversations about consciousness, shamanism, psychology, ethics. Hosted by Wendy Halley of Lucid Path Wellness & Healing Arts.
This is Wendy Halley, and you're listening to Lucid Cafe. Hello, and thanks for joining me for another episode of Lucid Cafe, a podcast exploring healing, consciousness, and the complexities of being human. At the time this episode is being released, we've officially entered 2025. Should be interesting. You know what might be even more interesting is how you're gonna walk through the coming year.
Wendy:How's that for a transition?! I'll answer, it was lame. But today's episode is about walking, which on its face also sounds lame, but you might be surprised. I had no idea until I spoke with my guest, Bruce Fertman, that the way we've unconsciously learned to walk over time is actually doing us a disservice. In fact, most of us are making it harder than it needs to be.
Wendy:Bruce and his co author, Michael J. Gelb, have recently released the book Walking Well, a new approach for experiencing comfort and vitality in every step. That's chock full of secrets, advice, and guidance on walking with pleasure, power, poise, and peace. That's a lot of p's. In this conversation, Bruce reveals some surprising myths we all buy into about walking as well as some simple tips on the mechanics of walking that you can try right away that will make a difference. I've tried them and they do.
Wendy:Bruce Fertman brings 60 years of study as a movement artist and educator to his work. Having trained in gymnastics, modern dance, ballet, contact improvisation, don't know what that means, the Alexander technique, Tai Chi Chuan, aikido, Japanese Tea Ceremony, Argentine Tango and Zen Archery. For the past 30 years, Bruce has taught in Europe, Asia and the Americas helping people experience the interconnectedness of physical and spiritual life. So please enjoy my conversation with Bruce Fertman. Bruce, thank you so much for joining me.
Bruce:You're welcome.
Wendy:Alright. So you are the coauthor of a new book called Walking Well, A New Approach for Comfort, Vitality, and Inspiration in Every Step. You and your coauthor, Michael, are suggesting a different approach to walking, and it seems like you're trying to encourage folks to do some walking or maybe more walking or different kind of walking. So
Bruce:All of the above.
Wendy:All of the above. So, yeah, let's just start there. What would you say your wish is for readers picking up this book?
Bruce:Okay. Well, we are interested in walking, but we're interested in it not solely as a form of exercise. We also think it's a great way of exercising. But we have a bigger picture in mind because we walk all through the day if we're lucky enough to be able to walk. So it's not something it's we don't only walk around the block for exercise, those of us who do that.
Bruce:We get up in the morning, and we stand up, and we walk somewhere. And then we do something. And then we walk somewhere else, and we do something. And we do that all through the day.
Wendy:Right.
Bruce:Or even if we're driving to work, we still have to walk to our car, and we still have to park the car, and then we still have to walk somewhere. And we don't realize it because usually our mind is on what it is we have to do next. So we don't take in this transitionary action that we do all through the day. And we want to get people aware that, actually, we walk through our day. We walk through the day.
Bruce:We walk and do this, and when we walk and do that. So we're trying to get people aware of how they move through their day because after all, that's all we have one day and then another day and so on. Right. And we want people to walk through their day with a particular quality, with a a kind of tempo that allows people to establish resonance with themselves and with other people and with the world. And that takes me to our using the idea of walking as a metaphor as well.
Bruce:So there's what we call transportational walking. That's walking from a to b, but there's also transformational walking. So that's like, if we can walk through our day and establish this walking tempo, maybe we can change our lives for the for the better. So walking for us is a very big subject.
Wendy:Yeah. I was going to say your book is very expansive. It's about walking, but it's about so much more than that too, which is really cool. And, obviously, we're not all conscious of how we're walking and how we can use the time when we're walking.
Bruce:Well, you know, it's almost like the for us, the word walking and living are synonyms. So we say walking your talk. That's kind of about, like, how you live your life. Or if we're someone's having trouble with something, we say, well, let me walk you through it. And that's also like, that's walking as an approach, like, how you do something.
Bruce:We're looking at walking both extremely practically. You know, the book is really a lot about actually walking.
Wendy:Right.
Bruce:And there's a methodology behind that that I've spent a half century developing. So it's amazingly simple and effective as something can be after you've worked on it for 50 years. And so it really is about walking, but it's as much about walking in the supermarket as it is about walking up a mountain. You know, the book's fascinating. It it gives people a lot of ways of thinking about movement and becoming comfortable and becoming vigorous in one's life.
Wendy:Yeah. What's striking me as you're saying all of this is how we take it for granted, and what you're inviting us to do is to not take walking for granted and that it's so much more than getting you from point a to point b. It's so habitual. We don't even think about the fact that, oh, I'm walking from my car to the grocery store or whatever.
