Walking Way Gatherings 2027
With Bruce Fertman
September 15–18
October 15–24
Pricing:
September – 4 days: $2,500
October – 9 days: $4,250
Includes everything: room and board, 3 meals every day, and transportation to and from the airport and to the daily excursions.
There are a limited number of spots available, please email me to reserve your place and ask any questions.
Message from Bruce
My Gatherings are for people who want to experience my work for themselves, and for those who wish to learn how to teach it.
If you are new to my work, you may want to study with me in September. This Gathering will be geared toward beginners.
If you are a somatic educator or therapist, you may want to study with me in October. I’ll have more time to teach you how I teach through touch, and we’ll have time to practice together.
That said, if you are a teacher and can only join me in September, please come. Many teachers have told me that they learned the most from watching me teach beginners.
Likewise, if you are a beginner who wants to study for a longer time and is curious about teaching, you are welcome to apply for the October Gathering.
What we will learn together:
I’ll be teaching hands-on work, as described in my book, Teaching by Hand / Learning by Heart. If you want to experience this way of working, or if you would like to learn how to teach this way, I can help you.
I’ll also be teaching the highlights of my Grace of Sense material. From 2020 to 2026, I entered what I think of as my Grace of Sense period. During those years, I began teaching what felt like my own work. It was one of the most creative and clearest periods of my life as a teacher. Much of this work is playful and fun.
And I’ll be teaching The Walking Way—how to teach the material in my book, Walking Well, along with additional advanced material that isn’t in the book. We’ll go on walks together every day, each day exploring a different beautiful and sacred sites.
These are the three stages of my work, developed over 50 years of helping people move comfortably and well through their lives.
These Gatherings are the only way to study with me now: under my hands, through touch.
Our Days Together
Overview
Fresh Mornings
Our days begin with a fresh, healthy, delicious breakfast. We spend the morning in class attuning our bodies, opening our senses, restoring harmony and balance within ourselves. With Bruce and his co-teachers on hand, everyone receives a lot of individual attention. Bruce has been using his hands to help people move well for 63 years. He loves teaching and he loves people. We finish morning classes feeling calm and alert, stable and mobile, free and flexible, ready for the day that awaits.
Timeless Days
Soon, it’s time for lunch, more fresh, healthy, delicious food, much of it home grown. Eating together at a beautifully set table, beautiful music playing, good conversation. Then, it’s siesta time. We’re in New Mexico! We do not live by the clock but by the sun and the moon and the stars. Our bodies tell us what time it is. While you are here, we live on biological and cyclical time.
Sacred Sites
Refreshed, awake, we take to the open road, travel to sacred sites, ones where there are rarely other humans, though on occasion we do spot big horned sheep, mule deer, or mountain blue birds. We don’t hike; we walk, we wander, sometimes together, sometimes alone, often until the the sun begins to set into sometimes pink, sometimes golden cloudscapes.
Home
Home to a warm fireplace, candlelight and to, yes, food more delicious and beautiful than you can find at most any restaurant. Sitting together at a communal table, relaxed, in good company, safe and warm, the hours sail by and finally it’s time for bed.
One Day Off
In the middle of the October gathering, we take a day off. Some of us head to Santa Fe to see all the lively artwork. Some of us head to the Ojo Caliente Mineral Spa and soak for the day. It’s a tough choice. We all meet up in the evening for a dinner out at the Abiquiu Inn. Great fun.
Nourishment
Accommodations & Food
The Guest House
Accommodations
We invite you into our homes and into our lives. We invite you into our world, a world made of sun and wind, red cliffs and blue skies, of white clouds, deep, dark nights, the Milky Way, and shooting stars. A world of immense vastness and beauty.
We have two adobe houses, 4 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. Everyone shares a bedroom. Depending on the number of people we have, sometimes single rooms are available. The bedrooms are simple and comfortable. Pine floors, naturally plastered walls, viga ceilings, all natural to Southwestern adobe houses. The teaching room is large yet cozy.
Outside, there is a walking path leading to the Oak Grove, our outdoor classroom and meditation space and to the Cottonwood Vista, a place in October where we sit watching and listening to the golden cottonwoods swaying and rustling as late afternoon breezes roll in from the west.
The Patroness of
Food and Delight
Food
Honestly, I cannot say enough about Natachee and her food. For me, Natachee is a Culinary Saint, the Patroness of Food and Delight. Natachee’s food is not only delicious, but beautifully served, by her. I feel like I must dress up a bit before I sit down to eat Natachee’s food. Eating her food is more than a meal; it feels like an event. An experience. Without deciding to, I find myself eating more slowly. My taste buds want to savor each bite. And, strangely, I eat all her desserts, and there are many, and I lose weight! Why is that? How can that be? After a day of wandering in places of extraordinary beauty, we always come home to Natachee and her food. To a candle lit room, music to match the atmosphere- a tender symphony of the senses- to a place where we relax and reminiscence about yet another magical day.
Student Voices
Testimonials
I feel inspired. I have recovered my trust in and enthusiasm for my work and for myself. I feel like I can come up and into my true self with confidence. I am back on the path toward the sustainable life I want to live. The Walking Way, this experience, has been transformational.
In Bruce’s class you feel as if you are sitting by a deep, soft lake. His pace and patience, his quiet confidence, allows people to unfold and open layer by layer. The superfluous falls away, leaving only life’s inner vitality effortlessly expressing itself through you.
Bruce’s touch is like a butterfly settling down on the very turning point of your soul. And then you know, ‘That’s who I am, that is who I could be.
Bruce is above all, gentle. I am struck by his humility as a man. He finds a way into the depths of your unknown through the wide open doors of your senses. He brings a gift of time and space and that ‘little bit of nothing’ which can make the whole noisy chaos of a person dissolve instantaneously.
