A Grace of Sense Part I Where Our Inner World and Outer World Meet with Bruce Fertman The seat of the soul exists where the inner world and the outer world meet. Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap. Novalis However, if the seat of our soul,...
KOREA
My kids are Korean. When they were babies, I stared into their eyes and gazed at their faces as they stared into my eyes and gazed at my face. So, I feel I look like them, and they feel they look like me. When I first landed in Korea to teach, some 20 years ago, I...
A Free Class – Walking as a Way of Life
I am inviting you to attend for free my Walking as a Way of Life class on September 29th. I will teach you practical ways of thinking that will create a positive shift in how you walk. I will approach walking from multiple perspectives: physically, mentally,...
~ ~THE WALKING WAY ~~
WALKING AS A WAY OF LIFE The First Annual Northern New Mexico Summer Gatherings in the Walking Way 2024 June 14-22 Aug 23-August 31 Sept 20-28 Oct 18-26 Schedule Here’s the plan. Classes will begin on the morning of the first day. The day before, we will pick...
What Makes Me a “Physiologian”?
My work never has and still does not fit into any of the conventional fields of study one finds in higher education. I don't feel like a physical education teacher, nor a psychologist, nor a philosopher, nor a theologian. I feel like I am either all of these or none...
Under the Pale Half Moon
At sunrise, no matter how cold, I put on my robe and head out to my little hot tub and sit. These days my sitting meditation entails internalizing, kinesthetically and physically, characteristics of certan animals. First, I internalize the largeness and roundness and...
The Tearoom is Everywhere
In memory of Brother Joe Keenan who taught me how to fold a fukusa. A man in my neighborhood, who knew I taught bi-annually in Japan, invited me to be his guest. He told me he was studying Chanoyu, Japanese Tea Ceremony, at LaSalle University. I had seen this in...
On a Trail of Beauty, Lively, May I Walk
On a Trail of Beauty Look into the photo above these words and in the distance you will see a road. For hours I walked, everyday, for one week, upon that road. I saw no one. Not a soul. This road leads to the Valley of the Gods inside Navajo Country. Now, I am not...
Good to Know
Often, I have told my students that we can change the body more through the heart than we can through the mind. But only now am I attempting to work out a methodology for profoundly changing the body through the workings of the heart. In Grace of Sense Continues to...
Life Line
A philosophy professor at Hampshire College studied with me each year for several years. That was 35 years ago. Annually, I was invited to Hamphire College to teach the Alexander Technique for the Five College Dance Department. One day after class, she came up to me...
Rushing Waters
It seems logical to assume that time moves from the past into the present and then forward into the future. But what if it is not time but we who move from the past to the present and then into the future. Perhaps time itself does not move in the same way we do. I see...
What Grace of Sense is Really About
When Covid struck, I decided to travel inwards. I wrote two books, as yet unpublished. One is entitled, In Good Company - The End of Living Alone, the other, Robes of the Desert - What It Means to Live a Non-Egocentric Life. Not knowing if anyone would resonate with...
Resonance
Hartmut Rosa is a sociologist and author of a very big and good book entitled, Resonance. He also wrote a book entitled, Acceleration. Acceleration he sees as one of the major problems of our time, and Resonance he sees as the solution. The more I read Rosa,...
Love Runs Downstream – Passing on The Alexander Alliance to the Next Generation
It’s been an exhilarating three weeks! During this time, I taught in person and, for the first time in 3 years, I again used my hands to teach. I also graduated from my school. I was in the 40 year program. Most everyone graduates in 4 years. I was my slowest student...
Glimpse into Inlets to the Soul with Bruce Fertman
Clive Salzer did a beautiful job making a trailer for my free live online class entitled, Inlets to the Soul. It really captures my way as a teacher and in 10 minutes gives you something simple and profound to practice. Please share this link with your friends and...
What was it like taking “Inlets to the Soul” with Bruce Fertman?
Saturday, April 23rd, 13:00 Berlin Time Sunday, April 24th, 8pm NYC Time Register: www.graceofsense.com/inlets-to-the-soul/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA_OmYB47x4
The Narrow Road
Here in Japan, the cherry blossoms appear, and with their arrival it is impossible not to think about the transience of one's own life. Now that I am old, I find myself turning to "old age art", art composed by people as they neared their end, Matisse's strong, joyful...
