Meet the teachers
Guided by personal experience of being teachers as well as students in many different yoga retreats, we structured this program for you in a way that you will reach all the benefits of such a meaningful occasion by integrating the body-mind complex and recharging your battery for the coming year. It serves your highest soul desires to create space for true reflection as well as giving your body and mind an extra care and attention necessary for meaningful and joyful life. This year we decided to organize a retreat in the beautiful Primošten.
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MARCO BIANCO
Born and raised in Italy, Marco dedicated his life to the wisdom of Yoga by spreading it to the people around the world. Today he lives in Zagreb with his wife Petra, taking care of different schools and programs dedicated to yogic education. He is the Advisor for Croatia at the European Yoga Council, member of European Yoga Federation and International Advisor of the World Yoga Council. He first meets eastern philosophies in the mid 80’s and, since then, in his rich life experience, he had the opportunity to meet and work with many great teachers of many different traditions such as Iyengar Yoga, Shivananda Yoga and his favorite Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. Besides his great knowledge on the asana practice and anatomy of human body, he is a passionate meditator and philosophy scholar in the field of Patanjali Yoga Sutras. In the nineties he received his education in yoga from Carlo Patrian, the teacher who, after spending many years in India in contact with the most renowned yoga teachers of the19th and 20th centuries, received the honorary title of “Yoga Ratna” and was the first person who brought yoga to Italy in the late 50-ies. After several years of study in direct contact with his teacher and mentor Carlo, received the diploma of Yoga Teacher in Milan at Carlo’s “Istituto Yoga”. In 2005 he moved to Croatia where he was invited to teach and soon after he developed the first croatian teacher training program for yoga teachers according to the high international standards of European Yoga Federation, Yoga Alliance and International Yoga Federation. In early 2012, he opened the Pink Elephant Yoga House with his wife Petra and, together with her, created a new program for yoga teachers called Pink Elephant Yoga Institute as well as a three-year program called School of Consciousness dedicated to practice of yogic philosophy. Institute is registered by the European Yoga Federation and recognized by the “World Movement for Yoga and Ayurveda” and “World Yoga and Ayurveda Community”. Marco is often invited to teach as guest teacher in many different countries. He constantly collaborates with many teachers and, in particularly with Swami Suryananda (Amadio Bianchi) with whom is bound by a profound respect and a long term friendship. He teaches Ashtanga, Vinyasa, meditation and philosophy classes. Marco’s classes contain a a great sense of precision, alignment, fluidity and strength, a lot of philosophical wisdom and … a touch of fun!
PETRA BIANCO
Petra grew up in a yogic environment in Zagreb as her parents were practicing and teaching Yoga back in eighties. They are her great inspiration and her first yoga teachers. In 2001, when she was working worldwide as a successful professional model, yoga became her daily practice, helping her to balance between worldly life under reflectors of fashion industry and her intimate nature of yearning for connection from within. Very soon she realized yogic path is her life calling and after finishing her carrier in 2010 she decided to enroll in teacher training program in Rishikesh and started teaching Ashtanga Vinyasa method on a daily basis. Today she is studying Ashtanga Vinyasa system under a guidance of her beloved teacher Eddie Stern who also introduced her with power of mantra chanting and puja performance. In 2012 her strong passion for pranayama practice brought her to study under the guidance and tradition of her great teacher, O.P.Tiwari, one of the few living masters in India teaching pranayama practice in a traditional way. With his blessing, guidance and yearly extensive education in pranayama teacher training program in Kaivalydhama Yoga Institute of India, she became the first registered pranayama teacher of this tradition in Croatia. Every year she is going back to Kaivalydhama to continue her studies with Tiwariji and his son Sudhir. She is a passionate TM meditator and today she is very grateful to her meditation master and guide Ananda Vdovic, amazing woman and well-known meditation teacher and musician, for guiding her on the path of self discovery since she was a teenager. In early 2012, together with her husband Marco, she opened the Pink Elephant Yoga House, well known house for Yoga in Croatia and developed one of the most complete teacher training program taught today in Zagreb and Rijeka called Pink Elephant Yoga Institute. Beside teaching in Pink Elephant and other places, she is a passionate traveler, philanthropist and sociologist by profession who loves to share her energy with people around the globe. Petra teachings are based on a deep understanding of all aspects of yoga: anatomical, philosophical and experiential. She is putting a lot of attention on traditional approach in teaching Ashtanga method, classical pranayama and Sutras and mantra chanting. She works a lot with mindful hands-on adjustments and energy transfer, breath and bandha work by focusing the attention of students towards their own personal experience and discoveries.