A conversation with Michael J. Gelb and Bruce Fertman Author of “Walking Well: A New Approach to Feeling Comfortable, Energized, and Inspired with Every Step”
Michael J. Gelb is a pioneer in the fields of creative thinking, executive coaching and transformational leadership. He holds a 5th degree black belt in Aikido and is a skilled teacher of Tai Chi and the Alexander Technique. He is also a professional juggler who has performed with the Rolling Stones. He has written 17 books, including the international bestseller “How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci,” which have been translated into 25 languages and sold over one million copies. For more information, please visit MichaelGelb.com and WalkingWell.com.
Bruce Fertman is trained in gymnastics, modern dance, ballet, contact improvisation, Alexander Technique, Tai Chi, Aikido, Chanoyu, Argentine Tango and Kyudo, and brings 60 years of study to his work as a movement artist and educator. For the past 30 years, Fertman has taught in Europe, Asia and the Americas, helping people experience the interconnectedness of body and mind. For more information, visit GraceOfSense.com and WalkingWell.com.
What is unique about the way you walk?
Our method is based on a simple set of anatomically logical instructions that help readers discover what it means to walk naturally. If you follow it step by step, walking will become more comfortable and enjoyable. It's easy and fun.
We teach people how to generate more power with less effort. They discover that there are sources of power other than muscle power; they learn to use their mind and imagination in conjunction with the ground and gravity to create rhythm and ease in each step. (continued)
How can we make people feel more comfortable while walking?
Many of us have been taught the “right” way to walk, but there is always something artificial about it. If we let go of the artificial and walk naturally, we will feel more comfortable.
All animals, other than humans, do not know or care about their appearance. They do not have problems with their body shape. Being preoccupied with thoughts about your appearance and body shape can cause great discomfort and restrict your freedom of movement. We help people question thoughts about their body shape and find ways to think more constructively about themselves.
How is vitality generated? Where does vitality come from?
Vitality comes from nature. We all know that a walk in nature can give you energy and put you in a good mood. But what if you could learn to walk naturally wherever you go? How much energy could you create and conserve if you learned not to interfere with your natural mobility? There's also an important chapter on optimizing your breathing with every step. This is a key secret to creating vitality.
You teach a lot through animal imagery. Why do you do this?
For movement artists and educators, this is nothing new: we do it because it works and it's fun.
Other animals are superior to us in many ways, and we can learn by observing and imitating them.
You talk a lot about our relationship to the ground. Why is this so important?
Without a ground you can't take a step. It's impossible. Walking is not an action, it's an interaction. We don't act, we interact. That's all we do.
So, realistically, you can't teach someone how to walk well without teaching them about the ground and how to interact with it.
Walking starts between your back foot and the ground. That's what moves you forward. The first thing you need to understand is your foot and the ground and what's going on between them and how they interact. And that's where we start.
But the ground is much more important than that. There are many reasons. The ground is the Earth, it is where we live. We are Earthlings. How can we help people to instinctively feel that they live on, in, and under the Great Mother? Teaching people how to feel the ground under their feet is the first step in realizing that they cannot live or take one step without the Earth. You never walk alone. When you experience this, your life will change for the better. Every step creates connection, support and gratitude.
What are kinesthetic and proprioceptive sensations? What do they do for us? What do they have to do with walking? How do these senses develop? Why don't we learn about them?
Maybe because they are not local senses. We see with our eyes, hear with our ears, smell with our nose, taste with our mouth, and touch with our hands. But our skin, the sense organ of touch, covers our entire body. Our entire body can touch and be touched. Why can't kids be taught that? Hmm… Our kinesthetic sense is also not local, it's an internal sense. And proprioception is the same. It's internal. Kinesthetic sense is just the sense of the body. It tells you if you're moving, and if so, how you're moving. And proprioception just senses where you are, the shape and size. It tells you where one part of your body is relative to the other parts. It tells you what is you and what is not you, where you start and where you end in your body.
The senses can be educated. They can be awakened, reawakened, refined, opened. The more they are educated, the more accurately and appreciatively they are able to receive the wonder of life around us and within us.
