For a second there I thought I was coming up with something original, and maybe I was back there in the early 70′s when I first conceived of what was to become The Alexander Alliance. But now, oddly enough, I find that a man by the name of John Holt had the same idea. He called his vision of education, “unschooling.”

Unschoolers assert that people learn best through their natural life. They learn through play, games, study, through personal interests, internships, apprenticing, traveling, through curiosity, through  work experience and household responsibilities, through family, friends, mentors, and social interactions. Unschoolers encourage student initiated learning, because the more personal learning is,  the more relevant, the more meaningful, and the more enjoyable it is for everyone.

This pretty much sums up what we’ve been doing at the Alexander Alliance International for the past 30 years.

The Coyote Home School is the Alexander Alliance’s latest unschooling project. We continue to carry on our ongoing experiment as life educators.

Here is how it works. It’s so simple.

You can come alone, bring a significant other, or bring your family, including your dog. You can bring your friends, or you can bring up to three other people with whom you share a common interest. Perhaps you are a rock and roll band, or a string quartet. Perhaps you are Aikido pals, or in the same yoga class, or dance company. Perhaps you are Alexander trainees or new Alexander teachers wanting some post-graduate work. And if you decide to head out to Coyote, New Mexico on your own, you can  join one of our Open Retreats and spend a weekend or a week making some new friends. You can find the Open Retreat Schedule below.*

Since the Alexander Technique is applicable to just about anything, it being about body and being, we can orient your time around exactly what you wish to study. And if you have nothing particular you wish to pursue, we can spend our time bringing about quietly dramatic personal transformations through the Alexander Technique, The Peaceful Body, T’ai Chi Chu’an, and The Walking Way.

Depending on how much your group is interested in study, and how much in seeing Georgia O’Keeffe Country, we can arrive at the right balance between being at home studying, and venturing out to Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu Lake, the Jemez Mountains, Christ In The Desert Benedictine Monastery, the Ojo Caliente Mineral Springs, or Santa Fe.

You can study with us for up to five days.

You can organize your own Retreat between May 23 and June 23 or between August 15 and October 6. We will do our best to accommodate to your schedule. To get the exact time you want, register as early as possible.

Cost: $250 per day, includes study, food, and lodging.

There’s no red tape. The Coyote Home School is essentially your school. And the great thing about it is, it’s not really a school at all. It’s just home. It’s just a place where you can get a good education, an education – for life.

Yours,

Bruce Fertman

*Open Retreat Schedule

(Remember, there’s only room for 4 people per retreat, so write soon and save yourself a place – bf@brucefertman.com )

May 23-26  -  3 day retreat

June 2-7  -  5 day retreat

July 2-7  - 5 day retreat for Alexander trainees and teachers

August 15-18   –  3 day retreat

September 19-22  -  3 day retreat

October 3-6  -  3 day retreat

He said he wanted to work on talking. In what situation are you seeing yourself talking? I’m talking to people, he says. Where are you, I ask? I’m around a table with a group of people. We’re out to dinner. It’s loud, lots of people drinking, conversing, loud music playing in the background. As he describes the situation, I see his thin legs crossed, his thin body curled over in a c-shape, almost in a circle. In between sentences, I see his eyes flutter up, a couple rapid, tense blinks and then he speaks, his mouth hardly opening, his voice circling inside his mouth, a thin voice, everything thin, withered. A young man, old before his time.

Here we go I say to the group. Lets get that table and put it close to this noisy heater. Put some music on that computer. Get that large bottle of cold tea, and those cups, and lets sit around together. In Japan when you give an instruction like that, everyone gets up simultaneously, there’s a swirl of commotion, the dust settles, and it’s done. I place the thin man across from a good-looking woman who is an actress. I know she will draw him in, and maybe make him a bit nervous.

Alright. We’ve been at this table for a while. We’ve had a couple of beers. We’re loosening up. Lets see what happens. Douzo.

The party begins. I disappear into the thin mans blind spot and watch. He is doing almost exactly what he did when he explained the situation to me, but more pronounced. Everyone is engrossed. You can almost see the food on the table.

Okay, that’s good. I squeeze into the group next to the thin man. I have him sit back. With my hands, I help him uncurl his spine, relax his stomach. I get him to lean back and receive support from the chair. I’m not sure what I want to do next, so I sit quietly for a good fifteen seconds, without saying a word…

Okay. Your eyes are open, right? Now, close your eyes? Good. Now open your eyes. Good. Let me ask you, do your eyes really close or open? The group is wondering where I am going. I mean, can an eyeball open and close? Do eyeballs do that? What opens and closes? What raises and lowers, folds and unfolds?

Meanwhile, my attention is turned to the group. I am intentionally not looking at the thin man. I don’t want him to worry about me watching him.

You know, when you are really sleepy; when you can hardly keep “your eyes open,” how heavy your eyelids feel? Go there. Imagine that. Can you sense the weight of your eyelids? What’s happening, I ask, as I see everyone’s blinking slowing way down.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the thin man. The tension in his face is gone, and his face no longer looks thin. His upper body looks wide. I’m noticing for the first time how broad his shoulders are. There’s no anxiety left in the man. The thin man has become the calm man. No more flutter in the eyes. None.

