Aaron Drake

Aaron is a graduate of Cypress Health Institute  in Santa Cruz. Aaron specializes in Deep tissue, and is trained in a multiple of modalities, including Swedish, Cranial Sacral, Polarity, Reflexology and Structural Integration. Aaron enjoys the symbiotic relationship with his clients. He loves to help people feel more comfortable in their bodies, because it makes him feel better too. In his free time, Aaron enjoys playing percussion, juggling, and performing puppet shows for children.

Alisa Gonzalez

Alisa is a Certified Massage Therapist and a graduate of Cypress Health Institute. She has been practicing the art of healing touch and massage since childhood and has made it her life-long passion. Her approach to bodywork is of a healing and creative nature and carries a strong connection to energy work. She has been trained in Swedish, Effleurage, Acupressure, Reflexology, Polarity, Hot Stone and Prenatal Massage. Her quest to learn more healing and massage techniques will facilitate her expansion of knowledge and her desire to help others. Alisa’s intuitive touch creates a safe space and allows clients to feel comfortable, relaxed and supported during the session.

Outside of massage, Alisa has a love for making mandala art and a passion for photography as well as making other forms of art. Her meditation and spiritual work has helped her become mindful, grounded and further in touch with body awareness and sensitivity. Her love of yoga and sound healing also helps her to stay connected to healing energies and vibrations.

Amanda Scecsei

I have been a massage therapist since 2005. In my massage, I use a mixture of various modalities including Swedish, Myofascial Release, Lomi Lomi and Foot Reflexology. 

Massage is a wonderful way to balance out the stress in our lives, which allows our nervous system to relax, our minds to let go, and our bodies to settle into the breath. Each person’s body has the innate intelligence to heal itself. A massage is one of the best gifts you can give to yourself.

Bri Weise

Bri was trained in Swedish, Polarity, Craniosacral, and Esalen Massage. 

Cecily Heath

To Cecily, massage is an artful expression that blends her passion for holistic living and her curiosity of the human body. She has been a Certified Massage Therapist since 2010, after graduating from the Boulder College of Massage Therapy. Her love for massage developed much earlier, however. Growing up with massage professionals in her family, she understood the benefits of massage early on and was drawn to the profession. 

Cecily has over 1000 hours of training and still counting. She has been trained in Zen Shiatsu, Swedish, Deep Tissue, Sports, Prenatal, and Trigger Point Therapy. Cecily’s technique creatively blends these modalities into one fluid and effective treatment. With a focus on promoting anatomical balance and engaging the parasympathetic nervous system, to encourage a sense of wholeness and well-being in her clients. 

Cecily encourages open communication to ensure that her client’s expectations are met, and often exceeded. At your appointment you can expect her to see you as a unique individual and to personalize the session to meet your specific needs and preferences. You can also expect her to actively listen to your insights about your body. With each session, her intention is to bring awareness to tension patterns and stagnant areas so that change can occur. It is her firm belief that when we are aware of what is happening within our bodies, we bring a greater sense of awareness into the world around us. 

Cecily looks forward to working with you to create greater balance and well-being in your body and your life

Chris Hutcherson

Chris studied at Mueller College of Holistic Health in San Diego, where he focused on Shiatsu, Tuina and Chinese Meridian Theory.  He incorporates this into Myofascial, Deep Tissue and Sports massage, helping to facilitate muscle relaxation, stress relief and calming of the mind.  He is also trained in Craniosacral Therapy.  Chris has been a Certified Massage Therapist since 2005.

Dan Gill

Dan was first drawn to becoming a bodyworker as a result of a Reiki session he received shortly after moving to the Bay Area in 2015. This session filled his entire being with an inner joy, and he immediately knew that he wanted to share this feeling with the people around him. He was inspired to know that he had found his true calling in life. 

Dan has over 1500 hours of massage and bodywork training from McKinnon Body Therapy Center in Oakland, California, and continuing education programs. While the focus of his training and his specialties are Tui Na, Shiatsu, Acupressure and Craniosacral Therapy, he has also studied Thai, Reiki, Jin Shin Jyutsu, Manual Lymphat Drainage, Deep Tissue and Swedish massage. He has a strong commitment to continuing education and believes that all bodywork study, inside and outside the primary modalities of his practice, add a depth and richness to his work.

Dom Romano

Dom is a graduate of Cypress Health Institute in Santa Cruz, where he trained extensively in a variety of modalities: primarily Swedish Massage, Deep Tissue, Polarity Therapy, and Craniosacral Therapy. His unique style of bodywork combines these modalities to cultivate meaningful and reflective experiences for his clients. 