Bruce:Mhmm.
Wendy:It's a really kind of refreshing thing, right, to think about walking. Mhmm. Because how often do we think about walking? And in those metaphors you you gave examples of, let me walk you through this. It also suggests that there's a goal in mind.
Wendy:You're taking steps to get to that goal. So I have a feeling that part of what you and Michael are suggesting is that you can well, like I was saying before, you can look at walking in a much different way, a much more expansive way.
Bruce:Well, you know, I think what you're getting at is that we're really interested in people waking up, that people are pretty much asleep to their everyday movement life. But Michael and I have trained in physical disciplines our entire life. So Michael's a 5th dan aikidoist and has been studying qigong and tai chi for years. And we're both trained Alexander technique teachers and have been teaching that for half century. And I have just countless.
Bruce:I've been studying movement nonstop. So for us, our bodies are very awake and and very well trained.
Wendy:And you have an awareness of your bodies.
Bruce:Yeah. We're awake. Our bodies are wide awake.
Wendy:So that's what you mean.
Bruce:That's what I mean. It's like when we go through the day, we know we're moving.
Wendy:Okay. Whereas most of us don't.
Bruce:That's right. We know how how we are sitting. We know how we're standing. We know how we're speaking. We know how we're walking.
Bruce:We know how we we're using our hands. We know how we're moving. We know what our bodies are doing moment by moment. That's a lifetime of training. So our function as elders that are skilled in a particular way is to share what we know with the general public who's gifted in other ways, where who are do wonderful things that we don't know about.
Bruce:But this is what we know about. So we're we're it's a time for us in our lives where we wanna share what we know. And what we feel, what we suspect is the way in which to connect to the general public is through walking because that that is the common denominator. You see, that's what most of us do every day. We walk from here to there throughout the day.
Bruce:So if we wanna teach people how to wake up physically and how to be really well organized in their physical life, that may be the way in. And that's that's sort of the premise of the book.
Wendy:Yeah. It's actually very important. Right? I mean, because what you're illustrating is the lack of relationship that we have with our bodies. Again, I, have a wellness center, and that's one of the things I've noticed over the years is that most of the time, I'm seeing people who are unwell, and they're coming in to find some relief in some way.
Wendy:But it's not uncommon for them to see their bodies in a negative way as something that's betrayed them. Which is sad because it's actually doing it the the best it can to try to to heal at all times. Like, if you just look at our livers and how hard they're working constantly.
Bruce:No. I to add to that point, I tell my students that in all my years of teaching, I've rarely met a person that loves their body. And the more beautiful it is, the less they like it. And But I've never met a body that doesn't love their person.
Wendy:Great point.
Bruce:Yes. Yeah. Because just what you say, bodies are do our bodies are, like, con constant servants that would totally devoted or always trying to keep us alive.
Wendy:24/7.
Bruce:24/7. And so we spend a lot of time in the book trying to get this idea across to people. And what we've realized is you can tell people this, but they won't experience it until you can get them to give up worrying and directing so much of their attention on what their bodies look like. So I call that the cosmetic body and or the appearance body. And so people are so preoccupied with what they look like, which other animals are not.
Wendy:Yes. It's very true.
Bruce:So this sabotages our love relationship with with our bodies. And then we don't we tend not to like it because we're not as tall as we wanna be. We're not as thin as we wanna be. We're not as beautiful as we wanna be in some way. We're we wanna be we wanna be younger.
Bruce:We wanna be older. We wanna be you know, it's just endless. And we put our attention there when it which means it can't be somewhere else, which is, like, on the biological miracle of being alive and having a body.
Wendy:Right.
Bruce:So so you you kinda have to get people aware that they're preoccupied, that they're looking at their body one way. And as as they as they figure that out and they stop doing that so much, then they they start to to say, oh my god. This is great. I can walk. But not only can I walk, I can learn to walk really well and have it feel fantastic?
Bruce:Right? So then then you have a person where you want them. Then you can teach them something about their body.
Wendy:Yeah. And if you really, really think about that, it actually seems it's sad. It's sad for us to
Bruce:It is.
Wendy:I mean, I I I frequently talk about how head centric we are in the western world. Interesting. We wanna analyze and understand and then analyze some more and trying to to get to that golden deep understanding of why things are the way they are. And and it's never satisfying because even if you develop a beautiful insight, it doesn't it doesn't necessarily always change the way you feel unless you acknowledge that there's a lot more to you than your brain and your cognition rather.
