My Story: Art of Living

Erik Emanuel Fenz

I was born on September 7, 1960 in Boulder Colorado. I spent my formative childhood years living in Europe where I developed an early interest in the healing arts from my eccentric Austrian grandmother who used to treat her rheumatism by rolling around in stinging nettles. She made many healing remedies from “magic” plants and flowers that grew near her medieval castle in the mountains of South Tyrol Italy.

During long walks in the surrounding forests we would sit alongside an ancient trail and she would read stories to me by Hermann Hesse, Rainier Maria Rilke and others. These tales, particularly Siddhartha, inspired in me an interest in spirituality that eventually led me to Thailand, Bali and northern India. Throughout my off-road travels I began discovering a different world, meeting people who lived in a very different way, with different values. They had just the basic necessities and yet were very happy people. No psychological problems.

These journeys and others I took with friends and family became a means of coming into relationship with others and myself that was far removed from the limiting beliefs of my “conditioned”, sheltered upper-middle class upbringing. It brought me a deepened sense of awareness of the world and has given me the ability to relate to a wide range of people and bring a rich sense of humanity to my bodywork practice.

I am the oldest of five siblings. I have two sisters and two brothers who live in Europe the United States and Israel. My mother Karin, a retired nurse, is from the old whaling town of Sandefjord Norway. Her father Otto was a whaler who sailed around the North Pole and often spent years at a time at sea. My father Emanuel was a European history professor born and raised in Florence Italy. His father Johann was a minister and the founding director of a Seventh Day Adventist College and book-publishing firm. I was raised vegetarian to the sounds of Schubert, Italian Opera and Simon & Garfunkel.

Before becoming a bodyworker I owned a small business in Mill Valley, California and worked part time as a professional exhibition skydiver for the Miller High Life Skydiving Team. I also worked for a time as a commercial helicopter pilot and once circumnavigated the United States using a hand held GPS and by reading road signs. In my seemingly endless desire for ever increasing levels of stimulation, I explored B.A.S.E. jumping in the early pioneering days of the sport, leaping off cliffs and towers with a parachute on my back and overwhelming fear in my heart. These experiences taught me that when I have come to my “edge” and stepped through challenges that have scared me the most, I have gained innumerable benefits, to “feel the fear” and do it anyway and also the willingness to grow and “let go” of things that no longer serve me.

After surviving a near fatal helicopter accident by “flying” to the bottom of an alligator inhabited lake, I spent a couple years recovering in a Zen Community near San Francisco and at the Esalen Institute along the coast of Big Sur California. There, I discovered the power of transformative bodywork and the desire to live a more meaningful life by helping others learn the “art”of living in their bodies. To come into a more personal and profound relationship with earth, spirit, self and other.

I have worked with thousands of individuals from all walks of life including many world-class athletes, students of yoga and meditation, professional dancers, artists, actors, writers, business people, Physicians, musicians, Roshis, Rabbis, Rinpoches, and many other “ordinary” people who value long-lasting, transformative bodywork.

Erik is a certified Rolfer and Registered Biodynamic Craniosacaral therapist. He has over 3000 hours training in Deep Tissue Therapy, Neuro-muscular release, Esalen massage, Polarity Therapy and Somatic Emotional Clearing. He trained at the Heartwood Institute, Esalen Institute, and Rolf Institute and completed the 3-year Franklyn Sills Biodynamic Craniosacral training in Boulder, Colorado. Erik is a long-time practitioner of Zen meditation, yoga and Jingui chi gung. He has been jumping out of airplanes for over 29 years, offering a unique perspective on “heightened states of calm awareness” and the phenomenon of fear.

WINGS OF DESIRE