After witnessing the capacity of bodywork to manifest healing in his own life, Dom decided to follow his passion and pursue Massage Therapy as a career. He feels privileged to hold space for his clients and to be part of their respective healing journeys as well. 

 

Elissa Cardin

Elissa was inspired to become a massage therapist during the hospice period of her grandfathers passing. He was suffering from bone cancer and she would massage him to help relieve pain. She has been practicing now for 20 years. She graduated with 750 hours from Trinity Massage School in San Jose. She is deeply intuitive and will find the places needed of tissue work and energy movement. She specializes in Swedish, Pinpoint trigger therapy, Prenatal, Reiki, and Chakra balancing. She enjoys the peaceful autonomy that the Well Within provides and has never been happier to work here. She hopes to provide you with utmost care and therapeutic healing time.

Felicity McKnight

Felicity tailors each session to meet your particular bodywork needs and wants. Felicity has been a practicing massage therapist for the past thirty years along with eleven years of teaching massage therapy throughout the country. Through this experience, Felicity has developed a deep confidence and a compassion filled intuitive approach to her work. Felicity’s modalities include Swedish, Deep Tissue, Shiatsu, NMT, Lymphatic Drainage, Pre and Postnatal massage, Kripalu bodywork, Reiki, and other various energetic approaches.

Hunter Villa Gawboy

Hunter is a trans, non-binary, 2nd generation intuitive massage therapist.

As a 2nd generation therapist, their work is influenced by a lifetime of familiarity with the practice. As a kid they learned to understand what a deep support for wellness massage can offer. Through first-hand experience as an active child they directly felt what relief it so often brought to their own aches and pains and restless legs. Growing up they started to integrate the practice into their own life, at first more casually trading with friends and family for many years as they developed a closer and closer relationship with the art. 

Eventually, they began to note a certain lack of accessibility for many folks in their own communities who don’t always feel comfortable in mainstream settings of Wellness and they developed a drive to finally become professionally certified so they could use their skill set as a professional trade and offer more access to the benefits the work provides as such. As they continued their journey, they received affirming feedback from peers that their massage made a difference for those in their community who were able to receive it, and that their goals resonated with many.

A graduate from Cypress Health institute in Santa Cruz, they were formally trained in elements of primarily Swedish Massage, Deep Tissue, Polarity, and Craniosacral in 2019.  

While Hunter’s background supports a certain comfortability in providing a firm hand with some pressure if desired in the work, they find a special joy and satisfaction in being able to listen to the client and meet them wherever they are at.  

They love learning and understanding how each bodies’ needs are so unique and different from one another, and figuring out how to meet those needs and how they change over time. Their utmost passion is to help one’s body feel more fully integrated so we can all feel more wholly embodied and connected to the inherent resources inside of us.

 

Janie Kientzy

Hailing from the East Coast originally, I am a new and eager addition to Santa Cruz. I came into this world with a love of adventure, nature, dance and MOVEMENT. The human body fascinates me – particularly how all of the muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and connective fascia work together to create movement. I am equally fascinated with the mind-body connection and the potential of achieving peace and resilience in the mind and ease, health, and resilience in the body. Living with a profound EASE in the mind, body and spirit being the name of the game. With these areas of interest and a background in dance and holistic nutrition/wellness, massage school was the natural next step for me…

In 2015 I answered the call and moved to Asheville, NC (an alternative health Mecca) to attend the Center for Massage and Natural Health. Immersed into a comprehensive curriculum of anatomy and kinesiology, we were able to explore many massage and energetic healing modalities and learn the inner workings of the muscular, skeletal, and nervous systems. I was on top of the world, learning how to help folks live and move through their worlds optimally and pain-free. Since attending massage school, I have had the opportunity to work with many clients from all kinds of backgrounds in Asheville, NC, as well as Park City, Utah, for the last couple of years.

My massage style is integrative. I like to incorporate long, connective strokes to help my clients sink into the parasympathetic state of true relaxation, then go deep with effective therapeutic work that incites the body to heal itself. I incorporate neuromuscular therapy, deep tissue and passive stretching to create SPACE for the body to heal and the mind to regulate. My hope and intention is that you will leave feeling more ease in your body and mind, more grounded, more integrated, lighter, brighter, and ready to face the world with your best foot forward. It’s my passion to help you achieve and maintain an active and vibrant quality of life.