Gem Maryan Yoga

24/07/2026

Yikes… here’s an oldie! 35 year old me …10 years ago & still today you’ll find me much the same 😁

10/06/2026

10/06/2026

A wee note as we break for summer.

Since the start of the year, I have had the joy of teaching chair yoga , and I want to say something about the incredible students who turn up each week. Most are retired, ranging from their fifties onward, all with mixed abilities, and every single week they walk in smiling and open to whatever I bring 😁

Some weeks we work exceptionally hard. The core work from the chair is deceptively challenging 😉, and rather than shy away from it, they meet it head-on, with laughter and crazy smiles, to match my own.

Other weeks, we slow right down into somatic and more adaptive practices, listening to what the body is actually telling us rather than forcing it anywhere in particular. No two weeks look the same, and that is rather the point.

What I did not expect when I started is how much they would lift me. I come in to teach and I leave with my spirits raised every single time.

So this is a thank you to my chair yoga group. Have a wonderful summer. I will miss your energy and your laughter, and I cannot wait to be back with you when classes resume in late August.

Have a lovely summer 💕

08/06/2026

Two students in savasana. Both still. But completely different things are happening inside.

In the Tao Te Ching, the valley spirit is the root of heaven and earth. Eva Wong, in Cultivating Stillness, writes in her commentary that we are created from the descent of heavenly breath and the ascent of earthly vapour, and that we emerge from the union of yin and yang.

The valley has a particular quality of stillness: steady and open to its environment. Sattvic. Yoga, when practised over time and with consistency, can help to cultivate this quality.

But not all stillness is sattvic. Some have a tamasic quality: the breath shallower, the belly held, the body trying to MANAGE stillness. And over time, this costs the body something. In nervous system science, we would call this allostatic load.

Then there is the rajasic stillness that never quite arrives. The student who leaves when it is time for savasana, because they simply cannot rest. Sometimes this is because the practice has not been fully resolved. No time has been given to descend from the peak, and the body is still at the top.

The valley does not manage the descent. It receives it. Savasana is not where the practice ends. It is where you find out what the practice did.

I’d love you to join me for a free lecture on 16 June, 7 pm UK, where we talk about the NS science and bridge the gap toward the philosophy of practice.

link in bio.

05/06/2026

Reclined Butterfly, Sleeping swan, Supported fish. Fifty minutes of Yin with a nervous-system focus, targeting all those areas that can hold chronic tension. Perfect if it turns out to be a wet weekend… let’s hope not.

I am hoping you can’t hear my belly having a wee rumble in a few places :-) haha…needless to say, I was totally in the practice, and my body was letting me know ;-)

The full class is in the free library. Ad-free, no adverts, no interruptions.

Register once, watch anything.
Link in bio, under Free Resources.

31/05/2026

The goal of yoga practice isn’t calm. Here is what it actually is....
A body doesn’t become regulated through stillness. It becomes regulated through moving fully, and coming back to baseline.
Abyhasa is the practice of return, Vairagya is the release of any particular outcome. The Yoga Sutras were describing a well regulated nervous system centuries before we had the science to measure it.
Free lecture, 16th June, and the link can be found on my website, which is in my bio.
I’d love to have you there.
, abhyasa vairagya yogandscience deesideyogainstitute

31/05/2026

The goal of yoga practice isn't calm. Here is what it actually is....

A body doesn't become regulated through stillness. It becomes regulated through moving fully, and coming back to baseline.

Abyhasa is the practice of return, Vairagya is the release of any particular outcome. The Yoga Sutras were describing a well regulated nervous system centuries before we had the science to measure it.

Free lecture, 16th June, and the link can be found on my website, which is in my bio.

I'd love to have you there.

,

21/05/2026

The autonomic nervous system has three states.

Most students arrive at class in one of them.

Knowing the difference is the foundation of nervous-system-aware teaching. Here are eight slides for class planning.

20/05/2026

Rest as resistance to the pressure cooker that is modern life.

We live in a culture that has framed rest as the absence of work, and work as the source of our value. So when we rest, we often feel guilty. As if we’ve stopped producing the thing that makes us worthy.

I think yoga, when taught carefully, can begin to slowly undo this.

Not by adding rest to the day as another task to complete, or as a reward after work, but by teaching the body that rest is not the absence of something. It is a state in itself. Whole. Complete.

Restorative practice does this. Yin does this. So does sitting on the grass and observing life without needing to use our phones to document everything or achieve Rest as resistance to the pressure cooker that is modern life.
Rest as resistance.

We live in a culture that has framed rest as the absence of work, and work as the source of our value. So when we rest, we often feel guilty. As if we’ve stopped producing the thing that makes us worthy.

I think yoga, when taught carefully, can begin to slowly undo this conditioning.

Not by adding rest to the day as another task to complete, or as a reward after exhaustion, but by teaching the body that rest is not the absence of something. It is a state in itself. Whole. Complete.

Restorative practice does this. Yin does this. So does sitting on the grass and observing life without needing to optimise, document, or achieve anything from the moment. No phone. No distractions. Just you, by yourself, with yourself, for yourself.

If you’re tired and don’t know how to rest, perhaps this is the practice for a little while. To simply stay.

I’ll be exploring this, alongside the science behind it, in a free 90-minute lecture on Tuesday 16th June. Link here if you would like to join: https://deesideyogainstitute.com/nervous-system-launch-lecture