Bruce:And I'll tell you those those wonderful insights, which are actually very important, are contingent on having a body. And walking is actually very important to thinking because the brain uses about 20% of our oxygen, but most people don't breathe well. Most people interfere with their breathing dramatically, and so we spend a good bit of time in the book on breathing.
Wendy:Yeah.
Bruce:And then the best way to learn to breathe better is to walk well learn how to walk well. And so when you learn to walk well, you your body starts breathing fully, and then more oxygen goes to your brain, and that's when you start to get the good ideas. And then we teach people to write those ideas down and how to work with them because we also teach what we call inspirational walking, walking for inspirational, walking for inspiration. There are so many thinkers and artists and scientists that have attested to their ideas coming while they were walking. So Michael is great at doing research, and he's he gets all.
Wendy:No. You have some great examples in the book of that. Yeah.
Bruce:Yeah. He really does.
Wendy:So let's talk about walking.
Bruce:K.
Wendy:I think it would be helpful is maybe to address some of the the myths that you point out in the book about walking
Bruce:Yeah.
Wendy:If you don't mind.
Bruce:No. Not at all. Well but this is a little bit hard to do in a podcast because I usually teach people in person, and I I watch them move.
Wendy:Right.
Bruce:You know? I teach them. They watch me. I even use my hands a lot to change how people are organized in their bodies. So I work very, very personally with people, and I have for forever since I was 12 years old in teaching movement.
Bruce:But I started teaching a course a few years ago called Grace of Sense, where I was just working with people online, and I was so surprised at how much I could get across, how much I could help.
Wendy:Oh, you could. Okay.
Bruce:I could. I was really surprised. So and that's what encouraged me to to talk to Michael about sharing these ideas inside of a book and that we might even be able to teach this material that way. So and I think we've succeeded. I think we've we've really succeeded.
Bruce:So I will talk to you a little bit about some of the myths that we have about walking. One myth is you don't have to walk 10,000 steps a day.
Wendy:That's one of the ones that I was hoping you touch on.
Bruce:Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to walk 10,000 steps a day. I usually do, but I live out in the country, and I have a very privileged lifestyle. I I get up, and I walk I work for a little while on my computer, and then I take a walk before lunch.
Bruce:And then I work some more in the afternoon, and then I take a walk before dinner. And I live in the country, and I just walk out my door. So it's easy for me, but it's not easy for everyone. And so it turns out to get really good health benefits from walking, you do need to walk about 75 100 steps a day. And that's even a challenge for a lot of people.
Bruce:But at least it's it's really doable if you make up your mind that you're gonna do that. So so that's that's good news. That was where the research that Michael delved into and found out. Then the thing is, I think, that you don't need to walk as much if you walk well.
Wendy:Okay.
Bruce:Yeah. If you you know, it's interesting. If you walk poorly, then you're also practicing things that are not good for you. In other words, you
Wendy:Well, that's a great point.
Bruce:Do you see what I mean?
Wendy:You're Yeah.
Bruce:You're practicing not walking well.
Wendy:But you're getting the habit of walking Yeah. Poorly.
Bruce:Yes. So, I mean, you'd still get certain benefits. It helps your muscle tone. It does help with breathing a little bit and so on. But the amount of energy and pleasure that you can get walking well, you you would get twice as much out of walking half as much if you walked well versus walked poorly.
Bruce:So the amount is less important than how well you walk. Honestly, that's if I could have a person walk 10,000 steps a day and they walked poorly, and if I could have them walk 2,000 steps a day really well, they would get more out of walking 2,000 steps
Wendy:a day. Alright.
Bruce:Absolutely.
Wendy:That's good to know.
Bruce:Yes. It's really good to know. And that's why it's not just a quantitative thing. It's a qualitative thing, as it is with everything.
Wendy:Yeah. It makes sense.
Bruce:Yeah. It makes sense, doesn't it? So that's one thing. Here's another thing that's hard to explain without showing you, but most well, no. I could explain this.
Bruce:Most people think that walking is an action. And everyone would say, well, of course, walking is an action. I say, no. It's not an action. It's an interaction.
Bruce:This is one of the big things we teach in the book, which is that you cannot take one step without the ground.
Wendy:Yes. You
Bruce:cannot take one step. Right? Yeah. It's obvious. You cannot.
Bruce:So unless we are in a middle of a jump or a leap in midair, we are always touching something on this earth. That's just how it is to be a person 247 unless we're jumping in midair. So that means we're always in tactual interaction with something. Like, right now, you're sitting on that chair. Right?
Wendy:Yeah.
Bruce:So you're interacting with the chair in a particular way. You're relating. You're interrelating, interacting with the chair.
Wendy:Me and this chair go way back.
