Lucy Maresh works with clients of all ages and abilities to reduce stress, prevent and treat injuries and improve general wellbeing. Lucy’s unique and personalised massage and yoga experiences bring you back to the here and now, to a place of deep rest and renewal – a space to ‘just be’.
“The important thing is to practice with awareness and listen to what your body is telling you.”
Professional Memberships
Lucy is insured to practice by the Federation of Holistic Therapists and the British Wheel of Yoga and abides by the Codes of Ethics of both professional bodies. Lucy also holds an enhanced CRB disclosure and a St John Ambulance First Aid at Work Certificate.
Yoga Teacher Training
2012 Advanced Restorative Yoga Teacher Training with Judith Hanson Lasater (pending)
2011 Restorative Yoga Teacher Training with Judith Hanson Lasater (Certified Relax and Renew Trainer)
2010 Pregnancy Yoga Teacher Training with Uma Dinsmore Tuli
2008-10 British Wheel of Yoga Teacher Training Diploma (BWYDip)
2006 British Wheel of Yoga Foundation Course
Massage Qualifications and CPD
2011 Thai Therapeutic Techniques Levels 1-4, Old Medicine Hospital, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2011 Thai Foot Massage, Old Medicine Hospital, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2011 Thai Hot Herbal Compress Massage, Old Medicine Hospital, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2011 ‘Nerve Touch’ Massage, Lek Chaiya, Chiang Mai, Thailand
2007 Traditional Thai Yoga Massage Practitioner Course with Quantum Metta (TTYMA)
2006 Caring for Pregnant Clients with Denise Tiran, Expectancy Ltd
2005 Seated Acupressure Massage with Andrew Sceats
2005 Holistic Facial Massage with Christine Fisk (FHT)
2005 VTCT Level 3 Teaching Certificate in Infant Massage with Lorraine Davies (FHT)
2004 Working With People with Cancer (Cancer Resource Centre, now Paul D’Auria Centre)
2004 VTCT Level 3 Swedish Massage with Peter Gray at Cambridge Regional College
Lucy has also attended non-certified workshops in a range of subjects from advanced massage techniques and sports massage to intuitive healing and reiki.
Yoga Background
People often ask what style of yoga I teach. It is a fair question but one I find very hard to answer as I don’t teach any particular ‘brand’ of yoga. In my early years of yoga practice I tried everything I could, but always came back to the same question: Why does that teacher say one thing, and the other teacher say another thing? Which one has the right answer?
In 2005 I met Tara Fraser who, sometimes rather frustratingly, refuses to give any answers at all. “Find out for yourself” she would say, “if one teacher says put your foot here and the other says put your foot there, just try both out and see what suits YOU”. This approach prompted an ‘A-HA’ moment. Yoga is many things to many people, but for me it is an adventure, or exploration, into the workings of my own body, my own mind, and then inevitably, but very tentatively into my spirit or my soul. I see my role as a teacher as a kind of tour guide – pointing out the key points of interests and showing the well-trodden paths, but all the best adventures happen when you step off the beaten track and start exploring for yourself. I took my BWY teacher training diploma with Tara who as well as being such a good philosopher is also an extremely precise and technical instructor of yoga asana. I would highly recommend her books Easy Yoga Workbook and Yoga for You to anybody beginning their yoga journey (its always good to have a map before you stray off the beaten track).
While I was pregnant in 2008 I picked up a book at a yoga centre in London called Mothers’ Breath. The words in the book deeply moved me and I subsequently bought a copy which remained by my side, in my bag or next to my bed for the remainder of my pregnancy and many months afterwards. The author of the book, Uma Dinsmore-Tuli has subsequently become one of my leading yoga inspirations and as a family we attend her lovely eco-yoga camps every year and connect with her beautiful teachings for women and families. I also took her very well respected pregnancy yoga module with Yogacampus in 2010.
My other main teacher at the moment is California-based Iyengar teacher Judith Hanson Lasater. I discovered Restorative Yoga quite by accident after Rowan was born. I was exhausted. My own yoga practice, it seemed, had completely died out. All I could manage was to lie on the floor and breathe! I looked up Judith’s book Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times and was immediately hooked. Just as there is a style of yoga for each and every person, there is also a style of yoga for each and every stage of your life. Restorative Yoga became my main yoga practice for well over a year after Rowan’s birth and having attended Judith’s teacher trainings, and knowing what I know now about how powerful the experience of really deep relaxation is, I can’t imagine ever giving it up!
Of course there are many other teachers that have helped me to navigate through my own yoga journey. Living in Cambridge and then London I was fortunate to be able to try almost every style of yoga imaginable. I am particularly grateful to the first, Sasha Perryman, a rather fierce Iyengar teacher in Cambridge who drilled into me from the start the importance of alignment, of discipline, and of taking the journey one step at a time.