Imagine you’re an alligator, I say to the group.  You’re slowly, sliding through the swamp, your large, weighty, eyelids covering and closing over your round eyeballs… then sluggishly opening, only as far as they open on their own. Imagine yourself semi-submerged, the lower half of your eyes under the water.

Nothing could disturb the calm man now. Nothing could make this man nervous.

Okay. Time for lunch. Indian food. I can’t wait. Doumo arigatou gosaimashita. Good job.

At lunch the calm man sits at the head of the table, open, unafraid, his voice full and resonate.

Alexander’s work, when it works, can work miracles, miracles that can change a person’s life forever.

Eugene, Bruce, and Noah Fertman

It was the end of class. There were a few minutes left. I asked if anyone had any questions. Mizuho, a new Alexander Alliance teacher, asked me how I listen to a student.

As usual, I sat there silently for about 20 seconds waiting for an honest answer to arise. Then it did.

Let me tell you how my father, at the end of his life, listened to people. He’d sit down with someone and ask them, how are you, and he’d really mean it. My Dad’s ego died a couple of years before he did. His life no longer circled around itself.

His friend, and it seemed everyone was his friend, whether he knew them or not, would talk about themselves, and when they finished, only when they had finished, my Dad would ask them a question. What was that like? And then what happened? How did that make you feel?

His friend would continue, sometimes for a long time. But, ironically, now that my Dad had so little time left, he lived as if he had all the time in the world.

Five days before my Dad died he was in the Intensive Care Unit. He was having a lot of trouble breathing. A nurse comes in and my father asks, how are you? She tells my Dad, “I’m exhausted! Last night I went to night school after a 10-hour shift. My daughter was up most of the night with an earache. This morning, at 6, I grabbed a cup of coffee and a donut, got on the bus, and punched into work at 7 for another 10-hour shift.” How was your daughter in the morning? And then, what are you studying in night school? You’re amazing. I’m sure that will pay off in the long run for you and your daughter. And then, How old is your daughter? What’s her name? As the nurse is about to leave, my Dad thanks her for being so kind to him and says, “I hope you will take care of yourself today.”

I tell Mizuho that when I’m teaching well, I listen like my Dad listened. Sometimes, I feel that he’s still asking me how I am, still sitting there by me, still listening as if he had all the time in the world.

Photo: B. Fertman

Because I often do my work in groups, my trainees get to watch me work with lots of people. They see I‘m not working solely with a person’s body. They see that, at heart, I am not a body worker.  They see a person who works with people’s beings through their bodies. They want me to teach them how to do that.

Teaching my trainees about their bodies, and about how to move well, is fairly straight forward. Teaching my trainees how to use their hands well is more challenging, but doable. Teaching my trainees how to see people has been surprisingly difficult. Up until now.

When I was nine years old my friend asked me, “Why do you stare at people?” I said, “I don’t stare at people; I look at them.” He didn’t agree. There was no way of knowing I would become a person who made my living staring at people. I prefer to think of it as beholding people, holding people’s beings in my eyes and heart. That’s my job. That’s what I do.

How does one behold a person? Here’s what I do. And what I don’t do.

Just as some psychiatrists have devised terminology for different psychic forces, i.e. Freud’s ego, id, and superego, or Berne’s parent, adult, and child, or Perl’s, top dog, under dog, my observations tell me there are also physical forces worthy of their own names. Once you know the names for these physical forces, I refer to them as “bodies’, you can begin to see these different “bodies” at work within a person’s physical body. Eckhart Tolle’s “Pain Body” is a good example. Once you can see these bodies within the body, you begin to understand why a person holds themselves the way they do, why they move the way they do, and sometimes why they feel and behave the way they do. Suddenly you are no longer only seeing a person’s physical body. You are seeing a person.

I tell my students, “I never touch a person’s body. I only touch a person.” But to touch a person, you have first to see a person, as a person. That means not reducing them to their body.

Many somatic oriented educators first see what I call “the postural body.” When looking at the postural body we look for the relationships between parts of the body, one to the other: the relationship between the head and the neck, the ribs and the arm structure, the spine and the pelvis, etc. We look for hypertension and hypotension, we look for asymmetries, curvatures, twists and torcs. We look for how people are pulling themselves down, lifting themselves up, pressing themselves in, pushing themselves out, holding themselves back.

All well and good, but this is not where the act of beholding begins. Beholding is not observing; it’s not that objective. Beholding is personal, felt, empathetic, profoundly subjective. And esthetic.

I begin esthetically. It may sound odd, but initially I look at people as if they were living sculpture, frozen in time, under a spell.  I behold their sculptural body. When we look at sculptures of humans we don’t look at their posture. We see expression. Expression means the visible manifestation of thoughts and feelings. To express literally means to “press out”; thoughts and feelings are somehow pressed out from within, onto the physical body. We sculpt ourselves from the inside out.

Let’s practice seeing the sculptural body right now. Here are photos I took of human sculpture. I love human sculptures, because human sculptures let me stare at them for as long as I want. When you look at these photos immediately you will see the sculptural body: thoughts and feelings pressing out into the body, the body frozen in time, under a spell. And immediately you will know the difference between seeing the postural body and seeing the sculptural body.

Photos Of The Sculptural Body

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

Seeing the sculptural body is easy. It comes naturally to us. Unconsciously, we do it all the time. It’s only a matter of learning to do it consciously.