Bruce:Yes. That's it. Right. So and I I am as well. And my feet are on the ground, and your feet are probably on the ground or one of them.
Bruce:So you're also interacting with the ground. Your back is interacting with the back of the chair. Your pelvis is interacting with the seat of the chair. It goes on and on.
Wendy:And I'm just realizing you're probably analyzing how I'm sitting.
Bruce:Yeah. So but that's what I mean. So sitting is is an interaction. Not nothing we do. There are no actions.
Bruce:We don't do any actions. We only interact.
Wendy:Understood. Yeah.
Bruce:Right? We only interact. We're interacting with our computers right now and and with each other. So walking is an interaction. So that means that, really, the very first thing you have to know after you recognize that walking is an interaction is what am I interacting with, and how am I interacting with it, and with what am I interacting with with it.
Bruce:And it's your feet. So the very first thing you need to know to understand is what is the relationship well, what are you doing with your feet, and how are you using them as they interact with the ground? How are you being in your feet as they interact with the ground? And that's the beginning of that's where we begin. And Michael and I take a person to very systematically from their relationship of the bottoms of their feet to the ground and what is actually going on there because that's where the power is initiated from in walking and how that power moves sequentially up the body into a into a human walk.
Bruce:And, interestingly, most of that interaction is behind the body when you're walking. It has to do with what's going on with the back foot. So another myth is that, we think we stride forward. We put one foot in front of the other, but we don't put one foot in front of the other. We we have one foot behind us all the time, and that foot that's behind us is generating our walk.
Bruce:It's a little bit like a paddle that is the paddle goes back, the canoe goes forward. You just don't put your canoe forward and expect the canoe to go forward. The
Wendy:That's an excellent distinction. Yeah.
Bruce:I'll tell you another myth. Actually, there's so many. People have this idea that to walk with vitality, you need to use a lot of effort. But, actually, that just tires you out to use a lot of effort. Feels good in the beginning, but then you get tired.
Bruce:The secret to walking with vitality is learning how to walk with less and less effort. So it most people think, okay. I'm gonna walk with the vitality, and they they put a lot of pressure on the gas pedal. What we do is we teach people how to take their foot that they don't even know is on the brake and take it off the brake. So they're that they're not working against themselves walking.
Wendy:Right. Okay.
Bruce:So they're taking away everything that interferes with their walking. So it's more about learning to let go of all the excessive things we do and all the tensions we hold in our body So that when once you learn the biomechanics of walking and you're not interfering with your body, it's just so easy. Mhmm. Ridiculously easy. And then it's out of the ease and the comfort of walking where you generate vitality.
Wendy:Okay. So how would you describe vitality?
Bruce:Well, vitality is is when you're receiving energy the moment you're expending it. So it's like when we when we do something and we are having a great time doing it and we're excited and we're energized by it, we're receiving energy the moment even though we're doing something and we're expending energy. We're receiving something, and it's giving us energy. You see? So if you don't know how to walk well and you're laboring to walk, you just get tired.
Bruce:So you're expending energy, but you're not receiving energy. So then you don't get you don't experience vitality. There's tremendous power that one can receive from the ground if you know how to receive it. But if you don't know how to relate to the ground, you're not gonna get that power. There's enormous amount of energy that you can get through breathing.
Bruce:But if you don't know how to breathe well, you're not going to get it. So it's learning how to receive energy as you are expending it. It would be like driving a car that is has solar panels all over it. And while you're driving it, your energy is coming in and charging you back up simultaneously. And we all have experienced that when we're doing some you hear when I was a kid, I used to dance to Motown music.
Bruce:And you you hear some great music, and you're dancing it. And you you're using a lot of energy, but you finish the dance and you feel
Wendy:Fired up.
Bruce:Fired up. Right? Yeah. Now that's Exactly. That's vitality.
Wendy:Okay.
Bruce:Okay?
Wendy:That's a great distinction too. Alright. So is there a way you can give, like, a little hint as to what proper I'm just imagining how hard it was for you guys to describe this in words. Now that we're talking about it, I'm like, oh, this is actually really complex complex thing to describe. But can you give, like, a little taste or a little hint of how to properly connect your foot to the earth?
Bruce:Yeah. I can. But to tell you about the words, language is very, very important when it comes to education because we think in language. And, also, we think in images, and images are very important when it comes to learning movement, particularly. But because I've been a teacher since teaching movement since I was 12, and I'm 73, I've had to wrestle with language.
Bruce:Right? Because I've had to find language that people understand that make gets them to move well.
Wendy:Right. To translate.
Bruce:So at this point in my life, it's not that difficult for me.
Wendy:Okay.
