To make an appointment, please contact me at nina.galin@gmail.com. I work by appointment, Monday through Saturday. I bring my table to your home or office.
You may also email me to find out when I will be offering seated bodywork at the Santa Rosa Community Market (1899 Mendocino Ave. near the Junior College).
I offer one-on-one sessions that integrate manual and massage therapies with body awareness education and training. I received certification as a massage therapist in 1990, and used that education to build on my training in Alexander Technique, modern dance and ballet. Two elements of the Alexander work still form the core of my approach: the functional emphasis on head-spine relationship, and the philosophical emphasis on participatory learning. Alexander sessions are conceived as lessons rather than treatments, with the student taking an active role in self-awareness and self-healing. I also draw on my extensive training in Pilates, yoga and Feldenkrais. My work is deeply influenced by cranio-sacral therapy, Network Chiropractic and Structural Integration (Rolfing).
My sessions begin with an intake interview and some conversation about your present experience in relation to your health history. Then we might either do movement work or proceed to table work. In movement work, I observe you performing movements from your daily life and make suggestions about how these might be made easier. This coaching might involve verbal suggestions, skilled touch and mental imagery. If you want, I will design a program of exercises for you to do on your own. Table work involves you lying (on your back, stomach or side) on the treatment table, supported by extra cushions where necessary. I contact your body with my hands, beginning by simply feeling you, and progressing to gentle manipulations from head to foot. Each touch relates to the breath (yours and mine). Everything that I do with you serves the goal of assisting you to relax and reduce stress, while learning experientially how each part of your body connects with all the others. This sense of connection, or integration, in itself promotes stress-reduction and a sense of well-being.
Fees and session length:
Normally my sessions last about one hour and forty-five minutes, including set-up, intake conversation, hands-on and/or movement work, concluding conversation and take-down. The fee for this is $150. Sliding scale possible, down to $100.
First sessions are typically two hours, to accommodate a longer intake interview.
I strongly prefer this session length, but can abbreviate it to one hour. The cost for this is $100, or a minimum of $85.
Notes on session cost: Over the last 23 years that I have been earning my living through this work, I have struggled with having to put a price on it. I want to make my work accessible to as many people as possible , not only those who have a certain income or come from a certain background. I am motivated partly by wanting to help others, and partly by wanting to have this kind of meaningful interaction with diverse people, not only the middle-to-upper-class, white and formally educated people who traditionally seek this kind of treatment. I learn from each session, and I am better educated if I learn from a diverse client population.
However. I have limited energy and time. I need to make a certain minimum of cash with that finite energy and time. For my own well-being I must put boundaries on how much energy and time I can give for free.
Sometimes people ask me, can I get a shorter session, say one hour? Maybe. My work is a process that I go through with each client; each person is unique. I cannot skip over part of the process to “get to the point.” The experience of healing and self-learning is unique to each person. Each person’s rapport with me and response to my interventions is unique.
Education: In addition to my certification in massage therapy, I have a bachelor’s degree in dance and music, a master’s degree in choreography, and a doctorate in Performance Studies from the University of California. My dissertation researched community-based dance-theater and somatic education practices.
My earliest bodywork training was in the Alexander Technique, under the instruction of Robert Britton (former president of the North American Society of Alexander Teachers), in the Bay Area and then with June Ekman, Jack Moore and Joan Arnold in New York City. I also took a special workshop with Marjorie Barlow, recognized as a leading teacher of the Technique.
You may also email me to find out when I will be offering seated bodywork at the Santa Rosa Community Market (1899 Mendocino Ave. near the Junior College).
I offer one-on-one sessions that integrate manual and massage therapies with body awareness education and training. I received certification as a massage therapist in 1990, and used that education to build on my training in Alexander Technique, modern dance and ballet. Two elements of the Alexander work still form the core of my approach: the functional emphasis on head-spine relationship, and the philosophical emphasis on participatory learning. Alexander sessions are conceived as lessons rather than treatments, with the student taking an active role in self-awareness and self-healing. I also draw on my extensive training in Pilates, yoga and Feldenkrais. My work is deeply influenced by cranio-sacral therapy, Network Chiropractic and Structural Integration (Rolfing).
My sessions begin with an intake interview and some conversation about your present experience in relation to your health history. Then we might either do movement work or proceed to table work. In movement work, I observe you performing movements from your daily life and make suggestions about how these might be made easier. This coaching might involve verbal suggestions, skilled touch and mental imagery. If you want, I will design a program of exercises for you to do on your own. Table work involves you lying (on your back, stomach or side) on the treatment table, supported by extra cushions where necessary. I contact your body with my hands, beginning by simply feeling you, and progressing to gentle manipulations from head to foot. Each touch relates to the breath (yours and mine). Everything that I do with you serves the goal of assisting you to relax and reduce stress, while learning experientially how each part of your body connects with all the others. This sense of connection, or integration, in itself promotes stress-reduction and a sense of well-being.
Fees and session length:
Normally my sessions last about one hour and forty-five minutes, including set-up, intake conversation, hands-on and/or movement work, concluding conversation and take-down. The fee for this is $150. Sliding scale possible, down to $100.
First sessions are typically two hours, to accommodate a longer intake interview.
I strongly prefer this session length, but can abbreviate it to one hour. The cost for this is $100, or a minimum of $85.
Notes on session cost: Over the last 23 years that I have been earning my living through this work, I have struggled with having to put a price on it. I want to make my work accessible to as many people as possible , not only those who have a certain income or come from a certain background. I am motivated partly by wanting to help others, and partly by wanting to have this kind of meaningful interaction with diverse people, not only the middle-to-upper-class, white and formally educated people who traditionally seek this kind of treatment. I learn from each session, and I am better educated if I learn from a diverse client population.
However. I have limited energy and time. I need to make a certain minimum of cash with that finite energy and time. For my own well-being I must put boundaries on how much energy and time I can give for free.
Sometimes people ask me, can I get a shorter session, say one hour? Maybe. My work is a process that I go through with each client; each person is unique. I cannot skip over part of the process to “get to the point.” The experience of healing and self-learning is unique to each person. Each person’s rapport with me and response to my interventions is unique.
Education: In addition to my certification in massage therapy, I have a bachelor’s degree in dance and music, a master’s degree in choreography, and a doctorate in Performance Studies from the University of California. My dissertation researched community-based dance-theater and somatic education practices.
My earliest bodywork training was in the Alexander Technique, under the instruction of Robert Britton (former president of the North American Society of Alexander Teachers), in the Bay Area and then with June Ekman, Jack Moore and Joan Arnold in New York City. I also took a special workshop with Marjorie Barlow, recognized as a leading teacher of the Technique.