The Walking Way Package
Details & Pricing
Study
We study together in class for three to three and a half hours every morning, indoors or down in the oak grove. But learning and unlearning goes on from morning to night. A kind of ‘shedding’ happens, gradually, a leaving of an old way of being in the world behind for a better way of being in the world, a way that grants us more time, more space, more breath, more comfort, more energy.
Daily Excursions to Sacred Sites
Bruce leads nine guided walks to places of great beauty and power: Each place has its own voice, speaks to us in its own way. The Desert, The Lake, The Gorge, The Rock, The White Place, The Pools, The Grove, the River, and the Mesa.
Airport Pickup & Drop Off
Coyote is two and a half hours from the Albuquerque airport and an hour and a half from the Santa Fe airport. We will pick you up and drive you to the guest house, and at the end of the gathering we will take you back to the airport. There is no need to rent a car. Before reserving flights, please write to us so we can discuss the best arrival and departure times.
Food and Lodging
Tuition includes all meals at the guest house. Almost everything Natachee serves is homemade, including breads and desserts, and she does her best to accommodate food restrictions. Please write to us about them when applying. For long excursions, Natachee packs fun picnic food. For the October gathering, we do go out twice, once for lunch and once for dinner, and everyone pays for themselves. Tuition also includes a shared room. Private accommodations are possible off campus. We can help you with this.
Cost
The cost for the four-day Walking Way Gathering is $2,500.
The cost for the nine-day Walking Way Gathering is $4,250.
Who We Are
The Team
Bruce Fertman
Bruce brings 60 years of study as a movement artist and educator to his work having trained in gymnastics, modern dance, ballet, contact improvisation, the Alexander Technique, Tai Chi Chu’an, Aikido, Chanoyu, (Japanese Tea Ceremony), Argentine Tango, and Kyudo (Zen Archery). He founded the Alexander Alliance in 1982, Grace of Sense in 2019, (his online community-school), and in 2022, he founded the Walking Way School. He’s written Teaching by Hand/Learning by Heart: Delving into the Work of F.M. Alexander, The Way In ~ The Way Out: Renderings of the Tao Te Ching, and Walking Well with Michael Gelb. Bruce’s lifework revolves around experiencing the intimate relationship between physical and spiritual grace.
Ruth Davis
Ruth has been exploring the work of FM Alexander since her early twenties. She is committed to an overarching approach which fosters an easy understanding of Alexander’s fundamental ideas. A keen student of the piano and the somatic arts, Ruth has studied Movement Intelligence with Ruthy Alon, the Feldenkrais Method, Yoga, Qi Gong and Tai Chi. Ruth works with individuals and therapists as well as office, retail, and manufacturing staff in corporate environments both in the UK and internationally. Ruth’s fundamental inquiry is how to live a consciously embodied life, with all that it entails. She has found ‘The Walking Way’ expresses a clear path leading people in that direction.
Natachee Momaday Gray
Natachee Momaday Gray is a New Mexican indigenous artist and storyteller. A poet, performer, chanteuse, cook, and new mother. The sensory undercurrent of her work melds art and myth, ancestry and nostalgia, food and prayer, glamour, frivolity and time. She comes from a long lineage of artists and honors this tradition by living it everyday. She holds numerous writing awards, and was met with ovation and recognition upon the release of her debut poetry collection, Silver Box. On the horizon is a diary of motherhood, a cookbook, an album and a string of exciting collaborations… She spends many hours writing and creating in her beautiful dream kitchen in Coyote, NM, where she lives with her family.
Carlos Osorio
Carlos divides his time living in New York City and Santiago. He is an actor and theater director, having studied and performed in Paris, New York City, Strasbourg, and Santiago. Carlos began his career in the Alexander Technique in 1992, training at the Matthews School for the Alexander Technique with Anne and Troup Matthews. Having taught in North America, Peru, Argentina, and Chile, Carlos now offers private lessons and group workshops in New York City and Santiago. Carlos has been apprenticing with Bruce Fertman since 2020 and serves as the Administrative Director for Grace of Sense, the Walking Way School, and Walking Well. He is known and loved for his indomitable spirit, abundant energy, and selfless generosity.
Kyle Perkins
Kyle Perkins is a New Mexico based woodworker, craftsman, musician, gardener, landscaper and father. Having spent years on the road, he picked up many diverse and useful trades. Using primarily hand tools, Kyle specializes in age old Asian style joinery and tension-based works that stand the test of time. A self taught artist, he balances the nuance between aesthetics and functionality. He understands the cognizance of trees and how their movement echoes the sway and ripples of the sacred New Mexico landscape. He honors and gives thanks to the land for the materials he utilizes. His creativity, ingenuity, and vision run parallel to his loyalty to tradition and his devoted work ethic.
Christopher Neville
Christopher Neville is the co-founder and director of Two Flame Tango, a somatically oriented tango school based in Salt Lake City, Utah. Since its inception in 2019, Two Flame Tango has become a hub for those seeking to explore tango as both an art form and a medium for personal growth. In addition, Christopher is a fine artist, entrepreneur, and publisher. He trained as an Alexander Technique teacher under Luc Vanier and Cathy Pollock becoming certified in 2020. He credits Marjean McKenna for introducing him to Alexander’s work and he produced her book, Your Natural Up, published in 2017. Currently, Christopher is producing a book with John Appleton, the creator of Posture Release Imagery (PRI).
How to Apply
Please write to Bruce telling him why you wish to join a Walking Way Gathering. Include some background about yourself. We suggest registering early to ensure a place in the gathering. If you have any questions, write to Bruce at bruce@brucefertman.com. He will get back to you promptly.
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