Bruce:Because that
Wendy:That makes sense.
Bruce:You're school looking at
Wendy:it for so long.
Bruce:However, you know, when you write a book, then you're and you're you're only using words, then you really have to be precise.
Wendy:Exactly. That's my point.
Bruce:Yeah. Challenging.
Wendy:Yeah. Super challenging.
Bruce:Now I can verbally explain to you something you could start to work with. A couple things. Well, the first thing that we do when we start to get people's feet, we want people's feet to to be really relaxed. Because if they're really relaxed, they feel the ground better, and they interact with the ground better if they're relaxed. Just like 2 people kind of interact better if they're not nervous and so on.
Bruce:Same kind of thing. So how do you get your feet to relax and your ankles? Both of those. Really, really So the first thing we do is we try to get people to stop doing everything they were taught about their feet. And and sometimes that's a lot of things.
Bruce:Like, if you ask people, they'll say, well, my mom told me not to make a lot of noise when I walk, or my dad said walk like a man, or my dance teacher told me that that I should have high arches, or my Tai Chi teacher said when I walk, my toes should point forward. All kinds of weird things. So the very first thing is you say, well, you know, what would happen just for now if you gave all that stuff up? And you just let your feet come down the way they want, like, without any instruction. Just find out what they do by themselves.
Bruce:I said, other animals, no one tells them what to do with their feet. They just do whatever they do. No one tells a little kid what to you know, a baby who's learning how to walk, what to do with their feet. The baby figures it out. They it's it's woven into our DNA.
Bruce:So what would happen if you just let your feet come down the way they want? Well, already, things change radically when people give up all the stuff they were taught to do with their feet. That's the first step. It's just let
Wendy:you No pun intended.
Bruce:No pun intended. So it's like your feet come down the way they want, assuming that your feet know better than you do it when it comes to this. Then the next thing we we have to get people to do is to let go of something they don't even know they're doing, which is bracing, tensing up their feet before they touch the ground. So people don't realize they do it, but they actually most people I mean, most adults, like 95%, tighten their feet, brace their feet just before the moment of impact as if that making the foot harder is going to protect it from hitting the ground. Right.
Bruce:Just the way you would if you thought you were gonna a car There's
Wendy:a threat of some sort. Some kind
Bruce:of threat, like a punch for for impact, a brace for impact. We don't know we're doing it. So then we get people to experiment. We just say, well, what would happen if if you realize, oh, there's no reason for me to brace for impact? I mean, my feet are designed to protect themselves without tightening up.
Bruce:I mean, maybe there isn't any reason I have to do that. Maybe I can just leave my feet soft. Right? And maybe I can just leave my ankles loose. Maybe I don't need to tighten my ankles.
Bruce:Right? And so we just start getting people to think this way, and it's almost like their the tension in their feet start melting a bit. The tension falls away.
Wendy:Makes sense. Yeah.
Bruce:It's almost like people's feet are like overinflated tires. They're they're and you take a little air out of the tire, and suddenly the traction is better.
Wendy:That's a great example.
Bruce:And then right away, the interaction changes, and people are walking differently. And so that's where that's where it starts. Now let me say one more thing about that is one of the ways so some people, you just speak about it in language, and they they get it. And some people, they don't quite get it that way. They start working too hard at it.
Bruce:And then you say, well, listen. It's so simple. Just imagine that your feet are like really big bear feet, like a big grizzly bear or a big polar bear. I love polar bear feet. Right?
Bruce:They're, like, 12 inches wide. They're so soft and padded, and they're furry, and they're webbed. Polar bears can swim for 100 of miles. They're just the perfect feet. So you get a person being like a child and just even you can do it even just sitting in your chair.
Bruce:You can just imagine that your feet are growing, right, like a movie, like, you know, that you're turning into a bear, and your your feet are getting really big. Right? And then all those qualities start to happen without having to analyze it. That just starts happening. It's all built into the image.
Bruce:And then you have a person walk, imagining they have great big polar bear feet or grizzly bear feet, and there it is.
Wendy:Game changer.
Bruce:Game changer. So that's the very beginning of how we teach people. And and, you know, it's it's interesting. But, you know, when I was a younger teacher, I mean, I had studied anatomy, kinesiology, and I was a graduate student, and I studied all that stuff. And I had very sophisticated vocabulary.
Bruce:I could I could impress people with what I knew. But now at 73, I don't use that material because I'm interested in the results. Right? And I wanna be able to teach an 8 year old or an 83 year old. And I want everyone to be able to get it, and I want people to get it quickly.
Bruce:And I know how to do that now, but that's because I've been working on it for 63 years.