When I introduce the Alexander Technique, or The Peaceful Body to people, I will often work with a student in front of the other students. This makes most people nervous. Most people do not like people staring at them. They feel people are criticizing them, finding fault, judging them. They may feel people don’t like them, or reject them. That’s why, as a teacher my first task, before I begin using my hands, is to create a space that feels profoundly safe. I do that by teaching everyone how to see sculpturally.

As Alexander teachers, our job is to transport our students out of the world of right and wrong. As Rumi so beautifully said, “Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field; I’ll meet you there.” But how do we bring a person into a field beyond right and wrong? To what field is Rumi referring?

The sculptural body lives within the realm of art. There is no right and wrong art. It’s a thoroughly subjective world. I get my students to see, right away, that people, no matter what they are doing, no matter what they look like, sculpturally, are esthetically beautiful. There is composition, proportion, perspective, contrast, balance, color, light, shadow, line, texture, structure, ground, space, shape, depth. It’s a matter of learning how to see esthetically.

Esthetics means to appreciate. It also means to feel. That means esthetics is really another word for beholding. Once my students have entered this world of beauty, this field, the feeling in the entire room shifts. You can almost hear it. Safety all around.

As a person changes under my hands, the sculptural body changes, and the student’s see it. They see it clearly. They feel it. They’re moved. They are no longer seeing people’s bodies. They are seeing people, people they suddenly feel they know, because they are beginning to know them, because the person they are beholding is emerging, as if through a fog. A spell, cast long ago, lifting, evaporating, gone.

Practice seeing the sculptural body on subways, at airports, in cafes. If you are a somatic educator, consider the sculptural body as a good place to begin. The postural body lies within the sculptural body, but now it can be seen in context, as a physical manifestation of something much more significant, and much more beautiful.

There are myriad bodies within bodies. It’s a matter of learning their names, and how to see them. They’re all beautiful, each and every one.

Photo: B. Fertman

It’s happening. With my daughter in Korea, then in Japan, visiting temples and shrines, lighting incense, ringing gongs and bells, bringing our palms together, bowing in unison, saying thanks, making wishes. Finally, my mind sees only the people I love: my wife, my children, my friends, my students, and there I am, wanting nothing, but for them to be well, and safe. Rivers of people flooding into my heart: people asleep on trains, sitting in restaurants, standing behind counters, running in parks, lying in hospitals. I’m praying for them all. For how long, I don’t know. “Come on Dad!”  I look up at the golden 35 foot Buddha before me. He nods his head slowly, and smiles.

Daughter’s waiting. Time to go.

One. Why is this night different from all other nights?

No, no, not the four Passover questions, the four Alexander questions.

Here are my Alexander questions for the Alexander community.

If we all know Alexander’s work is not about getting in and out of a chair, if we all know it’s primarily about how we react to stimuli from within and without, then why do we, as a community, do so much getting people in and out of chairs? (1) Stimuli from within are thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Sometimes tough thoughts, self deprecating thoughts, or judgmental thoughts, emotions like anger and fear, sensations like pain. Stimuli from without is stuff like, an audience that you are about to perform for, or five black belt aikidoists who are poised to simultaneously attack you, or a cranky boss, or your computer crashing, or a kid that won’t stop crying, etc. Aren’t there more direct, fun, practical, and effective ways to work with how we react to stimuli from within and without besides endlessly getting someone in and out of a chair?

We all know that Alexander would not be crazy about how much we, as a community, spend our time working with students lying down on a table, but we are doing it anyway. Why is that? (2)

And we know that Alexander’s work is not about movement for movement’s sake yet, as a community, we have been quite focused on how we move. Once my mentor, Buzz Gummere, a man who trained with F.M and A.R., with Marj Barstow, and with Frank Pierce Jones, told me I had become a great movement teacher, and then he asked me a pointed question, which was his job as my mentor, “But Bruce, does that make you a great Alexander teacher?” That question haunted me for many years, which was Buzz’s intention I am sure. So why are we so preoccupied with how we move? (3)

Now, I am not saying all this is wrong. Things change, and thank God. And I have been alive long enough to know that I usually really need that which I most resist, so some really good table work and chair work is probably exactly what I need now. Really.

The fourth question. This one is the big one for me.

Sometimes I get Alexander teachers coming to me for lessons. That’s an honor. I notice that many of them move self-consciously. They sit down perfectly, in the prescribed manner, and something in me cringes. I tell them straight away that I never watch a person get in and out of a chair, so not to worry. Usually they look at me wide eyed, and then laugh out loud. I can’t always do it, but if I’m lucky I can sometimes get an Alexander teacher out of this trap. If I can get it across to them that our job is to free ourselves, and that it is our bodies job, via increasingly accurate, reliable, and refined kinesthesia, to figure out how to move itself around comfortably and enjoyably, and spontaneously, without over deliberation, then something shifts. I tell them it is not our job to choreograph our movement life down to a tee, no matter how precisely and perfectly we can do it. A three year old kid with a healthy, conventional nervous system, moves so well and so spontaneously and so unselfconsciously, and that’s why it’s such a joy to watch them.

So my last question is, how do we learn to move, and more importantly, live consciously but not self-consciously? How do we occupy ourselves without becoming preoccupied with ourselves? (4)

Thanks for taking the time to think about these questions with me.

