Moshe Feldenkrais chose the name of the institute with care.
Yochanan Rywerant was asked to run the institute after the death of Moshe Feldenkrais. He declined.
Index of contents
| § | Theme |
|---|---|
0 | Ben Gurions letter |
1 | Why this name? |
2 | The word Peula- פעולה |
3 | Life is more than movement |
4 | Action is, by definition, separate from movement |
5 | Some Judaism |
| § | Theme |
|---|---|
6 | From inquiry to a new teaching profession |
7 | Handwriting and imitation |
8 | A thought experiment |
9 | A model of teaching, a profession |
PARAGRAPH 0
Institute for promotion of mental and physical efficiency
This is a document from 1958, fleetingly without in-depth background and context.
It represents the Method's development during the latter part of the 1950s. ATM's design in particular can be understood in the perspective of the young state's many educational projects. I think the name is significant and should be seen from the perspective of the zeitgeist.
David Ben-Gurion (1886 -1973), Prime Minister of Israel (1948–53, 1955–63) came to Moshe Feldenkrais through Prof. Aharon Katzir. Lessons took place daily at Ben-Gurion's home on Keren Kajememt Street in Tel Aviv, a rarity as students usually came to him. BG's learning process culminated in him standing on his head on the beach in Herzlia.
There is more detailed documentation elsewhere.
David Ben Gurions recommendation letter
Feldenkrais Institute for the Inquiry into Action and Its Improvement
מכון פלדנקרייז לחקר הפעולה ושיפורה
PARAGRAPH 1
Why this name?
On the ground floor of a Bauhaus building at 51 Nachmani street in Tel Aviv housed The Feldenkrais Institute for the Inquiry into Action and Its Improvement. Moshe Feldenkrais worked there, but he was also teaching in various studios and institutions all over the country, one of them in the Alexander Yanai Street.
The Insitute conisited of two two-room apartments that were joined together with an office and a large room for teaching. On the balcony, were stored piles of rollers and telephone books used for head support. On the second floor in the same house, but at another entrance, number 49, Baruch Feldenkrais, the brother, managed ALE’F Publishers Ltd.
בע״ם אל״ף -, הוצאת הספרים.
There are many obvious clues to the name inquiry of the Action and its Improvement. One is based on what Moshe Feldenkrais expresses in his writings about his Method/model/path. Improvement is an evolutionary expression associated with development, abilities, and skills.
There are two books, Autosuggestion and Improving the Ability, a Theory that can be Put into Practice [1] originally published in Hebrew, where the approach of the inquiry of action is evident in direct language. Se article 5), 6) and 7)
At the end of his life, in 1983, Moshe Feldenkrais refers to the institute as a school. [2] By then, the inquiry had evolved to a more defined profession, he himself has conducted two and a half trainings, and the teaching as well as the path are more formalized. A school is a physical place where students receive instruction and education under the supervision of teachers or pedagogues. But school can also mean a learning system, a common way of thinking or a systematized material. [3]
Another explanation is the fact that for a Jew with Moshe Feldenkrais’ background and schooling, it is a natural name to choose when starting up an institute after his return from Europe. There is an intention of further exploration of the theories already published in 1949 in the book Body and Mature Behaviour, now asked to be put into practice. A further inquiry of what he had already come to understand about the human nature and how to improve the life process.
Also, why not use a name to be distinguishing the professional activity from all that it resembles but still makes it unique, to give his vision a direction? Reading his last book Basic Feldenkrais, The Elusive Obvious is also a retrospective of the choice of name.
An obvious conclusion to draw is that the profession from its inception already lived in action, not in movement.
[1] In translation; Awareness through Movement 1972
[2] The foreword in Teaching by Handling,1983
[3] a group of persons who hold a common doctrine or follow the same teacher (as in philosophy, theology, or medicine) i.e. the Aristotelian school.
PARAGRAPH 2
The word Peula- פעולה
Peula- פעולה, a word used often in Moshe Feldenkrais vocabulary, is a word with a wide range of meanings, all with a clear kinship. In my dictionary ֻ[4] it translates with doing, act, action, performance, activity, transaction, deed, operation, functioning; wages, reward; influence, effect.
I highlight action, as language is symbolic and open, with all the synonyms are included here to form a clearer image. I consider translation as creating a space with the synonyms and letting the word in the original language approach or distance itself from the word in translation. As context changes, so does meaning – and not to be forgotten, language is symbolic.
[4] The complete Hebrew-English Dictionary by R Alcalay (In Amherst MF uses Webster)
PARAGRAPH 4
Action is, by definition, separate from movement
It was not a movement institute located on Nachmani Street but an Institute for the inquire of the action.
How and why did its direction divert so radically from its initial intention?
I have published an article with a more thoroughly explanations why the English translation ought to have been awareness through action and not awareness through movement. Read and consider why action ≠ movement.
In writing, MF never mixed the concept of movement with the action. Never.
PARAGRAPH 5
Some Judaism
A mitzva, or mitzvot in plural, are the commandments or the deeds being the precepts of Judaism. What you do and not do in and during your life.
There are 248 Positive Mitzvot (Mitzvot Aseh) or things that you should do. The number is thought to represent the number of bones and significant organs in the human body. Then there are 365 Negative Mitzvot (Mitzvot Lo Ta’aseh) that you should not do. The number corresponds to the number of days in a solar year. No one knows exactly which the 613 make up specifically.
For the numerous Israelis and Others who studied at the Institute over the years and who had direct dealings with Moshe Feldenkrais, the connection between his choice of name for his work and the larger human cultural context was self-evident. This way of thinking is engraved in the Feldenkrais family’s life and from his own early childhood studies at a Beit Midrash. Even if he later chose to become secularized and not identified himself being religious, it is still the view on mans action asking for our attention.