The less sensations we have, the more robotic we become; the more sensations we have, the more human we become.
You spend a lot of time in this book teaching people to lie down, sit, and stand. Why do you do that in a book about walking? How does it relate?
All we humans do is lie down, sit, stand, walk, and alternate between these movements. We sleep. We get up. We leave the house and walk to our car. We sit in the car going 60 miles per hour, but we just sit there. We get out of the car and walk down the street to our office. And we do this over and over again for the rest of our lives.
At any given moment, when we lie down, sit, stand or walk, our spine is in a specific relationship with the pelvis, rib cage and skull. Sometimes these relationships are not free, flexible and comfortable, but fixed, rigid, inflexible and painful. If these relationships are fixed, fixed and held in a certain way and become chronic when sitting, they will be the same when standing and walking. So, in a sense, it all starts with sitting. If you cannot sit with balance, you cannot stand with balance. And if you cannot stand with balance, you cannot walk with balance. That is why babies sit first. Then they learn to stand. Then they learn to walk. That is why we teach lying, sitting, standing and walking – the four dignity.
Walking as exercise doesn't seem to be the main theme of this book. It seems like you have something bigger in mind when you talk about walking. Is walking for you a metaphor for something more than physical, more than just for the body? What do you mean by “finding a walking life” or “walking every day”?
We have a bigger purpose. The Diné people have a nine-day healing ceremony called the Night Chant. In the ceremony, there is a line that runs like a refrain: “May we walk, beautifully.” For them, walking has both a literal and a figurative meaning. How we walk is how we live. How we want to live our lives, how we want to walk into the future.
When we say “finding a life to walk,” it means finding the right tempo to resonate with ourselves, others, and the soul-filled world around us. We don't want to drag our days through life slowly and sluggishly. And we don't want to run through our days either.
When someone is having a hard time understanding something, we might say to them, “Let me explain that,” and that's the best way to understand and explain things.
Many scientists, artists, inventors, writers and philosophers have espoused walking, claiming it is one of the keys to creativity. How does it work? Why?
It may be something simple: walking, especially in nature, helps provide oxygen to the brain. The brain is about 2% of our body weight, but it uses over 20% of the oxygen we breathe. And, of course, creativity is an expression of mental agility, which is underpinned by physical mobility. The rhythm of walking quiets our chattering, superficial minds and invites us to speak to the inner wisdom in our blood, bones, hearts and guts.
You wrote that talking while walking side by side is completely different from talking face to face. Could you elaborate on that?
It's not necessarily better or worse, but it does make a difference, and if you can't talk to them face to face, it's worth trying to see what happens when you walk side by side.
Sometimes, certain facial expressions and gestures stimulate our feelings. When we walk side by side, we don't actually see the other person. We hear the other person. We listen. We don't walk facing each other. We walk side by side, in the same direction, at the same speed. We also feel more comfortable walking together in silence than sitting face to face in silence. Sometimes, a lot of things work themselves out in that silence. We let our minds rest and our bodies communicate subconsciously.
You've said that the chapter “Walking for Change” is your favorite, can you tell us a bit more about it?
Walking for exercise and health is great. That's why we write about it in the book. We call it Hatha walking. Walking for fitness. It's great.
But walking is also a way of being with others, walking is a means of communication and problem solving, walking for inspiration and walking for change. Walking as a meditation, as a pilgrimage, listening to the voice of the world rather than to a busy mind. Get back in your body, get back to your sanity, and get clear about who you want to be within yourself.
This is what it means to find your path in life. 
When you go to a sacred place, but also when you walk through the supermarket or the office, when you have the sense that you are on sacred ground, in sacred space, in a sacred body, living a sacred life, you are moving through life. It takes some practice to weave this truth into the fabric of our own bodies and beings. But it's not that difficult. We've written the book to help readers experience this for themselves.
Walking well: A new approach that brings comfort, energy and inspiration every step of the way.
Michael J. Gelb and Bruce Fertman
Category: Fitness / Health / Inspiration
Publication date: September 3, 2024
Price: $18.95 * Format: Trade Paperback * Page Count: 232
978-1-60868-912-5 Publisher: KADOKAWA *Also available as eBook
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