Bruce

I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and
The north and the south are mine.
I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

Here’s the plan…

I lure teachers to New Mexico, to O’keeffe Country. I invite them to my home, to rest. I feed them. I show them around. I take them to Santa Fe, to Taos, to Ghost Ranch, to Christ In The Desert Monastery. I take them down the Rio Grande, to the Ojo Caliente Spa, out for some great New Mexican food.  I invite them to study with me if they have a wish to learn about the Alexander Technique and/or Tai Chi. In turn, I get to learn from them. A simple exchange. Knowledge for knowledge.

If you are a seasoned teacher in any of the disciplines listed below, then perhaps you’d like to do an exchange with me. I hope so. Here is my bio. (about Bruce Fertman.)  And here is a short post about Coyote, New Mexico. (about Coyote, New Mexico.)

Here’s what I want to study and learn about, not necessarily in order of priority:

1. Rolfing/Structural Integration

2. Functional Integration

3. Anatomy Trains/The Work of Thomas Myers

4. Ideokinesis

5. The Franklin Method

6. Bartenieff Fundamentals

7. BodyMind Centering

8. Bobath Concept/Therapy

9. Eutony

10. Kinomichi

11. Kyudo

12. Chanoyu/Uresenke

13. Watsu

We’ve not got much time. May through September. Five months. But once in Coyote, it’s feels like we’ve got all the time in the world. Write to me. bf@brucefertman.com.

I offer you my heart, and my hands…in exchange for yours.

Bruce

Note:  I am also on the lookout for a good videographer who would like to make an art video on Tai Chi, in exchange for studying with me in Coyote. I am also looking for a literary agent who can help me find a publisher for my book, Where This Path Begins – Renderings of the Tao Te Ching.

Photo: B. Fertman

There’s the man that, when he talks, nervously looks up and to the right, blinking rapidly. Why, I’ve no idea. I don’t bother to try and find out. I ask him to tell me what’s difficult about his job. He begins to speak. I tap his arm the instant he begins to look up, which he is doing about every 3 seconds. He can’t believe he looks up so much. Soon he’s sensing it every time. As soon as you notice your eyes up and to the right, stop everything, don’t move, don’t speak. Just ask yourself, “What would happen if I simply ceased looking up? He begins speaking. His eyes snap up and to the right. He stops. I can almost hear him asking the question. Immediately, on their own, his eyelids lower, his eyes begin to water, settling back in his eye sockets, while his entire body relaxes and he begins to breathe like a man just resuscitated. I continue asking him questions, and for the next two minutes, he looks at me and speaks without once looking up. Not once.

There’s the woman whose eyes are too big, too open. She was told, since she was a little girl that her eyes were beautiful. I ask her if she can remember a time before anyone told her that her eyes were big and beautiful. She thinks for a long time, a long time, and then says, no, I can’t. It is as if she was only born the moment people began to tell her how she looked.

There’s a mom stooped over her child in an effort to help balance and protect her son as he walks unaware that, when she stands fully upright, her hand rests beside her son’s head, and that her son’s arm is fully capable of lengthening freely and easily well above his head. That all her little son needs, and really wants, is to lightly hold her index finger. She takes my suggestion, stands up, offers her index finger, her son looks at it, takes it, and smiles.

There’s the man who’s uncomfortable stretching. He appears to be simultaneously stretching and keeping himself from stretching. I have him sense the difference between moving without producing a stretch and with producing a stretch. I ask him to go into a stretch, slowly, letting it begin as a movement, and to continue that movement for as long as he can without producing a stretch. I have him do this several times. I suggest he begin to make movements in other directions, to make other curving or spiraling movements through his whole body without creating a stretch. I silently walk behind him, placing my hands almost imperceptibly on his arms, just above his elbows, following his movements, all the while educing an effortless release through his whole body. His movements become beautiful, free instead of constricted. His range has noticeably increased. How do you feel, I ask? I feel loose and awake, he says. That’s what we’re after when we stretch isn’t it? Yes, he says, slightly bewildered.

There’s the singer singing, gasping for air at the end of each phrase, her chest dropping out from under her, her shoulders curling forward, her chin lifting up, the back of her skull pushing into the back of her neck. You can hear her sucking in the air. She begins to sense what she’s doing, begins to hear how she gasps. It’s a beginning.

There’s the business executive that says “eh” (our um), in between every sentence, who when he leaves “eh” out becomes crystal clear to understand, is filled with real confidence, thinks more clearly, and who immediately wakes up everyone in the room.

There’s the man who likes to hike whose has trouble putting on his backpack. He simply has not noticed that he could loosen one of his straps and then initiate a slight swing that allows the pack to almost slide onto his back by itself.

A 30 something woman is possessed by childish, cute-isms that she cannot stop. She’s thirty something, but moves as if she is a nervous 12 year-old. Knowing that I often use my hands when I teach, she’s warns me she’s acutely ticklish. I nod. I ask her to walk over to me. Immediately what I refer to as a “cute-ism” begins, quick cute expressions like tilting her head and smiling with one hand covering her mouth, turning her right foot in, innocently blinking her eyes. She walks over. I ask her to walk back to where she was. After first producing a few unconscious cute-isms, she does. Without being the least bit cute or nice, but not mean, I tell her precisely what she is doing. The truth. I tell her to decide, emphatically, to leave them out, entirely, and just walk over. The smile comes off her face. She stands there for about 10 seconds, and then walks over. For five minutes, I have her leaving out her cute-isms and walking to different parts of the room. Throughout the entire weekend she looked and conducted herself like a mature woman. By the end of the workshop she seemed to forget she was ticklish. She accepted my touch, just like everyone else. I said nothing about it. Nor did I say anything about the disappearance of her cute-isms. There was no need. She had done her work.

