About Me
Amrei Marden & Bikram Yoga Sapphire Coast
A former Australian yoga asana champion, Amrei has been practicing Bikram yoga since 2001 and has taught well over 10 thousand public Bikram classes, over 1000 private lessons and many Posture Refinement Q&A workshops across Europe, Scandinavia, New Zealand, America, Asia as well as Australia. She is considered an authority in the Bikram Yoga world. Since 2009, she has coached and judged students competing both in Australia and internationally. She has mentored students to become teachers since 2006 and in 2021 began an ongoing very successful Bikram yoga teacher training program with master Dev Kapil.
Amrei is currently President of the YSAA, and former judge for the IYSF (International Yoga Sports Federation). Amrei has a deep & wide ranging understanding of Bikram yoga and her passion is contagious with a unique ability to inspire others, from the complete beginner to experienced students. Amrei specialises in injury recovery and pain management and strongly believes that everyone can experience the healing benefits of Yoga to feel ease and joy in their practise and daily life.
Being at Bikram Yoga Sapphire Coast is a transformative experience, far beyond the yoga itself. Learning under Amrei's guidance is simply amazing. She provides incredible individual focus on everyone's unique journey with the perfect balance of challenging and nurturing depending on what is required. She has endless knowledge and no question is too stupid. Her good humour makes it an incredibly fun experience, while her humbleness and willingness to walk-the-talk is inspirational and something to aspire to.
- Christoph Herrmann
All teachers at Bikram Yoga Sapphire Coast are certified Bikram Yoga teachers. Bikram Teacher Training is an intense, comprehensive 9 week program, covering the asanas (postures) of Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class, anatomy, therapeutic applications, yoga history and philosophy, pranayamas and health benefits of yoga.
Amrei graduated as a Bikram Yoga teacher in June 2006 directly from Bikram Choudhury, founder of Bikram Yoga. Whilst participating in the world yoga championships in 2009 she met her current teacher Dev Kapil. Since then Dev Kapil has continuously overseen her growth as a teacher and practitioner of Bikram and Progressive Hatha Yoga.
At the end of 2001 I decided to move to Vienna (Austria) to see if I could further develop my ballet career in this artistic city.
My best friend and I rented a tiny 10 square meter room that was semi – attached to someone’s flat. In the middle of December – while the owners were away for ski holidays – our heater broke…Outside was minus 20 degrees celsius and I couldn’t get warm even under three jumpers. To keep warm I would go to a local coffee shop, on the walk there was a Bikram studio… it felt like a gift from heaven... yoga in a HOT room! (Even though previously I had walked past this same Bikram studio with my nose up in the air, thinking what an absurd idea to use artificial heat to warm up your muscles rather than just working hard…Russian ballet dancers dance without heat in the middle of winter after all…;-)
Anyway... I was back the next day with yoga clothes, water and towel and hooked after the first class, not only because of the heat but because Bikram Yoga was the first thing that I found that could give me the same workout and satisfaction, physical cleansing and mental clarity in 90 minutes that prior to that only a whole day of dancing could give me.
In fact it could give me so much more: that yoga buzz after class; the feeling of really working 100 percent of my body every single class: the calming of the mind...
I knew instantly that my reason for being in Vienna was not to dance but to find Bikram Yoga!
I was about to go to Teacher Training in 2001 but then received the offer of another dance scholarship in the most renowned dance program in Australia, at the Victorian College of the Arts and decided to take that opportunity first. While finishing my Bachelor of Dance at the Victorian College of the Arts, I fell pregnant with my first daughter and thought that was the end of my dream of becoming a Bikram yoga teacher completely.
However my then husband supported me to attended Bikram Teacher Training in April 2006 in Los Angeles with little 8 month old baby girl Aninha in tow.
As soon as I returned to Australia, June 2006, I started teaching full time for Tessa Silluzio, the owner of the Bikram Yoga Richmond and Prahran studios in Melbourne. During my time with Tessa I taught the majority of private classes, mentored other teachers and managed the studios whenever Tessa was away.
Since moving to the Sapphire Coast in 2011 I have taught all over Australia, Europe and Asia getting to know many wonderful yoga communities, teachers and students…but nothing excites me as much as sharing what I love with my home community. Opening Bikram Yoga Sapphire Coast in Mai 2012 was the best and scariest thing I have ever done career wise - especially after Bikram said to me: “ Amrei, opening a Bikram studio in a 600 people town is business suicide!”
Well, I did it anyway 😊
How many people are lucky enough to make a living of what they love in a place they love living??? I feel truly blessed !
I have witnessed this yoga’s amazing healing capacities not only in fellow teachers and hundreds of students, but on my own body. Recovering from a bad back injury after a badly injected epidural for the emergency c-section during Aninha’s birth. I went from being in constant pain and being unable to even relax my head backwards without tears of pain in half moon, to doing full wheel within 6 months of practising Bikram yoga correctly.
Thanks to teaching full time and practicing yoga daily, pregnancy and birth were a totally different – wonderful- experience with my second daughter, Neeyah in 2008 then in 2016 my son Noah and again 2021 for my son Miko. Plus it makes me a better mum, wife and human being every day! I feel that bringing Bikram Yoga to the Sapphire Coast is my way of giving back to my community here and offering a space to escape for city yogis who want to reconnect with themselves and nature in our beautiful place of the world!
I am sure that teaching and practicing yoga is what I was meant to do in this world and I feel incredibly grateful for all that my life has become with and through Yoga. Yoga has not only given me the best job I could ever wish for, it has quite simply saved my life during a very dark time and healed my body from chronic pain and injuries multiple times!
I believe practising and teaching yoga helps me become a better version of myself inside and out…maybe I will see you at the studio soon to share the magic of Bikram Yoga with you.
If you show up with an open mind, patience and most of all some kindness for yourself, you will be able to heal just about anything... any questions?
Just come to class or give me a call on 0416092225.
Have Questions? Amrei will answer you personally:
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