158 Almonte Boulevard Mill Valley, CA 94941 Mon-Sat 9:00am-10:00pm Sun 10:00am-10:00pm Other hours available by advanced reservation. Tel: (415) 383-8260 Fax: (415) 383-1235 email: aboutus@josephsmithmassage.com

Joseph Smith is owner & manager of the F. Joseph Smith Massage Therapy Center.

When Joseph started his own business, he and five of his students rented one room on Almonte in Mill Valley. Five years later, his Massage Therapy Center had three massage rooms, two hot tubs, and a sauna. He then rented an adjoining building, which he called "The Next Step". This has two treatment rooms, a meditation room, and an office. In this room Joseph displays the largest collection of healing crystals in Marin. Outside is the meditation garden, a peaceful, fenced in garden with Japanese landscaping, and benches under the trees. The Massage Therapy Center has continually changed and expanded during the past ten years. A cabin adjoining the property has been added as a popular seminar space. Joseph's ideal is to create a center where massage techniques can be experienced, taught, and evaluated in the light of clinical evidence. Joseph's aim is for massage therapy to be accepted and respected by the medical community. Joseph says that work is a major influence on his life. He believes that no matter how beautiful he makes the center, it is the people who work there that draw the clientele. Joseph's dream for the center is for it to be sustained financially while it grows into a healing center that is owned by a community who live and/or work on the land where it is built. As a child, whenever has was sick, Joseph's mother had massaged him. Family members massaged each other, and a brother-in-law of Joseph's had been stationed in Okinawa and had learned oriental massage techniques which he taught to members of the family, including Joseph. Joseph was certified as a massage therapist by California School of Massage in San Francisco, in 1974. He then studied Shiatsu with Dr. Jun Abe in San Francisco, took classes in Touch for Health, and in 1977 began his studies with Loren Barry, with an emphasis on lymphatic work and stretches. In the early 1970s Joseph worked for Finilla's, helping to rebuild their Finnish saunas. He moved to Marin at the end of 1977, taking a healing practice intensive at Westerbecke Ranch in Sonoma. At that time he was offered the manager's position at a small massage therapy business in Mill Valley, Moment's Pause. Under Joseph's guidance, Moment's Pause became the most financially successful and popular massage center in Marin County. Joseph began teaching massage at North American College of Health Sciences in San Rafael. He left Moment's Pause to continue teaching and pursue his own massage therapy practice. In 1981, a group of Joseph's students wanted to join with him to start a new massage therapy center. Joseph rented one room to do therapy at 158 Almonte. He continued studying body work with Loren Barry and teaching.