There’s the tai chi teacher whose tai chi form is already exquisite, and who gets even better when I suggest she not look down, that she first look in the direction where she is going, and then go there.

There’s the nurse who feels she has to bring her head and eyes close to her patient to show she cares when, in fact, it’s makes her patient uncomfortable. The nurse discovers that when she simply stands where she is, and looks at her patient while allowing her eyes to be above her upright spine, and speaks to her patient from there, instills real trust and safety, exactly what she wants to do.

There’s the toddler falling asleep on his mother’s lap. The child is leaning back upon the mother’s chest, his head fallen back, mouth open. The mother has her hands around the child’s belly. The mother’s shoulders are curled forward. There’s some tension in her hands. Her knees are pressing one against the other, firmly closed, her feet turned in, her heals held up off the ground.

Not to wake the child, I quietly pull a chair up directly behind the mother. I sit down, in tandem, with her. Softly placing my hands, one on either side of her neck, her neck tension releases, her head floats up atop her spine, and in rapid succession, her shoulders widen, her hands relax, appear larger, her thighs unbrace and rest on the chair, knees part, heals drop to the floor as her feet turn out ever so slightly.

At the same time, the baby’s mouth closes, and he too regains his head poise. I look around the room. Several people are crying. I’m not sure why. I lean around the mother so I can see how she’s doing. A ray of late afternoon light has entered through a window and is falling onto the mother’s face. She looks like a Madonna and Child.

My work is done for the day. I will go out, like so many working people do in Tokyo, with some friends, eat dinner, have a cold beer. I won’t be watching how people move or speak. I won’t be thinking about how they could do this or that more easily. I’ll be sitting back, fading into the woodwork, happy not to be the center of attention. There’s nothing for me to do now but love people, exactly the way they are.

Photo: B. Fertman

Unafraid, unashamed, unaffected.

Unassuming, unarmed, unanalyzable.

Unbound, unblocked, unbraced.

Unburdened, unbridled, unbiased.

Unchained, unclogged, uncorked.

Unclassified, unconventional, unconditional.

Uncovered, unclenched,

Uncertain.

Undisguised, undistinguished, undone.

Unguarded, unhurried, unhinged.

Unmasked, unraveled, unreal.

Unpretentious.

Unselfish, unsophisticated, unspoiled.

Untied, untangled.

Unveiled.

Unwritten.

Marj and Bruce

I will never write an autobiography.

But if I did I would entitle it,

Leaving Myself In Your Hands

Marj Barstow lives inside of my hands, inside of my heart.

Everyday.

Alexander Technique teachers could learn a lot from these physical therapists. They’re unafraid to get physical, unafraid to touch, unafraid to use their whole bodies to do their work. They don’t hold back. It looks like love to me. Yano-sensei, Kenji-sensei, Sakiko-sensei, Yoko-sensei, Anchan-sensei, Shiho-sensei, Araki-sensei, Yoshiko-sensei, Doumo arigatou gosaimashita.

Photo: Tada Anchan Akihiro

There’s a time to seek and a time to sense.

Have you ever started looking for your glasses and then suddenly discover they are resting on your nose?  Or have you ever began looking for your hat and then realize it’s sitting on top of your head? That’s what I mean.

There I am on my knees, doing my best to get the tip of my screwdriver into the groove of a tiny screw. I’m cranking my neck into some ungodly position, trying unsuccessfully to get my head in a place where I can see that screw, which is there, somewhere, in some dark, dusty corner, inside some small kitchen cabinet. My friend, an experienced carpenter and Alexander teacher says, “Bruce, what would happen if you stopped trying to see that screw?” Immediately my entire body unwinds like a snake uncoiling, the head of the screwdriver drops into its groove, and the screwdriver begins turning, as if by itself.

A woman, now living with and taking care of her aging mom, is trying to figure out how to get the lid of her mom’s pressure cooker to snap into place. It’s not happening. She tries harder, which means dropping her head down closer to the pressure cooker in an attempt to peer under and around the lid’s rim. She hasn’t breathed for about a minute, which is why, when she stops trying, I hear a huge inhale, and then a huge exhale accompanied by an exasperated collapse of her chest. Okay Renate, how about we let go of that pressure cooker, because the only pressure I can see cooking is in you and not in that pot.” Let me ask you, are you having any success seeing what you are looking for? No, I am not, she says, with a big smile on her face, a sign of recognition and understanding.