PARAGRAPH 6
From inquiry to a new teaching profession
In 1969, at age 65, Moshe Feldenkrais invited thirteen people with extensive experience in exploring ATM and with other appropriate qualifications to join him in what later came to be known as the first Tel Aviv training. A new profession emerged then.
The thirteen came every day to the Institute to learn. They studied about an hour every day for 10 months each year, for 3 years. Among them was Yochanan Rywerant who was exploring ATM since the year 1952. In 1970, parallel to the training, he began to work “within close quarters in the same room in which I [Moshe Feldenkrais] worked.” [5]
Other teachers also worked at the Institute and contributed to developing the thinking, the approach, and the Method. I cannot assess their exact role in shaping the classical Feldenkrais that I write about. I do not know their contributions at the level required and do not omit them in any way to diminish their possible contributions.
However, there is another exception aside from Yochanan Rywerant that must be mentioned (as I have account of his valuable contribution), and I fear he is slightly forgotten. His name is Shlomo Bracha, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist. Invaluable for his knowledge and contributions to the Method regarding explaining the brain, the central nervous system, the shift between the unconscious and the awareness. The instant where the learning take place and constitutes the two different levels of control that constitutes the theoretical framework of the Method. And more.
In this context, I would like to emphasize that Yochanan Rywerant never created his own method or approach. Despite this, he refined and taught his understanding of the Method with a particular meta and meta meta-teaching, where speech, theory and practice were integrated into an encompassing whole. He was extremely careful throughout his professional life to emphasize that what he taught and wrote about was what Moshe Feldenkrais developed and taught. I know it was not out of modesty, but rather a matter of principle and integrity.
[5] The quote is from the foreword of the textbook of FI, Teaching by Handling, that Yochanan Rywerant published in 1983.
PARAGRAPH 7
Handwriting and imitation
It is appropriate to write about two terms that Moshe Feldenkrais uses when talking about other educators and which has become established in the professional vocabulary. Not in the least, because they are used (unreflectively) to describe how the profession should or should not be taught and what the curriculum should consists of.
I am convinced that the idea of handwriting was obvious to Moshe Feldenkrais and that he used the metaphor partly to insist on the uniqueness of the Feldenkrais model, and also to emphasize his idea of human uniqueness and autonomy. It is an approach that lies as a subtext in both Feldenkrais theory and philosophy.
When Moshe Feldenkrais taught the second training in USA, he explained that the teachers from the first Tel Aviv training, (who assisted him here in San Francisco), all knew the 'exact letters' but they all taught differently, each in their own way, without imitating. [6]
"Therefore, in doing the same thing… except that you will see where I do not agree with the private handwriting. Because in many 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"
[6] Third year of the San Francisco training. (July 7, 1977, day 15 page 224.)
PARAGRAPH 8
A thought experiment
Imagine two men, Moshe Feldenkrais and Yochanan Rywerant, spending 32 years constantly exploring and learning indivdually and together.
For years they shared the same room at the Institute in Tel Aviv. The teacher/ student relationship developed into a close relationship of collegiality. They gave Functional Integration lessons to each other and colloborated giving FI's to others, taught group lessons, and continually discussed the how and why of the inquiry. YR was also a teacher of physics and mathematics with a huge interest of the process how to teach young students how to think.
During the first weeks of the Stockholm training (1986 - 1989), Yochanan Rywerant explained how he and Moshe Feldenkrais worked together.[7] They used to switch between themselves, working sequentially to give a client a FI, without exchanging a word or explanation. The logical sequence was evident to them both. Afterwards, they would discuss what they had done but as both men were equally skilled, they already intuitively knew the obvious step needed.
[7] Preserved in video format with 80 DVDs. I have them in my archive. Feel free to contact me.
Listen to Yochanan Rywerant explaining this in Stockholm 1.
Traveling together twice to the USA to train new teachers, imagine MF and YR returning to Nachmani street, to continue their dialogue and sharing their observations of meta teaching of the inquiry. It is apparent to conclude that when YR began writing about FI, in 1975, to fill the void, it was not done in isolation but with a mutual and continous intellectual exchange and discussion with Moshe Feldenkrais
Know that Moshe Feldenkrais chooses Yochanan Rywerant to give him FI lessons 3 times a week in the early 1982 to help him rehabilitate from his skull injury and read about it in the article Self- Image and Action (not self-mage and movement)
I invite you to contemplate how the continuous" inquiry of the actions and their improvement" did not end when MF died.
Yochanan Rywerant lived on another 26 years, until 2010, and strove for continuous quality, staying in authorship.
He quoted Moshe Feldenkrais saying,
“thinking means new means for action” and
“as teachers we do not imitate actions, rather we fulfill principles”.
The latter is from an article about the Principles of Judo.
PARAGRAPH 9
A model of teaching, a profession
Although the physical institute is long gone, it still exists as a model and a path based on the principles and concepts developed and formulated by the people who had work there.
This model can be learned and taught independently of the originator himself. It is not necessary to see, listen and rely only to Moshe Feldenkrais’s recorded teaching to imitate the experience. Instead, there is a model that is based on specific concepts and principles, that are described in the textbooks and taught by handling. The method and model are available and comprehensible with proper meta and meta meta teaching.
The Classical Feldenkrais Method is not learned and taught through imitation in silence, which requires the students to guess what is going on. It is taught by using a clarifying language for understanding and insights. It is a practical handling system/method/model, where the learning needs to be experienced cognitively, emotionally, sensorially, and motorically.