Yannis Detorakis
The Freediver Instructor and Instructor Trainer
Yannis Detorakis experience in training freedivers and freediving instructors, exceeds 2,000 certified students, from 2001 to date! But his experience in freediver training spans 38 years, since 1988!
He certified hundreds of freedivers and freediving instructors, from 2016 to 2026, as one of the first PADI Freediver Instructor Trainers worldwide. Between 2017 and 2026 he was the Freediving Training Director at Spyros Kartelias PADI CDC Dive Center in Athens, Greece.
He certified more than 1,500 freedivers the years 2004 – 2016 as the first PADI Freediver Instructor in Greece, teaching his own designed PADI distinctive specialties, at his 5 Star PADI Diving Center “Atlantis Diving” in Athens, Greece. The Freediver courses he designed in 2004 were soon to become the official 3 levels in PADI freediver training (at 2016): Freediver, Advanced Freediver and Master Freediver.
Yannis certified hundreds of freedivers at his Atlantis Diving Center between 2001 and 2004, being one of the first CMAS Freediving Instructors in Greece (2001). At 1995 Yannis and his partners created the first Freediving School in Greece (Kifisia Divers Club, Athens, Greece) and certified the first freedivers in Greece. For 3 years (1988 – 1990) Yannis organized the famous 6-month cycle of Freediving Seminars, at the Glafkos Spearfishing Club, in Athens, Greece, as an elected member of the Club’s managing board.
The Author of Books and Manuals for Freediving
Yannis has published a series of books and manuals about freediving since 1995. Some of them are unique in the world, like the biography of Stathis Hatzis, The Physiology of Freediving and the Equipment of Freediving. His books can be found printed in hard cover or as kindle e-books at all Amazon bookstores, in English and Greek editions. The books are the following:
– Freediving: The Guide for the First 10 Meters.
– Freediving: The Guide to 20 Meters.
– Freediving: The Physiology, A Complete Guide for the 3 Levels of Freediving.
– Freediving: The Equipment, A Complete Manual for the 3 Levels of Freediving.
– Freediving: Narcosis at Extreme Depths – and CO2 Narcosis During Ascent, a new theory published for the first time.
– Freediving: The Story of Stathis Hatzis and the History of sponge-fishing freedivers in Greece.
– Stathis Hatzis: The Son of Glafkos.
Yannis Detorakis’ books are made from experience in real training and try to give the freediver the knowledge and skills he will need to develop, in order to improve his performance, safely, in freediving. A feature of each book are the hundreds of underwater photographs from the real training of the author’s students, step by step in freediving, in the open sea.
The Spearfishing Hobbyist
Yannis is a hobbyist freediver and spearfishing enthusiast since child hood, he caught his first large grouper at an age of 15, in 1982, spearfishing near his home in Kavala, Greece.
At an age of 20, in1987, he became Champion in the annual spearfishing Galfkos Cup, at Patroklos island, Attica, Greece (Category Young Athletes). The next year (1988) he and his team won the second place in the Gafkos Cup (Tolo, Greece).
The next 2 years (1989-1990) Yannis organized, as the Club elected Secretary, the Glafkos Spearfishing Games Cups each year (Hydra Island, Greece), creating new, modern, gaming rules for the Cup.
He also organized the first Underwater Shooting Games in Greece, for Glafkos Club (1989, Kifisia, Athens, Greece).
At 1994 he left the spearfishing champion-ships proposing a much needed new, environmentally friendlier, rule for the games (one fish – one species bonus).
At 1995 Yannis produced and directed the first Spearfishing movie in Greece (titled: “Underwater fishing- its method and its Fish”) for Cressi sub – Greece, that become a best seller in VHS the following years.
The Scuba diver and Scuba Instructor
Yannis became a scuba diver at an age of 17 years old (in 1984). The following years he completed many specialties and became a CMAS Scuba Instructor in 1990. From 2001 to 2017 he certified hundreds of scuba divers, at his Diving Center, as a PADI Master Instructor, teaching all the PADI Courses and more than 15 PADI Scuba diving Specialties.
The Underwater Photographer
Yannis took underwater photography as his new hobby after 2000 and his underwater photographs soon won many awards in Greece. In 2008 the “Golden Hall” in Athens made a large exhibition with Yannis photos in freediving, scuba diving, macro photography and underwater scenery and wrecks.
He has published thousands of his photographs of freediving training in his books about freediving and he created the book “The underwater micro-cosmos of Greek Mani”, with hundreds of his award-winning macro photos.
The Biologist and Diving Physiology Researcher
Yannis studied biology at the Kapodistrian University of Athens.
He organized research programs in Hyperbaric Oxygen Physiology, creating a small experimental Hyperbaric Chamber at the University and studying blood and brain hormones changes in repetitive dives. His university professors in Biology and Experimental Pharmacology offered him a PhD to continue these programs, but the sea and freediving finally won his complete attention for the following years.