Thinking of my dear carpenter, Alexander friend, Rob Gepner-Muller, I say, Renate, back away from the stove and get a bit of distance between you and the pressure cooker. That’s good. Now, just stand where you are. I go over to her and gently help reestablish an easy but strong internal alignment, engage some core support, a bit of ground connection, encourage breathing.  Okay, Renate, we know that looking for what you cannot see doesn’t work, so go over and give it another go. Renate walks over, her left hand holding the handle of the pot, her right hand the handle of the lid and begins trying to see what’s under the lid. I sneak up on her, silently place one of my hands on the back of her head, and the other over her hands so that she won’t try to straighten up and correct herself when I ask her to stay exactly where she is. Again, another big smile. I’m looking for what I can’t see, Renate says. Renate,  give up seeing. Close your eyes. Be blind. Her eyelids lower, her shoulders drop and spread, air fills her lungs, the lid drops and snaps into place, her hands turn, she opens her eyes, which are now sparkling, and lets out a big laugh. Everyone is amazed. Me too.

Two speech therapists are working together. They want me to watch a particular technique that’s difficult for them. I watch as this sensitive young man palpates somewhere under his patients chin, for what I am not sure. I decide not to ask for the details. I don’t want to get too involved, which of course I really want to do, because I want to learn about everything. But I know from experience that it is often better for me to stay out of my student’s business, out of the content, and simply watch as a naive observer. Wise innocence. I see him peeking under his patient’s chin, looking for something. Then he takes a tissue and gently holds the extended tip of his patient’s tongue, in what I am guessing is an attempt to get the tongue to relax and widen. Now, he’s craning his neck to look down her throat.

Hiroki-san, I don’t know what you are trying to do, and I don’t know what you are trying to see. But what I do know is that you are trying real hard to see something. And my experience tells me that sometimes if we stop trying to see something that may be too hard for us to see, our other senses will take on the job that the eyes just can’t do. Other senses step up and figure it out. So see what happens if you gently lower your eyelids the way you do when you smell a flower you are holding under your nose, and just continue to do your work.

Immediately, his head poise establishes itself. A beautiful sense of space surrounds him. He’s looking like a great orchestra conductor. I don’t know why. His fingers look like they are doing the seeing now. His tactile sense has taken over.

What’s happening, I ask? Do desuka, one of my favorite questions. I’m getting what I want, he says. Great. Sugoi, I say. And how about you, I say to the patient? The patient, actually another speech therapist, says that his touch changed completely, that at first it was pokey and a little uncomfortable for her, and that now his fingers are so soft she doesn’t feel them. All I feel is what is happening inside my neck, inside my own body, she says.

Rob, thank you for everything, but also for knowing the right questions to ask, and for giving me the space to live into the answers.

Take habits. Little habits, like cracking one’s knuckles, or burping, or sighing, or saying um in between sentences. Or bigger habits, like getting angry, or gossiping.

What would happen if we didn’t suppress the urge to do something, and we didn’t relieve the urge by doing it? What would happen if we just sat there in that, at times, uncomfortable, claustrophobic feeling, (which won’t kill us), and did nothing? What if we waited without waiting, and just settled and spread into our existence?

To suppress takes energy, and to act out takes energy – from us. What would happen if we simply didn’t use that energy? What would happen if we felt that energy, experienced it as energy, and left it alone?

I wonder…

What’s in between not this and not that?

Note: A kinesthetic koan is a question that cannot be answered verbally, only kinesthetically. On a deeper level a kinesthetic koan is not a question that has an answer, but a problem that has a solution, a resolution.

Celia Jurdant-Davis tells me a few openings remain for our Summer Retreat. It fills up quickly. Whether you are a beginner to the Alexander Technique, have studied for years, are training to become a teacher, or are a teacher, everyone is welcome. Midori Shinkai, director of the Alexander Alliance Japan and I will be teaching, along with many talented supporting teachers. Here’s a video by an award winning videographer, Renea Roberts, on the Alexander Alliance Germany and our Summer Event. It’s beautiful. Please join us.

Contact Célia Jurdant-Davis at
CeliaJDavis@AlexanderAlliance.de  Better yet, call Celia and talk to her and ask her any questions you might have. Phone: 0221-940 48 52, Mobil: 0176-41336066. 

Photo: B. Fertman

It is not that we should abandon, neglect or deny our inner self, but we should learn to work precisely in it, with it, and from it, in such a way that interiority turns into effective action, and effective action leads back to interiority, and we become used to acting without compulsion.

Start with yourself therefore, and take leave of yourself. Examine yourself, and wherever you find yourself, take leave of yourself. This is the best way of all.

Meister Eckhart/from Selected Writings/Oliver Davies

Below, in the subway, sitting on a blue blanket, her hair hangs, golden, straight, long, down her back. Beside her lay a black lab, chin resting on his crisscrossed paws. A guitar in her lap, she’s singing a song I don’t know. Albums and tapes sit next to a small basket filled mostly with coins and a few one-dollar bills.

Her song ends. The dog sits up. Putting a dollar in her basket, though at the time I was living on a meager, self allotted $25 a week allowance, I ask her who wrote that song. She says she did. She asks me what I did. I dance with a modern dance company, study Tai Chi, and I’m beginning to teach something called the Alexander Technique.

I’ve heard of the Alexander Technique. I’d love to study. My voice gets tired after about an hour, my back too. I ask her where she lives. In Germantown. Me too. I’d be happy to give you a lesson in exchange for one of your albums. That’s a deal she says, handing me an album and a tape.

