About Marc
My relationship with yoga began in childhood. At the age of seven, a friend of my mother's gave me a book about the more esoteric aspects of yoga. I was captivated—convinced that if I practised diligently enough, I might even learn to fly. Although I drifted away from yoga in my teens in an effort to fit in with my peers, the seed had been planted...
From my thirties onwards, I immersed myself in the tradition inspired by Vanda Scaravelli, studying with teachers who worked directly with her, including Diane Long and Sophy Hoare, as well as others dedicated to deepening and evolving her understanding of the body. In the same spirit of exploration that shaped Scaravelli's own work, I also studied Qi Gong, meditation, and other somatic practices.
My own approach to yoga and breathwork emerged through necessity. During my yoga teacher training, I suffered a prolapsed disc that left me unable to walk. I was advised that spinal fusion surgery was the only option, but through listening deeply to my body and trusting my innate somatic understanding of its structural relationships, I found another path. Within a few weeks I had restored enough function to move freely again. Although the injury left me with a permanently damaged leg muscle, my daily practice allows me to move with ease and fluidity—the missing muscle has no meaningful impact on my life.
That experience fundamentally changed my relationship with the body. It taught me that healing begins by listening rather than imposing, by responding instead of forcing.
Everything I teach has grown from that understanding. The safety and wellbeing of my students always come first. My interest is not in performance or achieving impressive yoga shapes, but in restoring natural function, freedom of movement, and the quiet pleasure of inhabiting the body with ease.
My teaching has evolved through more than forty years of personal practice devoted to discovering the body's innate intelligence and joy of expression. Since qualifying as a teacher in 2000, I have continued to refine my approach through over 35,000 hours of teaching and therapeutic hands-on work.
In 2009, I began offering weekend workshops for yoga teachers. Students often remarked that each weekend carried the depth and richness of an entire teacher training. One of those students was Abigail. Although she was already a qualified teacher, she wanted to immerse herself in my approach simply because she loved the quality of the practice and wanted to understand it more deeply.
As Abigail gradually took on the administrative side of the school, I was free to devote myself to creating a comprehensive 500-hour advanced teacher training. Together, we founded The Acquaviva School of Yoga, giving me the space to fully express and share my approach to yoga and breathwork.
A distinctive feature of the training was the inclusion of monthly one-to-one online sessions, ensuring every student received personal guidance between workshops, wherever they were in the world. This individual support became a cornerstone of the training, allowing each teacher to develop in a way that was both deeply personal and practical.
When the school evolved into an online community in 2020, the transition felt entirely natural. After more than a decade of teaching online, I was already well equipped to support students remotely. Today, our community continues to grow, with students across the world connecting online and gathering from time to time in my Secret Garden Studio.