Wendy:Right. Right. You have a bit of experience there. Experience. And you've learned a whole bunch
Bruce:in
Wendy:the process. Yeah. And so the other stuff is extraneous. Right?
Bruce:Yeah. It's extraneous. It's not I I maybe won't come off as intelligent, but it's not that it's not that important at this point.
Wendy:Well, that's to suggest that there's not much intelligence in what you're saying today, which is not true.
Bruce:Well, that's true. There's a tremendous amount of intelligence. It's very,
Wendy:And logic.
Bruce:It's very simplified and distilled intelligence. And you know what it is? It's very evolved pedagogy. And it just happens that when your pedagogy when you really understand something very, very deeply, you can explain it simply.
Wendy:And the way you come across because of that is with a degree of confidence about it. So it's like, I know this because I've experienced it, and I've witnessed many, many other people. Yeah. Transform because of That's right. These practices.
Bruce:That's right. I am confident about it because I've worked in person in 22 countries with, oh, at least 15,000 people. So over many years, decades.
Wendy:It's a lot of feet. Yeah.
Bruce:It's a lot of feet. And and and a lot of wonderful people, I must say. I feel so privileged. But it's a huge longitudinal study. Right?
Bruce:Because over those years, you've you you try things. You just say, oh, no. That doesn't work. Oh, that works. After several decades, you start to put together everything that works.
Bruce:And that's how you develop a a methodology.
Wendy:Makes perfect sense. Yeah. Teaching can do that. Right? If you're you're having to find all these different ways to present information and you get a knack for it over time.
Wendy:Yeah. Which is so cool. So, say, we're walking like a bear. Does that automatically affect how we're breathing, or are there ways in which we need to adjust our breathing consciously?
Bruce:Both. Both. Everything affects everything. That's because we just have one body, and all the systems are are intertwined. They don't work independently.
Bruce:So so when you get something really good happening, really natural happening in one part of the body, the whole it's like like a community. So every part of the body sort of pick starts picking it up. And then, again, you at some point, you reach a critical mass. You make enough changes in the body, and you reach critical mass, and the whole body just changes. And then that's where the comfort and vitality starts clicking in.
Bruce:That said, it helps to study all the parts and how they work, and then you need to put it all back together again.
Wendy:You're reminding me of my time in martial arts of how many different things you have to attend to at the same time in order to execute, for example, a strike really well? Or
Bruce:Yes. Yes. Eventually, it integrates.
Wendy:And it starts with your feet.
Bruce:It does. So certainly in walking. So so, like, for instance, we spend a good bit of time talking about the arm structure, and you would think, well, what does that have to do with walking? But, actually, the arms have a great deal to do with walking because if the arm structure, which includes your clavicles and your scapula, are waiting down on your ribs. Your upper your ribs go that's very top of your ribs go above your clavicles, and your lungs are all the way up there as well as all the way
Wendy:Lungs are huge. Yeah.
Bruce:Huge. Right? So if your arm structure is impeding upon your torso, your your ribs, you don't breathe as well. And, also, if your arms are kind of dead and hanging like dead ropes, they don't participate in your walk, and they need to. Every part of your body walking is the largest movement we can make in our body.
Bruce:If you walk well, every part of your body is moving inside and out. All your organs. Right? All of your legs, your pelvis, your ribs, your spine, your arms, everything. So it's a huge movement.
Bruce:And if you learn to to make that movement effortlessly and in a way that's really organically and logically organized, it's just the best thing you can do for yourself.
Wendy:So it sounds like you just have to put in a little a little bit training. Effort and training and then, of course, attending to paying attention to Yeah. Becoming aware of your body.
Bruce:Yeah. But the good news the good news is that that is fun. That is my idea of a good time because, you know, most people say, oh, no.
Wendy:Sounds like a lot
Bruce:of work. But, no, I say, hey. I I'm gonna learn something new. And Michael and I make it so much fun
Wendy:You do.
Bruce:That it's not an effort. And then it's it's so you get the reward so quickly that
Wendy:It propels you forward.
Bruce:Yeah. It's just like, oh, wow. This is feeling really good. And so it reinforces itself. Yeah.
Bruce:So it's not a it's not a task. We're just teaching you how to do something that's really fun, and we're teaching you how to do it really well.
Wendy:I think that's a great reframe and an important one. I was just talking with a client the other day about a technique, and the first thing they said is that sounds like a lot of work. So, clearly, I thought I made it sound fun, but, clearly, I didn't. But it's interesting how there's an avoidance of something that seems like a lot of work even if it's gonna help us
Bruce:Yeah. A
Wendy:little bit. Yeah. But the book, there's a a whole bunch of creative processes in here that you're inviting folks to try and experiment with.
