Some Biographical Notes
Yochanan Rywerant was born in Bucharest, Romania, November 7 1922
He died in Tel Aviv, Israel, May 20 2010
| § | Theme |
|---|---|
1 A | From Bucharest to Czernowitz |
1 B | The war and Jagendorf Foundry |
1 C | Marriage |
2 | Meeting Moshe Feldenkrais |
3 A | Didactics & Meta teaching |
| § | Theme |
|---|---|
3 B | Science |
3 C | Psychology |
3 D | Graphology |
3 E | Jewish Studies |
I have made an attempt to give a broader picture of his biography.
II had the honor to make my initial acquaintance with Yochanan Rywerant only later in his life in 1988 - when he was 66 years old. His widow isolates herself from the Feldenkrais community, so I unfortunately not have access to his vast library, nor any communication with his prior friends and close colleagues, with the exception of Yona Postel. She was very close to him, lived, nearby, organised all his basic and advanced trainings, as well as his Teacher Trainings.
In this project of assembling the content of this website, she has been and is an invaluable support.
§ 1
Later he moved to Czernowitz and began his studies at the University of Czernowitz in 1939
He chose to study mathematics. He was musical and has been playing the violin for eight years, yet he was drawn to science. In 1941 the Second World War brutally changed his life path, and he was deported to Transnistria together with his mother. He survived in Mogilev and worked at the Jagendorf Foundry.
He survived the hard labor during the war and emigrated to Palestine (Israel)
As many survivors, he wanted to go to Palestine, which was then under the British mandate. He attempted to immigrate illegally by boat, but in 1947 he instead was incarcerated for 6 months in Cyprus until a successful escape in 1948. He served in the Israel Defence Force and after the war of independence, resumed his studies at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem in mathematics and physics.
Czernowitz during the war
Married twice, no children
In 1952 he moved to the Tel Aviv area and began teaching in a gymnasium ( high school) in Givatayim, a suburb to Tel Aviv.
The same year he married the pianist and composer Yardena Alotin (1930 -1994).
The couple had no children.
She accompanied him while teaching abroad as well as conferences and was also filmed lessons and the first training as well as some advanced trainings abroad.
After he was widowed he remarried Berta Rywerant, who is also a violinist as himself.
Death
He died May 20, 2010 and is buried in the cementery in Tel Aviv.
§ 2
The Institute for the Inquire of the Action and its Improvement
Moshe Feldenkrais returned from London in December 1951 and continued developing his system. The teaching he first called Promotion of Mental and Physical Efficency and later Improving the ability.
He gathered people with interest in the arts and performance but also in the sciences. Yochanan Rywerant began in 1952.
"For 15 years, I went to him once a week," YR tells in an interview in Haaretz. "The thing that especially intrigued me was his being a first-rank scientist. I see his whole method as a scientific achievement, because a man of science doesn't have answers - he only has questions and theories.
Some of these theories are adopted and some are left behind. The search for answers is typical of the whole method."
In 1969 MF selected 13 people from the group setting, invited them to his office at Nachmani street 21 and taught for the first time, what was to become a profession. They met around an hour each day, 6 days a week, for 10 months. The first group of 13 students finished their training in 1971.
Teaching, meta teaching and meta meta teaching
Early on in the tel Aviv training YR was invited to work together with Moshe Feldenkrais at his office at Nachamani Street 21 in Tel Aviv. Already there was Mia Segal, who was MF's first assistant.
YR continued to assist when Moshe Feldenkrias began teaching in USA at the San Francisco training 1975-1977 and again later in Amherst, during the summers 1980 -1981.
Thomas Hanna had arrranged and invited MF to teach in SF. Later it was Hanna who encouraged YR to write a textbook about Functional Inetgration.
In 1986 YR was invited to teach in Stockholm 1.
"He worked 13 1/2 years within close quarters in the same room in which I worked”
"The image precedes the action"
§ 3
A broad sphere of interests
Didactics & Meta teaching
YR had an interest in didactics
First, he was a teacher by profession. His two subjects, mathematics, and physics lie very close to the foundation of the Feldenkrais system. One of his influencers was George Pólya, the mathematician who dealt with heuristics and systematic methods of problem-solving. How do you teach people to think by themselves? How do you teach Heuristics?
How to solve it by George Polya
Didactics & Meta teaching
YR had an interest in didactics
First, he was a teacher by profession. In the two subjects, mathematics, and physics very close to the foundation of the Feldenkrais system. One of his influencers was George Pólya, the mathematician who dealt with heuristics and systematic methods of problem-solving. How do you teach people to think by themselves?
How to solve it by George Polya
George Pólya suggests four steps to solving a mathematical problem. This can very well be applied to a Feldenkrais inquiry.
- First, you must understand the problem.
- This can be easy to skip but it’s key:
- what are you being asked to do?
- Do you have enough information?
- Can you restate the problem?
- Draw a picture of it?
- Next, he says, make a plan.
- This can involve guessing and checking, making a list, or Simon-and-Newell style, working backwards.
- Third, you have to carry out the plan.
- Use the plan you’ve chosen all the way through.
- If it doesn’t work, discard it and go back to making another plan.
- Finally, you should reflect on what you’ve done and consider what you’ve learned.
- What worked?
- What didn’t?
- What could you use for a future problem?
What is the difference between didactics and pedagogy?
"While didactics is a discipline that is essentially concerned with the science of teaching and instruction for any given field of study, pedagogy is focused more specifically on the strategies, methods and various techniques associated with teaching and instruction."
Science
This article from Scientific American was a hand- out at his TT trainings. It is a first scientific measurement how the image precedes the action Lassen et al
(The article is part of the recommended reading in Teaching by Handling. It used to be free of charge!)
An article, 14) with the scientific references mentioned
His view of psychology
Feldenkrais is to be understood as an indirect way of dealing with the emotional self. There are many approaches. Yochanan Rywerant was interested in Transactional Analysis as developed by Eric Berne.
Graphology
YR was a trained graphologist, a three-year course. Graphology is used in various contexts in Israel, courts, the police, but also as psychological tests.
YR used his knowledge of this in a professional capacity.
Jewish Studies
YR had a traditional Jewish education and was well versed in the texts despite not being religious. Based on this background, it was obvious for him to understand all of Moshe Feldenkrais' Jewish references in the two Hebrew books MF wrote/translated as well as in his many lectures and commentaries.
Autosuggestion was published as early as 1929. Yochanan Rywerant read it in the fifties - he started practicing group lessons 15 years before the book on ATM, Improving the Ability, a theory which can be put into practice was published in February 1967.
As an Israeli, he read the ATM book in the original Hebrew text. He maintained that the book contained the basics of Feldenkrais' approach and theory building.
Having done some translations from the original Hebrew, and I believe that the English translation has enough flaws that misunderstandings can arise. Read more in the Classical Section