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Meet Your Team



We are an integrative wellness center offering acupuncture, orthopedic acupuncture, neuromuscular massage, cranial sacral therapy, rehabilitative movement, and customized nutritional and herbal prescriptions.

All of our modalities will help you heal and, when used together, will speed up recovery time. With your consent, we work together as a team to discuss your treatment plan and how best to support you.



Dr. Jamie Bender



Orthopedic Acupuncture, traditional acupuncture, and Herbal Consultations



Dr. Jamie received her doctorate in Orthopedic Acupuncture and Classical Chinese Medicine from the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences. After many years of searching for her life purpose, Dr. Jamie found a fascination with the miracle that is the human body.


Her passion for healing led her down a 20+ year path of studying neuromuscular therapy, yoga therapy, nutritional therapy, herbal therapy, corrective exercise, acupuncture and Chinese medicine. This pathway in life keeps her endlessly fascinated as there is always more to learn about the body and each person presents their own unique puzzles to solve.


Jamie graduated from the Crestone Healing Arts Center with 650 hours of massage therapy training in 2000. In 2002, she completed her yoga teacher training at The Mount Madonna Institute and her certificate in herbal studies from The Northwest School of Botanical Studies.


A traumatic knee injury shifted her attention to orthopedics and injury rehab and furthered her fascination with helping the body heal. She then began studying neuromuscular reprogramming (NMR) and exercise rehab. After 10 years with an injury rehab practice, she went back to school to continue her studies and to complete her licensure in Acupuncture and her Doctorate in Orthopedic Acupuncture and Classical Chinese Medicine.



Sally Hall



Neuromuscular massage



Sally uses massage therapy to create treatments that help people get back to their everyday mobility and do the activities they enjoy. Her first exposure to a possible career in massage therapy was while working as a Stage Manager on Broadway musicals. The actors would have orthopedic injuries and the therapists’ treatments would help them get through the 8-show schedule. This inspired her to pursue a degree at the Swedish Institute.


Sally’s 1500+ massage school education began with a solid understanding of Anatomy and Physiology while incorporating an understanding of the energetic body through Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shiatsu, Trigger Point Therapy, Neuromuscular Therapy, and Positional Release Therapy. After graduation, she studied Manual Lymph Drainage, Craniosacral Therapy, and the benefits of accessing the lesser-worked muscles of the body. Throughout her career, she has incorporated these modalities to help clients with a large variety of injuries such as strains, chronic pain, whiplash, and even scoliosis.


Her current curiosity is how to reprogram the proprioception of muscle groups and inherently the brain, while also finding the root cause of the symptoms and not causing further pain to the area.


When she is not at Stepping Into Wellness, she can be found tromping through streams with her two kids and looking at the creatures they’ve found or attempting a new crafting project.



Eva Larson



Acupuncture, herbal and nutritional Consultations



Eva Larson, L.Ac. is a California board certified acupuncturist and herbalist with over 10 years clinical experience. She has specialized advanced training in several areas of health and wellness including nutrition, digestive disorders, pain management and women’s health. She is passionate about nutrition, exercise, cooking and human biology. She uses acupuncture, herbal medicine and whole food nutritional therapy to solve complex health problems that often seem hopeless. It’s important to Eva to be valued by her community as an established, effective resource and an integral part of your healthcare team to help you achieve your goals.


She is warm and non-judgmental and willing to meet you where you are. She loves working with people who are motivated to make changes, committed to the process and prioritize their health and wellness so that together we can uncover and correct the source of what is bothering them.


Eva studied Traditional Chinese Medicine at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in San Diego and graduated in 2007 with a Masters of Science in Traditional Chinese Medicine (MSTOM). She was drawn to acupuncture after suffering with eczema for much of her life and finding little to no relief through western medicine. After just a few acupuncture treatments, herbal therapies, and recommended lifestyle changes, her eczema symptoms largely vanished and she began to explore everything else alternative medicine has to offer.


When not in the clinic Eva can be found swimming in the bay, jogging the streets of Alameda, curled up with a book but more often than not, in the kitchen



Ainka Joy Fulani



Rehabilitative Movement



Ainka J. Fulani is a holistic coach. A native New Yorker, and now Oakland resident she has years of experience working in corporate, higher education, and the non-profit sector. She is a UC Berkeley graduate and holds an MBA from The Wharton School, at the University of Pennsylvania. Ainka decided that her coaching practice had to include an intentional focus on the intersections of body, mind, and spirit to be most useful to the people and organizations that she serves. Initially drawn to movement for fun and then to manage sports injuries, Ainka later dove deeper as a means of helping herself and others manage stress and to heighten self-awareness, by encouraging inner/outer strength. Voted Best of the Bay Pilates Class by the East Bay Express in 2015 she has been using her training in multiple modalities to support people find wellness. Whether by minimizing pain, optimizing functional movement, recovering from a trauma, preparing for a surgery, or just to enjoy moving - Ainka has seen and experienced first-hand how mindful movement can lend itself to a better quality of life. She welcomes people of all ages, sizes, shapes, backgrounds and abilities to work with her. Ainka is a National Association of Sports Medicine certified personal trainer, a yoga teacher, and an International Association of Yoga Therapist certified practitioner. She also has training as a corrective exercise specialist. She highly values continuing education and has participated with programs like Functional Anatomy for Movement and Injury, taught by instructors and graduates of the NYU medical school and worked with a wide variety of acute and chronic conditions. She has been teaching movement classes to students, staff, and faculty at Mills College at Northeastern since 2019. Her wish is for all of us to be healthy and to have more openness and ease in daily life. Ainka is thrilled to further that effort in working with the team at Stepping into Wellness.

When not at work Ainka enjoys wildflower hikes, dance parties, and various art and crafting with her early elementary school kid.



Hien Phan



Office Manager



Hien is a Bay Area native and has a strong passion for helping people. She has over 15 years of experience in the medical office.


Hien is who you talk to when you call Stepping into Wellness and who greets you at the front door. She goes above and beyond to find appointment times that work for your schedule and to help you in any way she can.


During her free time, Hien loves traveling, watching sports, taking her daughter out and spending time with her family.