How Mr. Rogers Taught Us to Meet Life’s Challenges
A fellow AT teacher and I were wondering together about the overlap between teaching and healing. Clearly, we were teachers, educators, but might we also be healers? And, if we were healers, was not harboring that idea forbidden within our profession? “I’m going to...
What’s Love Got to Do with It
Existence is co-existence, so writes Abraham Heschel. Hermits living in caves do so in relation to others who don’t. It is their way of socially participating. All of us live with people, and if not around us, certainly within us. We think about people. We dream about...
The Tonal Body
The Tonal Body This is a broad category, a necessarily ill-defined category, yet a vitally important one. It somehow includes all the other ways of seeing. It is as if up until now we have been seeing people in prose, and now it is as if we are going to be seeing...
Writ in Water
Writ in Water In delivering the Lekha Sutta, Buddha said it like this. If we are like rock and something cuts into us, it will leave its mark, perhaps for generations to come. If we become like sand and something cuts into us, it will leave its mark, but soon that...
About Bruce Fertman
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....
The Tale of Three Tails – Part I
THE TALE OF THE THREE TAILS The Relational Body Nothing exists in isolation, at least not from what I can see when I look around me. Look around. Isn’t everything in relation to something else? Aren’t the stars in relation, one to the other? Isn’t that how we figure...
The Thread
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among There’s a thread you follow. It goes among things that change. But it doesn’t change. People wonder about what you are pursuing. You have to explain to them about the thread. But it is hard for others to see. While you hold...
Questions? I am Always Here!
I am always here. As a teacher, it helps me very much to learn something about you, about your life, your aspirations, your issues, your longings, what you really want to learn, what you really want to change. I do my best to be available for my students. I encourage...
Why It Is Good to Receive Our Newsletter
For the past 40 years, I have been part of a loving community-school called the Alexander Alliance. Finding your field of study and finding your teachers are critical. But having a supportive community-school in which to grow is also critical. It is hard going it...
The Sensuous and the Sacred
One day years ago, wondering around Rome I happened upon a small church. There she lay. Immediately, though knowing nothing about her, I felt I knew her. I gazed at her, I do not know for how long. Suddenly, I remembered I had my camera. I began to photograph her from...
Teaching by Hand/Learning by Heart by Bruce Fertman – Now A Kindle Book – $9.00
Announcing Teaching by Hand/Learning by Heart by Bruce Fertman Now available as a Kindle eBook $9.00 ...
What Students Have to Say about Grace of Sense
Student Voices A Composite of Impressions by students who partook in A Grace of Sense – Part I "Bruce’s honest, affectionate regard for his students promotes learning. He has a deep trust in people. He gives us the tools, the space, and then encourages us to explore...
Deep
Photo: B. Fertman There are two kinds of people. Foxes and Hedgehogs. Foxes dig lots of shallow holes, spreading out all over the place.Their coats are silky, shiny, and colorful. They’re debonair.They’re sly. They’re quick. They’re here, there, and everywhere....
Turning the World Inside Out
“I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.” John Muir One day, I too came to this same realization. Because of where I live in New Mexico, the world around me is hard not to notice. In...
Flying in Formation
To My Dear Trainees, Faculty, Grads, and Post Grads, My childhood friend, Miles Orchinik, now a professor of neurophysiology once told me that, for animals, it appears fear has a real and positive function, whereas anxiety, something apparently unique to humans, does...
The Top Ten Myths About the Alexander Technique – In 20 Languages
The Top Ten Myths about the Alexander Technique You are likely to find your native language. ENGLISH BRUCE FERTMAN * SPANISH VERO CABRAL * PORTUGUESE LIGIA CATARINA TEIXERIA * ITALIAN DANIELA SANGIORGIO * FRENCH CORINNE CASSINI * FINNISH RIIKKA ALAKARPPA * SWEDISH...
Some of Us
Alexander’s work is like a multi-faceted diamond. Some of us become fascinated with the body, how it works, some of us specifically with how it moves, others with the natural grace and physical beauty inherent within our original design. Some of us feel that...