The Float Shoppe was created in 2011 as a welcoming, calming environment in which to experience floatation therapy combined with massage, acupuncture, and counseling.
Founders Dylan and Sandra created The Float Shoppe after their own first float sessions provided deep relaxation, renewal, and pain relief. As an RN in cardiology and psychiatry at the time, Sandra had witnessed firsthand the impact of chronic stress among her patients and felt strongly that floatation therapy represented an opportunity for a significant shift in the lives of those who make it a practice. Having gained relief from her own anxiety and chronic pain, Sandra set out with Dylan to create a place of integrative healing with floatation therapy at its core of offerings.
Opened in 2011, the Float Shoppe exists to provide integrative therapies which promote a healthful life through reduced stress, reduced pain, and opportunities to reveal and engage with the core of one’s being.
A full team of staff now delights in every person who walks down the Float Shoppe’s stairs with their post-float glow. Clients leave refreshed, with a restored sense of optimism and confidence in their ability to create the life of their choosing.
“Floatation therapy–and the way it integrates with massage, counseling, and acupuncture–has immense potential to foster health and wellness.” – Sandra Calm
The Float Shoppe is a local family business which strives to provide an extraordinary environment both for its clients as well as its staff. Since opening, Dylan and Sandra have become leaders within the float industry, providing guidance to others including the research facility at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research, where float research is progressing every day. Dylan hosts the Art of the Float Podcast, started in 2015 to help others successfully start their own float centers, and offers his skills both as a consultant and photographer to others in the float industry. They are surrounded by exceptional practitioners and dedicated, enthusiastic float facilitators who create an environment for all who enter which is akin to walking into a hug.
Float Shoppe Co-Founders: Dylan and Sandra Calm
MASSAGE THERAPISTS
Experienced massage therapists with great range and depth of skill in massage for both relaxation and therapeutic work.
Michell Arellano LMT
Massage Therapist
Michell received her initial massage training from San Francisco Massage School and World School of Massage and has been a licensed massage therapist since the early 2000s. She utilizes many different massage techniques and therapeutic modalities to help her clients. Her favorite massage modalities are a blend of Lomi Lomi, deep tissue and somatic massage. Michell works with a respect for the body’s innate healing potential and the connection between mind, body, and spirit.
Heather Harms LMT
Massage Therapist
Heather has been an LMT for eight years and is also a Chiropractor. She specializes in cranial sacral therapy under her LMT license. With years of advanced cranial training, she remains amazed at how the modality supports the body’s innate ability to calm and rejuvenate. Other areas she is trained in include pre-natal, cupping, Swedish massage, and treatment focus for problems such as TMJ disorder, head ache, sciatica, scar tissue, shin splints, carpal tunnel, golfer/tennis elbow, etc. Beyond work, she will be found outside with her two big dogs, surfing, or trekking the backcountry.
Allyne Hylace LMT
Massage Therapist
Allyne graduated from the Ashland Institute of Massage and has been practicing massage therapy since 2013. Using a holistic approach that is equally intellectual and intuitive, Allyne integrates therapeutic skill with deeply relaxing, fluid massage and energy work in balance with the unique needs of each client. Allyne specializes in Swedish massage, deep tissue, trigger point therapy, myofascial release, and energy healing for imbalances of the mind, emotional healing, and spiritual awakening.
Cydney Hildreth LMT
Massage Therapist
Cydney joins the Float Shoppe with 21 years of massage experience, offering deep skill in Swedish and deep tissue massage for injury repair and pain management. She is one of those massage therapists who, as soon as their hands meet your shoulders, cause you to settle into the ease of knowing you’re in for an excellent massage. Her background in wellness centers and chiropractic clinics, her advanced training in martial arts, and a career of working to ease pain naturally informs her perspective.
Clementine Schiavoni LMT
Massage Therapist
Clementine’s New York roots and West Coast heart come together in her approach to bodywork. Direct and to the point via acupressure, deep tissue, cupping, and trigger point work. As well as fluid, slow, and replenishing via Swedish, myofascial, abdominal and visceral massage, energy balancing and craniosacral therapy. All these modalities are avenues she takes to meet each unique person at a depth that is therapeutic for them. Clementine graduated in 2014 from Port Townsend School of Massage and has been in practice since. She is here to offer her presence and skills to those seeking embodiment, relaxation, unwinding, and greater alignment.
Skylar Spoth LMT
Massage Therapist
Skylar provides a therapeutic and deeply nurturing massage and bodywork practice that is rooted in her 8 years of experience and education. She skillfully combines various modalities to best meet your needs during a session, allowing for greater alignment, balance, and mobility to be experienced within the whole body. Skylar specializes in deep tissue, myofascial release, prenatal massage, and Reiki. She is currently learning Structural Integration with the NW Center for Structural Integration in Portland. Skylar welcomes you with a caring and compassionate heart, and invites you to experience transformation through her integrative and intuitive bodywork practice.
OTHER STAFF MEMBERS
Dedicated to furthering awareness and knowledge of floatation therapy and its many benefits.
Mari Ane Anderson LAc
Acupuncturist
Mari Ane is licensed by the Board of Medical Examiners in the State of Oregon and brings more than 20 years of experience into her practice. She has honed the skills of listening and intuition, developed from helping hundreds of people over many years.
Sara Voruz, PsyD
Counseling
Dr. Voruz enjoys working with a diversity of emotional and relationship issues. She works with individuals and couples and hopes to create group therapy experiences in the near future. Dr. V’s clients float for $49.
Sandra Calm RN, MS
Co-Founder
Sandra Calm is an RN and nurse educator as well as one of the two co-founders of The Float Shoppe. While working as a bedside nurse and nurse educator in local hospitals in both medical-surgical nursing and psychiatry, Sandra witnessed the enormous impact of stress on the development of chronic illness. After floating relieved her chronic back pain and anxiety, it was clear floatation therapy represented an immense opportunity to support the long-term health of many. She became determined to create a welcoming, comfortable atmosphere in which people could discover and utilize floating in conjunction with therapies that work perfectly in tandem. Through the Float Shoppe, Sandra aims to provide a center for wellness which fosters well-being and the prevention of disease.
Dylan Calm
Co-Founder
Dylan Calm, Portland native and co-founder of The Float Shoppe, has a passion for community and personal development. In 2011 he and his now-wife Sandra opened the Float Shoppe. Dylan started The Art of the Float in 2014 to help others open and run successful float centers, providing consulting services and a podcast to support those starting and running a float center. He soon added photography for use in marketing by float centers and his photos, taken at the Float Shoppe, are now visible across the float community.
Emily Noren
General Manager
Emily’s path to floatation therapy meandered through various channels of friendship, challenge, addiction, and disorder. Once floating demonstrated its capacity for healing, she became more integrated with the Float Shoppe and now spends her days sharing the benefits of floating. Her journey is described in her book, Unsinkable, which can be found here, or here, or read in our lobby.
Abraham Reese
Assistant Manager/Float Facilitator
Brian Van Peski
Senior Solution Architect
Brian plays a variety of roles, from troubleshooting computers and helping with websites, to optimizing business practices and workflow methodologies. He also works alongside Dylan to create the Art of the Float Podcast.