Bruce:Yeah.
Wendy:What you're sharing is a lovely taste of maybe, like, a little tease that people can start doing on their own. And then if they notice, which I'm hoping they will, they notice that walking like a bear is actually fun and does make walking feel different and more inviting, then they will get your book so that they can learn more.
Bruce:Yeah. It's not that we want people to walk like a bear. It's that we want people to imagine playfully imagine certain things that allow people to walk in a more human way. Walk That's
Wendy:a good catch.
Bruce:Yeah. So we're not not imitating walking like a bear.
Wendy:No. That would look ridiculous.
Bruce:Even though bears can walk very well just on their hind legs because they have the same foot structure that we have. Their implanted grace.
Wendy:Okay.
Bruce:Yeah. But the other thing that that I wanted to just touch on before we we stop our interview is there are 2 other kinds of walking besides transportational walking and inspirational walking. We also talk about walking shoulder to shoulder. And this is very important for us because life is with people. Abraham Heschel said, existence is coexistence.
Bruce:That's a little bit like when I say there are no actions. There's no interactions. There are no individuals. There's just people being together. We can't live without other people.
Wendy:Very true.
Bruce:So how does that fit in with walking? Well, there are lots of walking groups in the world, and we we're hoping to start walking well groups. That's one of our projects. So learning to walk shoulder to shoulder and talking to each other in real physical three-dimensional life is something that we'd like to bring back. We'd like to get people doing more of that.
Bruce:When I talk to my son, sometimes when we're talking face to face, we run into a bit of tension. But if I say to my son, Noah, hey, Noah. Let's go for a walk. We can talk for hours. Right?
Bruce:There's something about just the walking togethers, finding a timing, walking in the same direction, walking out in nature. It's really a good thing to do. So we write a lot about that. And then the part of the book that I think Michael and I love the most has to do with walking for positive change, what we sometimes call walking for transformation. Because there's a there's a connection to to spiritual development and spiritual life in relation to walking because, like, there are pilgrimages that happen all over the world Yeah.
Bruce:Inside of all different religions. There's a reason why they they do that walking and not driving. There's a reason why they walk. And Gandhi did the famous salt march to the sea and the making of salt. He liberated the entire country through walking.
Bruce:We use walking for all kinds of reasons that are political and spiritual. So we write about this a lot, and it just shows how elemental and powerful walking is for humans and how all the different ways we can use it to reduce suffering and elevate joy in the world. That's what Michael and I are after.
Wendy:And it's such a rudimentary thing.
Bruce:It's so rudimentary. It's so basic.
Wendy:One of the things that really stood out to me in your book is the section on sitting because I think that has become epidemic. Right? Is that so many of us, myself included, I have to sit for a living in a lot of instances.
Bruce:Yes. Yes. Well, you know, I sit 5 or 6 hours a day because I'm a writer and a photographer, and I run a community, and I have people all over the world I have to talk to. But I feel great when I sit because I know how to sit well, because something I've learned. Right?
Bruce:And and there's a there's a very strong connection between sitting, standing, and walking. Because the way we sit in our bodies, in the way our spine, pelvis, rib cage, and head are organized in sitting is the way they're going to be organized when we stand is the way they're gonna be organized when we walk. So if you notice little kids, when they're learning to walk, they first have to learn how to sit.
Wendy:Yep.
Bruce:You can't learn to stand until you know how to sit, and you can't learn to walk until you know how to stand. And there's an organic logic to that. And so for humans to learn to walk well, just like babies learn to walk well but we have to relearn how to walk well. You see? Because we have all kinds of things we do that get in the way of walking well.
Wendy:Yes.
Bruce:We have to relearn how to walk well. But to relearn how to walk well, you have to learn how to stand well. And to re relearn how to stand well, you have to relearn how to sit well. They're really all one subject. And that's why, you know, people ask Michael and I, why are you writing about about sitting and standing in a book that's about walking?
Bruce:Well, that's why.
Wendy:Okay. So let me also just observe out loud that during this entire conversation, Bruce has sat very upright. His shoulders are square, and I am like the shape of an s. Like, my spine is curled. My leg is up.
Wendy:I mean Yeah. So
Bruce:Well, I I sit at 73 years old. I kind of sit like a child that's 4 years old. But that's because not that I'm sitting correctly, but it's that I've recovered the natural way to sit that is still in there. It's a matter of uncovering it and going back to it's what I call the animal body. Humans are animals.
Wendy:Yes. We are.
Bruce:And, yeah, in animals, no one educates an animal how to move or how to sit or how to stand.
