About
Hi, I’m Sarah. I’m a smart and caring fitness instructor with a highly trained eye for assessing, refining and improving movement patterns. Let me help you find joy and ease in movement!
Why you will benefit from working with me
With my background in ballet and years of teaching Pilates, I bring a trained eye to every session. I guide my clients using touch, verbal cues, and demonstration to help them refine movement, improve alignment, and feel more connected in their bodies.
My approach blends evidence-based principles with experiential anatomy to support both targeted goals and overall well-being. After working with me, you will leave feeling empowered, energized, accomplished, cared for, lengthened, strengthened, heard, seen, stretched, decompressed, and with less pain!
Start with PilatesSarah Stroin
Senior Instructor & Studio Owner
As a teenage ballet dancer, Sarah was first introduced to Pilates at the DanceMedicine sports injury clinic in Walnut Creek to rehabilitate a knee injury. Since then, she has found more and more benefits to having a regular Pilates practice, such as, a better mind/body connection, a stronger core, flexibility maintenance, and injury prevention. The desire to share her love of movement and dance is a driving force in her life and teaching career.
As a Pilates instructor and ballet teacher, Sarah knows firsthand the benefits of targeted strengthening and dynamic flexibility and she trains clients for both injury prevention and rehab. The vision of Sarah’s Pilates practice is to work with all ages, body types, and fitness levels to help people gain and maintain balance, strength, and flexibility, along with ease and efficiency of movement in a non-judgmental, supportive and caring environment.
Sarah is a Balanced Body certified mat, and equipment (reformer, trapeze table, chair and barrel) Pilates instructor, certified Franklin Method pelvic floor fascia trainer, and has a bachelor’s degree from UC Berkeley in Interdisciplinary Studies. She brings a long history of ballet training and teaching to her professional movement career. She also teaches all levels of ballet at the Conservatory of Classical Ballet in San Leandro, creative movement dance classes for kids in Point Richmond and particularly loves teaching and mentoring young women. In her spare time, she likes to be outdoors rollerblading, inside dancing, or swimming in large bodies of water.
Specialities
- Private and small group Pilates training with focus on mobility and individual movement goals
- Pilates for dancers and athletes
- Pilates for injury rehab and prevention
- Pelvic Floor Fascia Trainer (Franklin Method)
- Ballet instruction
- Creative movement dance classes for kids
Birch Tree Pilates Studio Locations
Sarah teaches out of two Pilates studios, one in Oakland and one in Berkeley, Monday-Friday. She also offers Creative Movement Kids Dance classes for young movers. Choose the location that is most convenient for you and let’s move together!
