Natural Rhythm Healing Hut, San Leandro

When Natural Rhythm Healing Hut’s founder Farcia De’Toles Medearis opened her spa in 1999, she knew she wanted to model it after healing centers found in indigenous West African villages. Farcia told the San Leandro Patch that, as a child in Liberia, she watched her grandmother concoct herbal remedies and lead traditional healing dances, which inspired a deep appreciation for dance and movement in healing. Each of Natural Rhythm’s massage modalities uses techniques based on these dances to speed recovery by employing music and cadenced body movements that tune into a person’s inner rhythm and natural theme song. Even the lobby mimics a traditional healing hut with tribal patterns, rounded treatment rooms, and hand-painted murals featuring rural African scenes.

Some of the treatments offered at this retreat include 60- to 90-minute massages that mingle Eastern and Western strokes as well as herbal body wraps designed to detoxify, tighten, and smooth the skin. Farcia also leads healing fitness classes such as Nia, a program that combines dance, martial arts, and yoga to tone the body and relieve stress. All therapists at her practice have a health-education background and receive ongoing training in the center’s special bodywork techniques.