ABOUT

I'm Gem Maryan.

I'm a yoga teacher, a yoga therapist in training and a qualified massage therapist, with over twenty years of practice and fifteen years of teaching behind me. I hold E-RYT 500 status with Yoga Alliance. I work in two connected ways: with individual clients through therapeutic massage and yoga therapy, and with yoga teachers through training and mentorship. All of it is based here in Aboyne, on Royal Deeside.

I'm currently completing my 875-hour Yoga Therapy diploma and working towards certification with the International Association of Yoga Therapists (C-IAYT). This therapeutic work has become central to how I teach. It shapes everything from how I structure a single cue to how I hold practice.

Yoga first came into my life at nineteen, during pregnancy. That was the beginning of a relationship with practice that has carried me through every stage of life since. I trained as a Bikram Yoga teacher in Los Angeles in 2011, and later completed further training in Ashtanga Vinyasa and Yin Yoga. My studies have taken me to Sri Sharath Jois, Phillippa Asher, Hamish Hendry, John Scott, Noah Maze, David Swenson, Sarah Hatcher, Paul Grilley and Bernie Clark.

For many years, I taught full-time in Glasgow, co-founding Finnieston Yoga Shala and leading Ashtanga, Yin, and Mysore-style classes alongside teacher training. Those years built a foundation of discipline and connection that still shapes how I teach today.

More recently, I spent a long stretch caring for my father full-time. He is now settled in a care home nearby. That time changed me, and it deepened my understanding of the body and mind under strain. It is a large part of why I now teach the way I do, with an eye to resilience, nervous system regulation and the kind of balance that holds up in ordinary life rather than only on the mat.

Now based in Aboyne, I'm reestablishing my work with a renewed focus on therapeutic yoga, yoga therapy case studies and hands-on bodywork, alongside online training for teachers and dedicated students. My trainings run under Deeside Yoga Institute, and I offer a monthly mentorship for working teachers that opens in 2027. My approach brings together the classical yoga texts, including the Hatha Yoga Pradipika and the Gheranda Samhita, with a contemporary understanding of movement, breath, and the nervous system.

Whether I'm working with a therapy client, leading a training, or offering a massage, the aim is the same. To make a space of awareness, resilience, rest and real renewal. Practice isn't here to lift us out of life. It's here to help us meet it, with presence, acceptance and compassion for ourselves and the people around us.