Meet Erin Finkelstein

Today we’d like to introduce you to Erin Finkelstein.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Erin. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I am a Feldenkrais Practitioner® and a classically trained clarinetist. While pursuing my Master of Music at ASU, I discovered the Feldenkrais Method in an Awareness Through Movement® class. That is where I found the key to learning how to learn and how to create the life I wanted to live. I then embarked on a 700 hours Feldenkrais training program, which spanned four years, and sparked a dual career path.

For the past 15 years, my musical career has consisted of educating young musicians and of performing classical, orchestral, and chamber music with the Phoenix Symphony, Arizona Opera, Urban Nocturnes and the Carmel Bach Festival in California. I’ve also simultaneously nurtured a private Feldenkrais practice as a somatic educator. My clientele range is as wide as are my offerings. I teach clarinet and piano to children and guide college students as they hone their musical skills. I also work with people who have movement disabilities such as Cerebral Palsy, Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis and Polio. These clients are in need of new options for movement and knowledge of how to build these diverse movement patterns. Other clients include adults suffering from repetitive strain injuries, athletes wishing to uncover blind spots in their movements or aging adults with a desire to remain independent. My goal is to empower each person with the intellectual and somatic tools that they need to be able to live the life that they want.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
One of the challenges I faced early on was that my two skill sets of music and Feldenkrais were quite specialized, even though they complement each other. My original career goals of teaching music full-time at the collegiate level couldn’t fully utilize the somatic skillset within the confines of academia. After teaching in that setting in California and here in Arizona, I turned my attention to building my Feldenkrais business and working as a freelance, classical musician. That has turned out to be a blessing for me, as the diversity of people I get to meet and work with is unparalleled. I learn from everyone I meet and truly enjoy helping others learn from this neuromuscular perspective. The flexibility of this freelance model also helps me to manage my artistic output as a clarinetist. It affords me the freedom of focusing on the most worthwhile and meaningful musical projects.

The main struggle of dividing my time between music and Feldenkrais is quite manageable. I have to stay extremely organized, be honest with myself about my time limitations (it’s easy for me to work around the clock), and also be highly communicative. It can be a challenge for me to balance running my Feldenkrais business with maintaining the highest possible performance level on my instrument, and the practice time required to sustain that. However, my Feldenkrais practice really feeds the creativity, efficiency and quality of my music-making. Being an excellent somatic educator requires an abundance of presence, so I’m constantly working on the ability to clearly see and hear who is in front of me in each moment, just as if I were collaborating within a musical setting.

Another struggle is just to get people to try Feldenkrais. Many people seem to be put off by the name itself, simply because it is not a word commonly heard! I often get “Felden-what?” Or, “Felden-Christ? Is that a religion?” The answer is NO, far from it! However, once I get a person into my office and they experience an individual Functional Integration® hands-on session, they feel and sense such profound changes that many become lifelong students of the work. It can be difficult to describe and translate into words just how novel the sensations are, and this makes marketing a challenge! Students come bi-weekly, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually, or on any particular schedule that they may desire, in order to experience the truly unique, individualized sensorial changes that come with this work.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
As a musician, I focus on presenting chamber music concerts that enliven the senses with my group, Urban Nocturnes. I’m very proud of the artistic output we’ve achieved together since I joined in 2018. There’s nothing quite like experiencing live music at an artistic level that can change your outlook on life. Although our circumstances in this country and around the globe currently necessitate social distancing, I’m very much looking forward to getting back into live performances once we are able to come together again. Until then, we are broadcasting on Facebook and Instagram from our living rooms!

Additionally, I have switched all piano and clarinet lessons online. It’s a challenge, but I really enjoy continuing to teach each week. We are going to have a zoom studio class in a few weeks, allowing everyone to work towards a performance goal during these trying times!