Ellen rings the doorbell right on time. Up the steps and straight back through the kitchen, I say. Up the steps and straight back through the kitchen she says to her dog. Her dog leads the way, Ellen follows and I follow Ellen. Watching her walk up the steps I see she’s exceptionally upright, but quite stiff throughout her entire body. (I later find out that her stiffness came, in part, from years spent walking with a stick and bumping into side mirrors of big trucks, and such, things now that her dog sees well ahead of time and avoids.)

After a brief introduction as to what Alexander’s work is about, I suggest we begin simply with her sitting back in a chair. I encourage her to slowly and softly sink into a comfortable slump. Ellen I say, slumping and uprightness are not two different positions, one wrong and one right. Together they make up a range of motion, and emotion, a continuum upon which you can learn to slide up and down easily and comfortably. We spend a good bit of time on this until her rigidity, which feels like fear under my hands, is gone.

Ellen, I say, for purely selfish reasons, sing me a song. Smiling, her smile large and expressive, she says, I won’t be needing my guitar for this one…

I see trees of green, red roses too.  I see them bloom,  for me and you.  And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. 

I see skies of blue, and clouds of white. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.  And I think to myself, What a wonderful world. 

The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky, are also on the faces of people going by, 

I see friends shaking hands, saying, “How do you do?” They’re really saying, “I love you”. 

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow. They’ll learn much more, than I’ll ever know. And I think to myself, What a wonderful world. 

She finishes. I ask her how that felt. More comfortable she says.  I could hear how my voice sounding smoother, less raspy. I could see everything more clearly. Later I learn Ellen inherited retinitis pigmentosa, and could see well until she was six years old, when her sight began to fail. By the time she was twelve she was legally blind, as opposed to illegally blind, she used to say.

Ellen, how do you feel, not in your body, but as a person,  just as a person inside yourself?  I feel less guarded, like there was a wall around me, and now there isn’t. I didn’t know it was there. Yeah, less alone; I feel less alone. Great. That’s it for today. Call me if you want to continue.

The next day she calls. Bruce, after the lesson I went to the park and sat on a park bench, where I often sit, and play. I sat down and I didn’t feel like playing, so I didn’t. It was enough just to sit in the warm daylight and feel myself in the world without my “wall.” A man came over, asked if he could sit down on the bench next to me. First time that ever happened! You know, I sing as a way of reaching out to people. And here I was, reaching out to nobody, and somebody walks right up and sits down next to me. We talked a lot, and for a long time, about real things. It was so effortless.

Bruce, I’d like to study more. Sure, just pay me what you can afford. I’m a new teacher. I need the practice.

Ellen and I worked together for two years. At some point she wanted to learn Tai Chi, said she couldn’t figure out how to study it because she couldn’t see it. She heard that it was beautiful and she liked the philosophy behind it. Sounds like Alexander Technique in motion. That’s how it feels to me, and yes, I’d be happy to teach you Tai Chi.

Through touch and language I led her through every little movement, over and over again. Her movement memory was great. Ellen loved my touch. You know, people want to help me all the time. Well meaning, they grab my arm and pull me with one hand, while pushing me with the other. They squeeze me, jerk me, and push me down to stop me. But you do almost nothing. Your touch is so soft and I know exactly what you want me to do and where you want me to go,  and then I just go there by myself.  I have good teachers, I said.

Guiding her with my hands, I would do the form closely behind her, like some benevolent shadow. Though I was behind her, she followed me. I followed her following me.

Balance was not an issue for Ellen. She had plenty of practice balancing without seeing. She knew where the ground was through her feet. Her vestibular balance must have been good. It looked like her hearing helped her balance as well. She seemed to know the precise angle from which a sound was coming.

Most challenging was getting Ellen’s form spatially accurate. I began by getting her to imagine herself inside of a large cube. I got her to sense front, and back, and sides, the front diagonals, and the back diagonals, that is, all the corners of the cube, and of course the top and the bottom. Once the cube was firmly in place, we began trimming off the edges of the cube until, there she was, moving clearly and calmly within an invisible sphere.

Ellen came to know, kinesthetically, exactly how far, exactly how many degrees, for example, her hip joints had to rotate in their sockets for about a hundred little movements in the Tai Chi form. She applied this same sensitivity to her ankles and knees, to her wrists, elbows and shoulders, to her spine and head. Each joint became a compass.

I taught Ellen how to see kinesthetically. Ellen taught me how to live like a blind man, who just happened to be able to see.

The more the senses open to the world, the more the world opens to us. And the walls they come a tumbling down.

I inhale great draughts of space,
The east and the west are mine, and
The north and the south are mine.
I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.

Here’s the plan…

I lure teachers to New Mexico, to O’keeffe Country. I invite them to my home, to rest. I feed them. I show them around. I take them to Santa Fe, to Taos, to Ghost Ranch, to Christ In The Desert Monastery. I take them down the Rio Grande, to the Ojo Caliente Spa, out for some great New Mexican food.  I invite them to study with me if they have a wish to learn about the Alexander Technique and/or Tai Chi. In turn, I get to learn from them. A simple exchange. Knowledge for knowledge.

If you are a seasoned teacher in any of the disciplines listed below, then perhaps you’d like to do an exchange with me. I hope so. Here is my bio. (about Bruce Fertman.)  And here is a short post about Coyote, New Mexico. (about Coyote, New Mexico.)

