Moshe Feldenkrais Refers to the Handwriting as an Unique Style of each Teacher
The Meaning of Handwriting
has come to Shape the Feldenkrais Profession
A Correct Understanding of its Origin
allows a Greater Insight into its Meaning
and the Resulting Misunderstandings.
This article discusses the concept of handwriting and imitation as it has been used in professional Feldenkrais trainings and later among teachers.
It also presents a context of the meaning of letters and handwriting in the Jewish civilization.
"He [Yochanan Rywerant] has his own “handwriting” like all the others.
Everyone learns the Method without imitating his teacher.
Yochanan is not imitating anybody."
Quote from Dr. Feldenkrais on FI
from a lecture/demonstration in the San Francisco training.
(Year 3, July 7, 1977, day 15 page 224.)
"I wanted to say something which came to my knowledge. What I do here, like we did yesterday, or we did the pelvic business… I did it like this. Some assistants showed you this. Some assistants showed you that. Well, this is their proper handwriting. As you see, they can do the thing, but they do it their own way. I am proud of that because I do not want mannequins or imitators.
They can do the thing, but I want them to do it their own way. I am proud of that because I do not want them to be mannequins.
If you imitate, you will never be yourself. You will never do good work. If you keep on writing the copybook handwriting, then your person is inhibited.
You can never expect anyone to recognize your own handwriting from another person’s. Therefore, you will remain cramped, trying to struggle to make the pattern of the letters. It gets smoother and smoother, but it’s still not your own way of doing it. “
“…Therefore, in doing the same thing… except that you will see where I do not agree with the private handwriting. Because in many examples of the handwriting I saw they did not do the same thing I was doing. Handwriting means that you write it your own way, but you write so it is legible. The legibility here is what happens to him. If I put my hand here, look what happens…This is not the thing. We did something where this is pushed down so you can lean on it in safety, if you do it that way, or this way, I do not mind.
But, if you do it your own way and do something else instead, it means like inventing your handwriting. It is like writing an “m” instead of an “a.”
Then even a chemist would not be able to read your handwriting. You would need a CIA man who would record what you wrote. The CIA will write that this person writes an “m” instead of an “a” every time. Then they will be able to read it. This is the same thing. If you do it like that or like this, it is immaterial…
…Therefore, if you want to change that into your personal way of doing it, by all means do it. But, your first, last, and forever thought should be, “I am doing it not because I am doing what I know and how I want it to be; I am doing it in consideration of what this skeleton needs at this moment.”
Therefore you turn yourself. You twist yourself. You stand on your head. You make what you have learned, what you have judged, into something for the consideration of that person. However, do not introduce new parasitic movements. Do not be unaware of what you are doing…
...You should not do this work if you do not feel what you are doing. You can see what delicacy, and with what precision, and with what insistence, regularity, and clarity there is when I go like this. There is a going from the general to the minute detail. People lose the minute details.
Therefore, if you see the assistants doing their personal handwriting, sometimes you will find the people…some of them are too far away learning. That is why some of their…they can rehearse some of their learning. They can feel these things much better and dearer than you.
When they show you their proper handwriting, they will all be different from mine. And they should be different from mine. Yes, all of them should accomplish the same thing? If their private handwriting introduces parasitic movements, unwanted efforts, unwanted results, unwanted movement in the skeleton, then they are wrong. If I do that, I am wrong. You should correct yourself and not do it…”
Excerpt from a lecture by Moshe Feldenkrais, San Francisco Training, July 7, 1977.
Quoted for educational and scholarly purposes.
Moshe Feldenkrais recognized the significance of unique handwriting and used it as a model to advocate for a specific teaching method, thereby clearly defining what Functional Integration (FI) should encompass.
During the training sessions in Tel Aviv from 1969 to 1971, Moshe Feldenkrais was the only teacher. In the subsequent training in the USA, the participants, unlike the first group, were beginners in their own Feldenkrais processes. He explained that the teachers from the first training, who assisted him in San Francisco, all knew the exact techniques but learned them in their own unique ways.
