I’ve been practicing movement with Johnny since 2018.

The inquiry, the journey, started back then, and it’s still ongoing. It has been a process of discovery, of finding out who I am through movement in a dynamic and ever-changing environment fostered by the practice, the teacher (Johnny), and the group that gathers around him.

This is what Johnny offers, in my eyes: a way to inquire into who I am as a being, not from an esoteric point of view, but through being in my body and studying my capacities and limitations from a perspective that starts with the physical and sometimes extends to the psychological.

It’s not esoteric when one practices early in the morning, either watching the sun rise or dealing with the SF fog, asking the whole body to engage in practices that sometimes seem plain weird, sometimes are very hard, and are often fun.

What I love about practicing with Johnny is the depth and variety of the material we are exposed to, the discovery of new material, and the reiteration of “old” material from new angles. At times, the process is fast; at times, it’s slow. What I know is that practicing with him is helping me become a better mover in general, teaching me how to approach things when I’m in a new learning environment, and ultimately making me more embodied as a human being.

This is how I would describe studying with Johnny: he is an incredibly talented mover and researcher, a teacher who never gets boring ;). His skill as a teacher comes from his ability to meet practitioners at their own level and make any material approachable through simple progressions. And yes, watching Johnny move is an inspiration, but what I love about studying with him is that he encourages us to find that same ‘ease’ of movement within ourselves.

He has fostered an engaged and varied group of people who study with him, and the practice—because that’s what this is, a practice—keeps going, evolving, deepening, and basically getting better throughout the years.

The best part is when we realize that we are all part of the discovery process and that we are moving together toward… more practice.

I remember walking up the stairs for the first time, smelling the coffee Johnny was preparing for the group before I could even see them. I had come from Rio, Brazil to San Francisco intending to stay and study with Johnny for a month. Many years later, I am still here learning from the doors that opened that day.

There is something in the way Johnny moves that my body seems to understand before my intellect can catch up. A quality of attention, and organization that is difficult to explain, but impossible to ignore. Behind his teaching, there is a depth of research and exploration that becomes evident in the way he presents the material.

My experience with Johnny has taken many forms over the years. Studying with him has enriched my own practice and shaped the teacher I have become. Having the opportunity to teach others and help guide the group while he was away also gave me a different perspective on the practice.

Another part of this experience has been the people I have met through the sessions. Johnny brings together people from different backgrounds, each with their own questions, experiences, and ways of moving. What develops between us becomes part of the learning.

I sometimes find myself looking around during the class, watching everyone move, and feeling that it cannot get better than this. Perhaps it is the feeling of being fully engaged in something that continues to reveal more the closer you look.

I’ve been training with Johnny for 8 years. He is truly a special teacher, and the practice has changed my life. He is a one of a kind mover, and teaches from deep experience and incredible skill.

While there are too many things I love about the classes to name them all, one aspect that I profoundly appreciate is that Johnny teaches principles, qualities, and new modes of being rather than only teaching techniques or moves. Often the classes play with states of consciousness, shifting between very different challenges which encourages me to adapt and find some third state that can incorporate the polarity.

Studying with Johnny has helped make my life better in obvious and more subtle ways. I’ve gotten stronger, more capable, more complex, more dynamic, and more adaptive. It’s also brought a new kind of attention to the way I move, which permeates and clarifies my everyday experience. When things are tough, I have a practice that is uplifting and breathes life back into me. When things are good, I have new was of expressing exuberance. It’s also helped me bring a new kind of connection into many of my relationships, helping me to better care for the people I love as they age or recover from injury. I think the partnering work has made me a better partner and friend—more attuned, attentive, curious, responsive, open, and more able to trust myself.

Class often brings a sense of aliveness and play while also being incredibly challenging. Johnny has attracted a group of dedicated students who are focused, encouraging, silly, and work hard. I always look forward to practice and I miss it when I can’t attend. If you’re curious, I recommend taking the leap.

I started training with Johnny when I was 49 and now at 55 I’m stronger, more coordinated, and more connected to my body than ever before. But more importantly I can just move better, with more power, grace and coordination, on the floor, in low gait positions, standing, upside down and even hanging from my arms. It’s incredibly liberating and gratifying to have this whole world of Movement unlocked for me when I never before saw myself as an athletic person. Johnny’s approach of building blocks of competence and comfort in a single skill, then chaining these skills together so that they become composable, really appeals to my systematic brain and has been an accessible path to much more improvised flow states that I really enjoy

Johnny is a gifted teacher: deeply knowledgeable, clear, and attuned to every student. He breaks movement into discernible patterns while building strength, flexibility, and agility along the way. Instead of grinding through reps on force and will, we learn to sense the subtle layers of the whole body as we move.

I've always wanted to dance but never found it accessible. Movement turned out to be the key. I'm 56 and feel stronger, more fluid, and more connected in my body than ever. It's challenging, loads of fun, and a great community. Movement has become my medicine!

Remove the labels. You may not be a boxer, a dancer, a gymnast, an acrobat, a weightlifter, a juggler, a meditator or a bodyworker. If you are human and you move, you are alive, and Johnny's class is for you. Come as a beginner. If a beginner's mind is the only thing you bring, you will get back far more than you came with.

Johnny is, simply, a student. A student of contemplative practices and movement modalities: acrobatics, capoeira, dance, martial arts, parkour, anything that teaches the body to know itself through another body or through the ground or the environment. He filters all of it through a considered lens that is his alone.

He can take concepts of almost arbitrary complexity and translate them into a simple exercise a body can learn, even when the mind has not understood the principle yet. The body learns first, and the understanding arrives later, if it arrives at all.

What he teaches is play. Think of the last time you played, probably as a child. His practice is for being human: getting in and out of a car, picking up groceries, playing on the floor with a child, twisting, turning, jumping, falling, and meeting another person. Professional dancers and serious athletes come to his class, and so do retirees and people with limited mobility, of every age and background.

The other half of the teaching is the group. Partner work sits beside solo practice in every class, and the people Johnny draws are diverse, talented and deeply focused.

I came to Johnny from yoga, competitive gymnastics and several martial arts, and in more than fifty years of training I have found nothing like this teaching or this community. I have practiced with him for nearly ten years. I keep coming back because I have become a better human being. I can feel what happens in my body when I write, type, jump, lift, pull, play, or hold another person. The

more I feel, the better I function, and the better I function, the more ease and connection I bring to myself, to other people and to the world.

If you like to be challenged and to keep growing, come to one class. Bring your body as it is today, find a partner, and play the way you did before anyone told you what kind of mover you were.