About Jacqui
My Training
I completed a BSc (Hons) in Sports Studies at Roehampton with my dissertation on Sports Massage.
After graduating I went on to do a variety of other study, including the critically acclaimed diploma in Sports and Remedial Massage at the LSSM under Mel Cash.
This is the highest level of Sports Massage diploma currently available and was the first of it’s kind in the UK when I originally qualified.
I have also completed a full Myofascial Release Course at the LSSM (ISRM) under Alex Fugallo, cadaver dissections with Julian Baker (principle of the European College of Bowen Studies), Anatomy Trains with Fiona Palmer, Kier Shumaker and Tom Myers and I will continue to study a range of CPD courses to further deepen my knowledge and advance my practice.
I love to learn and am keen to share!
I am a fully qualified, registered and insured LSSM/ISRM practitioner.
I have been extremely lucky to have encountered some hugely talented yoga teachers on my own journey so far. In 2010 this culminated in me studying with Claire Missingham on her thoroughly intensive and fully comprehensive teacher training course.
I continue to study and practice with a variety of highly esteemed teachers such as Alessandra Pecorella, (Aditya Yoga School 500hrs and Shiva Rae Prana Flow 100hrs), Melanie Cooper, John Scott (Ashtanga), Swami Nityamukatananda, Jeanne Heileman (TantraFlowYoga), Dr Gabor Mate (Compassionate Inquiry), Institute of Yoga Sports Science with Hayley Winter, Gary Kraftsow; and Nikki Myers (Y12SR) to deepen my own personal practice and enhance my teaching.
In 2021 I also completed my Pilates Reformer training and certification with the brilliant Joanne Cobbe to better inform my teaching of injury rehabilitation and Functional Flow, after having benefited from this incredibly specific functionally informed movement practice with my own injuries and rehab. There is much overlap with my yoga and reformer teaching and massage practice and I aim for each to further enhance and consolidate the other. I am RYT600 qualified and a YOGA ALLIANCE UK Senior registered/insured teacher. I qualified as a Y12SR leader with Nikki Myers at Project Yoga, Richmond, Virginia (USA) in 2012. The Y12SR classes I taught at the Boiler House were the first to be held anywhere in Europe and I have hosted the Leadership training programme for Y12SR for the UK/Europe. I also provided twice weekly yoga classes for all clients on the Focus12 drink and drug rehabilitation programme for 8 years, as I am a firm advocate of the integration of yoga into rehabilitative programmes and aftercare for addicts, and have been extensively involved in research with Cambridge Neuroscience (Cambridge University) to test the efficacy of this.
My Journey so far...
My background is primarily a sporting one, having participated and competed at many levels in most.
As a child, my father motor raced and my mother was a riding instructor and I quickly gravitated towards anything involving going anywhere at high speed. I have ridden horses for most of my life and used to show jump at an affiliated level, although my true passion on horseback was for cross country.
Throughout my whole life, middle to long distance running has always played a major part too, and I owe the demise of my knee cartilage to many happy years of fell walking and running in Cumbria!
Other principal sports and activities have included cycling, rowing, kayaking, skiing, all mountain sports (running, climbing, walking, scrambling, mountain biking – whatever it takes to get up there!) Muay Thai boxing and all aspects of strength and conditioning work in the gym with some highly esteemed PTs and coaches.
Over the years, I have acquired a vast array of sporting injuries!
Due to these I started to struggle to maintain my training volume and this combined with working long hours at a desk/car in a different professional career field, along with general escalating life stress meant that continuing in that way was unsustainable.
Having had my training curtailed, I reluctantly tried ‘a bit of yoga’ to see if something more than my usual, somewhat limited stretching regime would help.
It utterly changed my training, my attitude, my awareness and my career. I am happy to talk enthusiastically and relentlessly to anyone who will stand still long enough to let me impart the transformative benefits that yoga has had on all aspects of my mind, body, soul and life as an integrated whole! There are many organisations that I am especially passionate about supporting, but this one was especially ignited through my yoga practice and studies.
Y12SR: Yoga of 12 Step Recovery
The work of Nikki Myers has and continues to be integral within my yoga exploration. There are many therapeutic based courses for yoga teachers out there for studying the links and benefits of yoga in dealing with addictive patterning (whether they manifest as substance or behavioural), but the way in which this work weaves together the ancient wisdom of yoga, the most up to date evidence of addiction neuroscience with yoga therapy, all alongside the 12 step programme caught my attention because of it’s support in PRACTICAL APPLICATION for life on and off the mat, within the community at large; saving and changing lives.
One of it’s strengths is that it is open to all As (AA, NA, Al-Anon and so on) but also to anyone affected by addiction or the addiction of others, those in long term recovery and those whom may not be working any programme. That’s about as inclusive and yoga as it gets – no separation or judgement, just integration – on an individual and on a social and multi fellowship level – support and practical application out within the community where everyone can access it, with no waiting lists, referrals or expensive class fees. I am happy and humbled to have been working under the teaching guidance of Nikki Myers since 2012 and continue to study the programme with her.