In my basic training, similar to the sessions in Tel Aviv, I had one trainer, Yochanan Rywerant, without assistants, in a class of 24 individuals, akin to a regular school class. During my training from 1988 to 1991, he had already developed and conceptualized the 'letters' that represent the meta-language of the Feldenkrais system. These letters eventually formed each person's intelligible handwriting. He was so effective that most of his students completed the basic training ready to teach clients immediately. At that time, the Feldenkrais Training Accreditation Board (TAB) petitioned for at least four different trainers to teach the same concepts to ensure a comprehensive understanding of the principles, that is, metaphorically, to teach the shape of these letters.
I reject the necessity of requiring training or demonstration from four different teachers to understand the essential form and meaning of the letters. The lack of a thorough understanding of the letters, their meanings, and the principles of their combinations results in insufficient orientation to those principles after basic training. Observing four different handwritings does not replace learning the letters themselves and their unique properties.
I have questioned many influential teachers and trainers about the requirement for four separate trainers, but no one has ever provided a pedagogical explanation grounded in the structure of the method or in the principles it is meant to convey.
There are stages of development and learning the basic principles- the ABC's, there is a point to study with many trainers. Having stated that, I can paraphrase Moshe Feldenkrais with," I am your last teacher..."
If the purpose is to copy, MF has made it clear. It's not good enough. If it is to broaden horizons and stimulate creativity, it obviously has a value.
December 2022, updated December 2025
Eva Laser
A different culture than the Western or the Eastern
Read how I dispute about the misunderstanding regarding MF's foreword to the book Teaching by Handling and compare it to ambiguities regarding the differences between knowing letters and having an individual handwriting.
Context
The concept of handwriting comes from writing Torah scrolls.
The following section provides cultural and linguistic background to the handwriting metaphor, without serving as a methodological explanation.
This background is presented as cultural context, not as a basis for defining the method.
The concept of handwriting comes from writing Torah scrolls.
The concept of handwriting comes from writing Torah scrolls.
The writer, a sofer, must be very precise in his craft, with each letter exactly right in its shape and form. But they all have different handwritings.
Hebrew is regarded as a holy language and from that point of view the shape and meaning of every letter, and every word is related to a teaching and holiness.
More so, for the rabbis, the Hebrew word dvar means “thing” as well as “word”. Words “create, characterize and sustain reality.” Primary reality is linguistic, and the biblical word and letter is not only a token of God’s unending covenant it is also “the real thing”. The central religious act is interpretation and not incarnation. The words, consisting of letters, are infinitely analyzable and strike each recipient in a way appropriate to his or her strength and life situation.
This knowledge of Hebrew is to my understanding brought fourth by the lecturing of Moshe Feldenkrais concerning his use of metaphors around the shape of letters & skill of handwriting.
The Hebrew letter samech is connected with the asmachta, seal and authorization.
“The roof of the letter samech should be long and level; the base should be rounded so as not to confuse it with the final mem, and there are many scribes (handwriters) who write it so it touches the base line at only one point. The upper left hand corner of the samech should, unlike the other three corners, be squared and extended over equal to the length of the letter vav.”
It is from the letter samech the meaning of asmachtha is drawn.
Rabbi Lawrence Kushner, a kabbalist scholar, who wrote a meditation book about the Hebrew alphabet, continues;
“The letter completely encloses a space within itself. It is the quiet sure smile one has when finding a shelter …”
only to ask some lines later
“But why must all the shelters of Samech appear so transient? Only to teach you that God’s shelter is unlike man’s. Only He who gave you life can keep you in life. For one who knows this there is no anxiety. The samech is all around him…
That is the meaning of to lean, somach, each matter leans upon the next and the sheltering presence is all around you.”
Link to samech [+]
Link to mem [+]
I can date the shape of the letter samech back to the Nabeateans living around 100 B. C. E. which I find at the description of the development of the alphabets in a poster from the Israel Museum.
There is no change of shape despite more than 2 100 years of use. In the Latin alphabet, this letter has the form of an X - a cross.
The Hebrew culture (like the Chinese calligraphy) uses the art of handling the wrist & hands with brush, ink & strokes. The Latin letter is simpler, rougher.
To the secular reader: One can read the above text of the interpretation of Hebrew letters and Torah writings with an open approach, without concerning yourself so much with the religious aspects.