My Feldenkrais practice morphed quickly into online classes as well, which had an international presence almost immediately! Moshe Feldenkrais was a scientist and the “father of somatics”. He coined the concept of neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to learn and change, about two years before it was considered a mainstream idea in the scientific community. He was responsible for bringing Judo to the western world and combined his scientific knowledge with the idea of learning how to move or do something differently. He worked in the famous Marie Curie labs in Paris and was responsible for saving her research from the Nazis during World War II by literally walking it out of the city on foot. Though his awareness of the human condition was far-reaching, Feldenkrais was quite dedicated to helping the general population become the best version of themselves on the most basic level. He left us roughly 600 Awareness Through Movement® lessons, called ATM lessons for short. These lessons are designed to challenge the way you move, think, sense, feel and organize your movements and can also help reorganize parts of your life.

In my private practice, I use these principles of awareness, and the investigation of the quality of all movements, to help individuals change habits and patterns that may no longer be serving them. This is done in an individual setting through Functional Integration® lessons, which is largely a touch-based education developed by Feldenkrais. There’s no easy way to describe these sessions, but in the most gentle and easy fashion, they can profoundly change how your movements are organized. I use touch to help people feel how certain movement patterns travel through their skeleton, and how to become aware of new patterns that they might have either forgotten about or never known. Clients are called “students” because we fundamentally believe that the nervous system can “learn” how to change, given the right environment. As scientific as this all sounds, people generally say it feels like “magic”, and they are in disbelief at how such small movements can so profoundly change how they sense themselves.

Due to the current pandemic, I have halted all lessons in person but have started giving Awareness Through Movement ® group classes and private lessons online. I am LOVING connecting with new people and sharing this gentle and profound work over the internet, and with people from all over the world! Feldenkrais taught his classes on the radio in 1974 in Israel, and I feel he would approve of our current use of Zoom to connect and teach. There is no previous knowledge necessary for experiencing Feldenkrais’ work, and anyone can participate. 

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
I define success in my Feldenkrais lessons as the moment when a person’s outlook changes from wanting to be “fixed” to cultivating an attitude of curiosity and general creativity in themselves. For instance, I work with many people with scoliosis. I do not seek to “fix” them, but rather seek to help them to sense the hundreds of new ways they can move within the confines of their particular structural limitations. I’m really interested in cultivating a desire for people to enjoy and like themselves more, within whatever boundaries may be keeping them from that. A successful lesson is completely individualized and is really about nurturing the part of the nervous system that was responsible for learning new movement patterns in the first place. For someone like a dancer or musician, this is so fundamental that we forget to investigate the quality of movement.

For individuals in many other fields, it can be a brand new idea to discover. The part of your brain that is responsible for learning how to move is still alive and asking for your attention! When people learn how to really slow down and pay attention to the quality of their movements, they are able to begin to cultivate an ability to sense how they are organized. They then begin to sense how they could have more options in how they coordinate themselves. This is almost like a moving meditation. However, it can have profound effects on how one organizes their entire life. So, whether someone achieves a profound change in one lesson, or in 20, just being able to give someone this experience of themselves is a success. Success to me is defined by an alignment of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and movements which create quality actions in any given moment.

Success on a musical front is more personal. There’s nothing more satisfying to me than working with like-minded musicians to discover, create, and present a chamber music piece in an intimate setting. Making music is a process. The process culminates in a performance, but the performance is just one step and by no means the final one. I find the most successful musical experiences are ones that start with all musicians on an equal footing, with similar artistic goals. When a healthy respect amongst musicians is combined with a productive rehearsal process aiming to achieve the stylistic boundaries of the music itself, performers and audiences can truly be brought into a state of pure presence. Much like a Feldenkrais lesson is about listening through paying attention to one’s movements, so can music transform how we organize ourselves in life.

Pricing:

• Group Awareness Through Movement® Lessons range from $18-25. My online classes are twice a week for $40 a month, or roughly $5 a class, with access to the online library of classes. I do have a free link on my website for anyone financially affected by the coronavirus.
• Individual online sessions, or guided Awareness Through Movement® is $60. In-person, touch-based Functional Integration® lessons are $100, and will be available again once we are cleared by the CDC to resume personal contact. They range from 60-75 minutes and include lessons you can do at home.
• Music lessons are $30 a half-hour, which is the standard length of time for most kids.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ErinFinkelstein.com
• Phone: 916-296-9068
• Email: info@erinfinkelstein.com

Image Credit:
Tanya Finkelstein, Peter Wilson, Tatiana Daubek, Riverton Pianos, Christina Steffen

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