Yannis Detorakis was born in Athens, Greece, in 1967 and his parents come from Crete. He started free diving and scuba diving at the age of 17 and continues since. He studied biology and made several research programs in diving - hyperbaric physiology.

He is a scuba and free diving instructor since 1991 (today a Master Instructor PADI) and a Free Diver Instructor Trainer CMAS since 2002.

He is the first PADI Freediving Instructor in Greece since 2004 and since 2016 he is a Freediver Instructor Trainer PADI for the new PADI Free diving courses.

Yannis is a designer of Free Diving Courses: At 2001 he founded his Diving Center "Atlantis Diving" in Athens and at 2004 he started his own - designed 3 PADI Free Diving Distinctive Specialties (Free Diver - Advanced Free Diver and Master Free Diver) teaching hundreds of student free divers the following years.

As an author he has written 6 books about free diving: The History, The Technique for the first 10 meters, The Physiology, The Equipment and others, now being translated in English.