SURYA WORLD TEAM

Stephane Chollet

Stephane has been teaching yoga and martial arts for over 25 years during which he has lived in various parts of Asia (Himalayas, India, China & Nepal) refining his practice. He started the practice of martial arts and Tai Chi in 1984 before discovering Yoga in 1986 with Jean Villetelle, a student of Gérard Blitz and Michel Coquet in the lineage of Krishnamacharya from Chennai. He is an international figure, regularly holding workshops and master classes in Canada, France, UK, USA and Mexico and organises regular trips to Asia.

With a background and education in computer science and project management, Stephane recognised the need for a rational process of self-development and wellness going beyond the limitations of traditionalism and postmodern materialism. His approach is an integral synthesis of methodologies for self-development and wellness that is both traditional and modern with its origins in the various branches of Yoga, Ayurveda and Chinese traditions.

Karla Alvarez Chollet

Karla is a certified nutritionist, astrologer and yoga teacher.

She began practicing yoga at a very early age with her parents, both of whom are yoga instructors from the GFU, so grew up with the philosophy of yoga as education since childhood. In 2000 she completed a workshop with Baptise Marceau (Ashtanga Yoga) and in 2001 – 2002 travelled to India to immerse herself deeper into the practice of asanas. Karla completed a 3-month yoga teacher certification at Pathanjala Yoga Kendra Foundation in Bangalore, India with Masterji M.S Vishwanatha (Ashtanga Yoga) nephew of Phathabhis Jois. That same year she met Stephane Chollet and has since been studying Yoga permanently with him in France and throughout their travels in India, Mexico, U.S.A, China and Thailand, developing her practice of Yoga and other disciplines such as Tai Chi and Chi Gong. Karla also organizes workshops, seminars and retreats in México, France and India to transmit the knowledge of Yoga.

Jite Brume

Jite is a Yoga teacher, a Reiki healer, an architect and landscape consultant who has been teaching yoga and meditation since 2008. She spends her time deepening her understanding of the environment, different cultures and the science of Yoga through learning, teaching and project work in Africa, Europe and Asia with various organisations. Her whole life is devoted to “improvement”, be it personal, social, inner or environmental.

In 2002 Jite began receiving on-going support and mentorship from Stephane Chollet, developer of Suryashtanga Yoga, and came to a deep understanding of how its traditional roots were so well adapted to our modern challenges.  In 2013 she became a fully certified Surya World teacher.

Jite is a professional Reiki healer of the Angelic and Usui Systems of Natural Healing, trained in France, Japan and UK from 2006 under Reiki masters Nita Mocanu and Amanda Radix.

She is an Architectural Association graduate and studied at the Permaculture Research Institute, Australia with Geoff Lawton.

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Anthony Marconi

Anthony Marconi earned a university degree in cell biology, which he applies in unconventional ways in the field of innovative water quality
evaluations.

He met Stephane Chollet in 2002 around a shared passion for martial arts and Chinese kung-fu in particular. India has equally fascinated him ever since he began reading its epics at a young age. Nonetheless, and in spite of his early involvement in what would become Surya World, it wasonly in 2010 that he undertook a serious study and practice of Yoga, obtaining his certification from Stephane in 2013. Since then, he strives to increase his knowledge and skills so he can share the jewels  received from his teachers on numerous trips. Whether in a plane or on a yoga mat…he particularly enjoys passing on the rich theory and practice of Suryashtanga Yoga to those attending the various Surya World teacher training sessions.

Aside from this, Anthony has a passion for health and fitness, books and new technologies.

Claudette Ah-Soon

Claudette is a Suryashtanga, Hunyan Tai Chi teacher and Shiatsu Yin massage therapist that has been living in Montreal since 2013. She is also responsible for Surya World in North America.

She is a native from the Reunion Island and she started her research in martial arts in Europe and Asia in 2001. This led her to meet Stéphane Chollet in 2006, who subsequently became her martial arts teacher and alongside this, opened her to the practice of yoga. At the same time, she started training in Shiatsu Yin in Strasbourg and Paris to increase her understanding of the eastern energetic arts and became a fully qualified Shiatsu practitioner in 2011.

Claudette holds a degree in applied mathematics and worked for several years as a biostatistician for research in the public sector as well as for multinational companies in France and in Switzerland.

Following a transformative trip to India in 2011, Claudette resolved to completely devote her life to Surya World, using teaching and massage therapy to help people get their health in shape, discover and develop their full potential in order to raise more love and awareness.

Suzy Mendes

Suzy is product manager in the child fashion industry and has been teaching yoga since 2007.

She has been interested in the foundations of yoga practice since her very first classes. On discovering the ancient texts, Suzy realised that the postural yoga she encountered in Europe was fundamentally different from the traditional teachings.

Following her teacher training, Suzy participated in numerous courses and workshops, which enabled her to increase her knowledge of biomechanics and postures. However, she gradually oriented her practice towards meditation. Despite her efforts she found the direction of the teachings she encountered fairly limited, with methods that did not seem appropriate for a Westerner.