Here’s what I want to study and learn about, not necessarily in order of priority:

1. Rolfing/Structural Integration

2. Functional Integration

3. Anatomy Trains/The Work of Thomas Myers

4. Ideokinesis

5. The Franklin Method

6. Bartenieff Fundamentals

7. BodyMind Centering

8. Bobath Concept/Therapy

9. Eutony

10. Kinomichi

11. Kyudo

12. Chanoyu/Uresenke

13. Watsu

We’ve not got much time. May through September. Five months. But once in Coyote, it’s feels like we’ve got all the time in the world. Write to me. bf@brucefertman.com.

I offer you my heart, and my hands…in exchange for yours.

Bruce

Note:  I am also on the lookout for a good videographer who would like to make an art video on Tai Chi, in exchange for studying with me in Coyote. I am also looking for a literary agent who can help me find a publisher for my book, Where This Path Begins – Renderings of the Tao Te Ching.

July 11-14 with Bruce Fertman, Coyote Home School

August 22-25 with Bruce Fertman, Coyote Home School

September 5-8 with Bruce Fertman, Coyote Home School

September 16 a day with Michael Mazur, Robyn Avalon, and Bruce Fertman in Santa Fe, NM.

September 19-22 with Bruce Fertman, Coyote Home School

Retreat participants limited to 4 students. (Day with Michael, Robyn, and Bruce. All welcome. $100.)

Tuition for your first Coyote Home School Weekend Retreat: $750, includes room and board.

Tuition for Coyote Home School Weekend Retreats thereafter: $600, includes room and board.

Something new is evolving here at the Coyote Home School. I am not sure what we have here. It’s some combination of a school, a refuge, a resort, a sanctuary, a community center, a spa, and a home.  Whatever this place is, people leave here rested, refreshed, restored – physically and spiritually. 

To register simply call me at 575.638.5005 anytime.

Or write to me at bf@brucefertman.com

To learn more about Michael Mazur - http://peacefulbodyschool.com/2014/01/02/masters-of-gravity-kan-sensei-and-michael-sensei/

Photo: B. Fertman

Not many folks like the wind out here. Yes, there are times, in the late afternoon, when the breeze, like waves, comes rolling in from the west, trees swaying, branches bending, and you can hear the ocean in the wind, the way when, as a child, you held a conch to your ear and heard the ocean winds whistling, wondering how that could be.

Then, without notice, the wind builds, picking up dust and dirt, traveling like some brown caped ghost, it envelops you, takes you, knocks your hat off, throws sand into your eyes, pushes you from behind, hard, not letting up, for hours.

Why I don’t mind the wind, no matter how relentless, I don’t know. It’s the world breathing, beckoning. It’s like God’s hand, stroking, nudging, pushing me forward. It’s God’s wordless whisper, “Bruce, wake up, wake up, wake up.”

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.  – John 3:8

That’s okay with me. Hearing the wind is enough. Feeling the wind against my face is enough. My job’s not to know, but to be known.

The Alexander Technique, The Peaceful Body, The Walking Way, Tai Chi

Japan, Germany, USA

PERSONAL WELL-BEING
We want a body that can move comfortably through the years. We want a body that can work well, and has some energy left over for play. We want to feel good in our own skin. We want to be stable and mobile, still and moving, open and focused. We want to be relaxed and ready, gathered and expansive, soft and powerful. We want to be light and substantial, spontaneous and deliberate, committed and free. We want to be able to proceed, to live, work, and love generously and freely.

Students seeking personal well-being have experienced such diverse benefits as comfort and ease of motion, clarity of thought, deeper sleep, heightened sensory awareness, improved posture, reduced anxiety, less compulsive eating, hand, wrist, neck, and back relief at the computer, greater love and respect toward their bodies, healthier sense of self.

PROFESSIONAL COMPETENCE
What does it mean to be competent at our work? It means being able to begin when it’s time to begin, being able to work for a reasonable and productive length of time, and being able to stop when it is time to stop. It means knowing how to work without hurting ourselves. It means knowing how to manage pressure and stress, knowing how not to hurry, not to rush. Pace, peace and productivity are not mutually exclusive.

Competency, for most of us, entails being able to speak so that we are understood. It requires being able to listen non-defensively. It means learning how to welcome criticism, and that means being in control of your reactions and responses. It means being fully present with a student, client, or customer. These are, to a large degree, physical skills.

Competency means finally making the transition from working hard to working well. With an embodied, operational understanding of the principles that govern human coordination, comfort and competency become one and the same.

PEAK PERFORMANCE FOR PERFORMING ARTISTS AND ATHLETES
We know trying hard does not work. That’s because when we try hard we are engaging the very habits that block us from “entrance into the zone.” Peak performance is a matter of unlearning, of disengaging restrictive habits, of unplugging them. It’s not doing more that gets us there; it’s doing less.

And it is thinking less. Peak performance is the immediate, accurate, and inclusive perception of reality, received through a harmonious use of the senses, free from the intervention of language, thought, or analysis.

It’s a state of non-anticipation. It’s when we are preparing for nothing in particular, but ready for anything that may happen. Complete openness.

For most of us entering this zone, where everything seems to happen by itself, is elusive. But it is possible to learn how to shift into that realm of grace more easily and more often.

There is another world, but it is in this one.

William Butler Yeats

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