Wendy:It's innate. Yeah.
Bruce:Right? They just know it's it's hardwired. It is in humans too. Mhmm. But but we superimpose cultural ideas and gender ideas onto, our natural bodies, then we we lose touch with with the natural way to move.
Bruce:So what I've done is just spent I haven't taught myself the right way to move. I've gotten rid of all the stuff or most of the stuff that interferes with the natural way to move. And then the natural way to move is just there. That's a lot of what the Alexander technique is about. So Michael and I are we started studying that in our early twenties.
Wendy:Do you wanna touch on just really briefly what that is for people who don't know what the Alexander technique is?
Bruce:Well, I can do that. It's an approach that this man, FM Alexander, evolved way back in the late 1800, he was a a man that was an actor, had a certain amount of anxiety, fear, overefforting in his way of acting, and it resulted in his losing his voice. And he set about looking at what he was doing. And in the process of figuring out this vocal issue, he found his whole body organizing itself in a different way. And then he realized that this like, kind of every system is connected to every system, And people got very interested in what he was figuring out about the human body and human movement and human functioning.
Bruce:And a lot of doctors got interested. So he he moved to London. He spent the rest of his life teaching his work. He figured out a fantastic way of using his hands that helped people to let go of all this interference. And the result was people just moved beautifully, just naturally.
Bruce:It's beautiful work. So Michael and I were very drawn to it. But Michael and I were drawn to a lot of beautiful disciplines, aikido, taijichuan, Japanese tea ceremony, kyuto, a lot of Asian arts. Michael and I are both drawn to a lot of Asian arts because a lot of Asian arts have thought about the relationship between the body and spiritual life more than western disciplines. Yes.
Bruce:But we teach all that material, much of that material, but we we translate it into western life and western thinking. Yeah. So people can get it. So it's doesn't sound esoteric.
Wendy:Right. So you're borrowing from all these different disciplines
Bruce:Yes.
Wendy:To teach people how to walk well.
Bruce:Yeah. How to move naturally. Yes.
Wendy:Alright. So after we finish, I am going to go on my Lucid Path Wellness employee wellness walk, which is which is just me because I am my only employee.
Bruce:I understand
Wendy:that. And practice some of these
Bruce:Great.
Wendy:These, techniques that you have graciously shared. And I am really appreciative of you coming on and chatting with me and, doing a really good job of describing very kind of abstract concepts. Thank you very much for doing that.
Bruce:My pleasure.
Wendy:And if people wanna learn more about Mhmm. About you, your work
Bruce:Yeah.
Wendy:Are you teaching online classes regularly?
Bruce:Yes. I'll I'll tell you. It's really simple.
Wendy:Okay.
Bruce:Go to walkingwell.com because we didn't put illustrations in this book intentionally. Because in this day and age, you can hook a book up to a website, and you can give all the illustrations and all the videos. And so we have put together a website that is so supportive of of what you're learning in the book. Just fantastic videos on walking, on breathing, on all kinds of things. So and then Oh.
Bruce:Once you're walking well
Wendy:I didn't even look at that.
Bruce:Yeah. Once you're on walkingwell.com, you can buy the book from there. And we also are offering our a 3 hour course that Michael and I are gonna teach online live for $75. We're keeping it as inexpensive as possible.
Wendy:That's incredible. Yeah.
Bruce:First one is on November 2nd. So people who whether you've read the book or not, you can jump on to the course. You can meet me. You can meet Michael. You can get experience how we teach.
Bruce:And I also teach 9 day, very immersion walking as a way of life retreats in Northern New Mexico. I've I've done 3 of them this summer. I have one more to do in October. If you wanna go deeply into this material, that's the way to to do it.
Wendy:Very cool. And will you be doing the, live course every so often?
Bruce:We're gonna do it every month.
Wendy:Oh, oh, okay. Alright. Because this will be evergreen once it's live, and so people will
Bruce:Oh, great.
Wendy:Be hearing it at different times.
Bruce:Yes. Every month.
Wendy:Well, that's awesome and incredibly helpful, I imagine.
Bruce:Yeah.
Wendy:Alright, sir. So I will put a link to walkingwell.com in the show notes. And again, thank you so much for coming up.
Bruce:My great pleasure.
Wendy:You're ready to try walking barefoot? Or maybe I should say bare footed. That was lame too. Sorry. To learn more about how to walk well, please visit walking well.com.
Wendy:Thank you for joining me. I hope the coming year is as pleasant and drama free as possible for you. I'll be back in a few weeks with a fun new episode exploring intuition, but you probably already knew that. Also lame. Oh, my.
Wendy:Until next time.