During the summer of 2010, she met Stéphane and the Surya team and she decided to join them. The particularly relevant approach of the provided teachings and philosophy of the group convinced her to take an active part running the organisation.

She is deeply convinced that the combination of the physical workout and the mental and spiritual practices proposed by Surya offer a coherent and modern method of accessing the richness of the forgotten traditional teachings of Patanjali’s 8 Limbed Yoga.

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Aurélien Martin

Aurélien is passionate about teaching and the transmission of values and knowledge. Out of this passion, Aurélien made a career in becoming a math teacher. Wanting to delve deeper into the education and the assistance of struggling youth, he now is furthero in charge of a group dealing with school drop outs and leads an organisation that assists young people facing various difficulties in a sensitive district of Paris.

His personal progression in the search of a sport that would combine physical, mental and spiritual practice first led him to Wing Chun and then to yoga. Motivated by the idea of sharing, he began to train as a yoga teacher in order to share its values of love and selflessness through Surya.

When he met Stéphane and the rest of the Surya World team, he was moved by their set of values and their humanistic projects and decided to offer his skills in accounting in the running of the organisation in Paris.

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Karina Alvarez

Karina Alvarez is a certified nutritionist, vegan coach, yoga instructor, mother of four and has been living in San Diego since 2001.

Karina’s passion is to promote a mindful lifestyle to achieve physical, mental and spiritual health for each individual and make positive changes for the environment. Karina is well armed to provide holistic and complete guidance to those in need of advice to improve their health, increase energy, learn healthy cooking or practice yoga.

Karina earned her B.S. in Nutrition in 1999. She loves to help others and since 2013 she started “Cooking for a Change” where she runs challenges to promote vegan cooking and eating, provides nutritional coaching, teaches vegan cooking lessons to adults, runs summer cooking camps for kids, shares delicious video recipes and shares her limitless enthusiasm for enjoying life following a healthy lifestyle.

Karina obtained her Yoga instructor certification early 2018 in India through Surya World organization. She has travelled to India multiple times with the Surya team and this has allowed her to learn the ancient science of Ayurveda, meditation, yoga and spirituality as practiced and taught over there.

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Matthieu Marzo

It is thanks to his father that Matthieu was able to enter into spirituality at a very young age through meditation and readings. Then, after many trips to Asia, he met Surya-World in 2015 in India.

Since this decisive meeting, he fully committed himself to practice and then teaching. Working in the name of Surya allows him today to combine his job as a video maker, his passion for travelling and ecology, and his thirst for spirituality, in an altruistic and committed organization.

Today, Matthieu is a Suryashtanga Yoga teacher and is in charge of Surya-World in Tours. He is fully invested in the team effort with the firm goal to contribute on his own scale to the improvement of the planet.

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Bernhard Obojes

Bernhard experienced the benefits of yoga for our physical and emotional well-being when his path crossed with Surya-Montreal in 2016. Encouraged by the efficiency of the techniques suggested by Stéphane Chollet, and the altruistic values on which Surya is based, he completed the yoga teacher training.

Since 2017, Bernhard teaches Suryashtanga yoga to share the practice which allowed himself to find more harmony and fulfillment. He gradually learned more about the wider meaning of yoga behind the physical exercises for which it is known in the West. Yearly trips with Surya-World to India since 2017 helped him to dive deeper into traditional yogic teachings, while at the same time learning about their relevance in today’s world and their complementarity with modern science.

Bernhard is dedicated to contribute his part to the Surya community: to introduce it to more people and create an open space for everyone who is interested in taking a step back from everyday’s life, re-charge and open up to new perspectives.

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Marine Le Bihan

Marine works in the field of renewable energies and has been practicing yoga since 2012 and teaching since 2017. She initially encountered yoga during her studies in India and discovered it as a wonderful tool to balance both body and mind.

Back in Paris, she started practicing ashtanga yoga and had a breakthrough realization about the importance of breath, She thereafter began studying Suryashtanga yoga with Suzy and joined the organisation. This represents the beginning of a training that corresponds with her interests and passion for reading.

Through Surya, Marine finds opportunities to actively contribute on a daily basis to ecological and humanitarian causes and deepen her knowledge in yoga. She now wants to pass on what she experienced in well-being through her yoga practice and the teachings of Surya.

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Mathias Laniern

Mathias is an Osteopath and a Yoga teacher. In his words:

“From my point of view these two disciplines are very complementary, in their therapeutic and preventive perspectives. I think that Osteopathy is the Western therapy that best makes the connexion between East and West, particularly through the study of practical and abstract, or subtle, anatomy with fascias and energetic fields or channels.

Yoga and Ayurveda thus inform and complete my daily therapeutic practice. Through this, I convey Yoga asana practice using my anatomical knowledge to enrich my teaching and provide more details and precisions to my students. I definitely believe our stronger point with Surya is to embody and express a synthetic and practical scientific view of Eastern cultures that eases the connexion between East and West, for the benefit of everybody.”

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