A trailblazing teacher and trainer

High school physics teacher and violinist Yochanan Rywerant started studying with Moshe Feldenkrais in 1952. From 1967 to 1971, he was a member of the original teacher training program in Tel Aviv. Moshe invited Yochanan to teach in his studio at 21 Nachami Street, where he worked for 13 and a half years. He also made Yochanan a member of the faculty of the Amherst training (1980 to 1983), where I met and studied with him.

Yochanan is best known for The Feldenkrais Method: Teaching through Handling, published in 1984. In this illustrated book, he presented an explicit model of Moshe’s hands-on methodology, revealing its cybernetic underpinnings and neurological basis. For example, he distinguishes the functions of the peripheral and central aspects of the nervous system and shows how the strategies of Functional Integration lessons utilize them. Yochanan names and explains fundamental tactics and then illustrates, with technical precision, how to put them to use in prototypical individual sessions.

To honor the 100th anniversary of this trailblazing teacher and trainer’s birth on 7 November 1922, Swedish Feldenkrais teacher Eva Laser created an online tribute to Yochanan. Here you will find contributions from those influenced and inspired by his work. This homage consists of three sections:

1. Biography, teachings, and views.
2. Colleagues remember.
3. The author.

This tribute is an ongoing project to recognize and make visible Yochanan’s legacy. Colleagues are invited to contribute reflections on what his writings mean to them or to share their experiences studying with Yohanan or receiving lessons from him.

I used a photograph of Moshe and Yochanan from the aforementioned homage as a basis for the illustration at the top of today’s blog. I created the second image from a photo in Moti Nativ’s tribute to YR, first published in an Achieving Excellence blog post.