Teacher / Therapist

Brief bio summary: 

I am dr. Japjeet Rajbir Kaur (° in Belgium, but based in the UK since 2011, most of that time in Leicester) and I have been teaching yoga for nearly 15 years now, of which 10 years full-time. I left my academic career (Belgium & USA) in 2011 to focus on teaching Kundalini Yoga and offering holistic therapies as a full-time practice after teaching yoga alongside my academic work for almost 5 years first. Alongside teaching daily yoga classes I also ran 3- and 8-day yoga retreats nearly every month (about 10-12 per year) for 7 of the past 10 years and I taught in teacher trainings around Europe. These last 3 years I have stopped travelling so intensively and my yoga teaching now mostly takes the form of daily group classes (online & in-person) and lots of 1-2-1 work alongside the holistic treatments I offer and my running of trainings in Restorative Massages and Closing the Bones.

One of my focuses throughout has been working with women. I have been running women’s circles & women’s retreats for over a decade, and my passion for working with women guided me to become a Closing the Bones practitioner & Closing the Bones trainer for the UK & Europe 6 years ago, and directed my focus in yoga, nutrition, aromatherapy and herbal medicine on different areas of women’s lives and womb work. A lot of what I offer is centered around fertility problems, PCOS, endometriosis, painful periods, as well as sexual and/or birth trauma. I am also a massage therapist, a postnatal doula, a nutrition & health coach, life & yoga coach, and an aromatherapist who makes (bespoke) organic homemade skincare & cleaning products. For 5 years in a row now (2017-2021), ThreeBestRated awarded me with their ‘Badge of Excellence’ as ‘Best Business of the Year’ for the category Yoga Classes in Leicester, testifying to the consistent quality of classes and services offered. After previous studies in Ayurveda and Functional Medicine I am now studying and training further in Yin Yoga & Chinese Traditional Medicine, as well as ongoingly studying Brahmvidya (Advaith teachings) with Swami Ram Singh ji.

Longer intro:

My name is Dr. Japjeet Rajbir Kaur Khalsa (before becoming a Sikh I was known as Dr. Nele Bemong) and I have been practicing yoga for about 17 years now, teaching for 14, almost 15 years. After having practiced Hatha Yoga for a few years, I came into contact with Kundalini Yoga and immediately experienced the transformational power of this 'Yoga of Awareness'. I started teaching Kundalini Yoga in 2008 in Belgium, where - alongside my work as a postdoctoral researcher at Leuven University - I taught up to 5 KY classes per week and experienced what a difference this yoga practice can make to people's lives. In the winter of 2011 I left my academic career in Belgium behind to fully focus on my work as a Kundalini Yoga (KY) teacher and to develop new programs in the UK.

Ever since January 2011 I have been teaching KY in the UK. I teach regular KY classes in Leicester and run half-day and full-day workshops on specific themes, weekend workshops, and week retreats, both in the UK and in mainland Europe. I also regularly work together with other teachers and holistic therapists, teaching at health retreats or spiritual awakening retreats, and I teach yoga at Sikh camps around the UK. Over the past years I have specialised in, amongst others, KY for stress management, burnout, depression and anxiety; addiction recovery; pre- and postnatal yoga; and men’s, women's and relationships teachings.

I am also a nutrition & health coach, a yogic massage therapist, aromatherapist, life coach and yoga coach, postnatal doula and Closing the Bones practitioner as well as Closing the Bones trainer.

Partly thanks to over a decade of working in academia writing a PhD, doing 7 years of postdoctoral research, combined with teaching and holding a Chair at Penn University in Philadelphia (US), I have build up a strong reputation for my rich yogic knowledge and my ability to bring deeply complex teachings in a way that is very easy to understand and grasp for all, whether students have any prior knowledge or not. I am deeply spiritual yet at the same time very down-to- earth and ‘real’, and know how to make the yogic teachings practical, tangible and easy to integrate in a modern Western life. I am very open and direct in my teachings and will cut to the essence, but will always do so with a lot of love for and always in service of the students.

Teacher

Japjeet teachingFormal Qualifications

  • Kundalini Research Institute (KRI) and International Kundalini Yoga Teachers Association (IKYTA) certified Kundalini Yoga teacher (Aquarian Teacher Level 1 - 200 hrs with Gurumarka Singh & Aquarian Teacher Level 2 - 300 hrs with Karam Kriya School)
  • Previously served as an Intern Teacher Trainer of the KRI Aquarian Trainer Academy, through Karam Kriya School under lead trainer Shiv Charan Singh - now resigned since July 2020.
  • Certified baby, toddler, children and teenagers Yoga teacher - Radiant Child Yoga Program RCYP Level 1 & 2 (20 hrs) with Cristin Melissa Tighe, 2009
  • Certified Facilitator for the Kundalini Yoga Women's Program 'Excel & Celebrate - The Radiance of Woman' (20 hrs) with Pritpal Kaur, 2009
  • Certified teacher Mastering the Addictive Personality (60 hrs - KYTA certified) with Carolyn Cowan, 2014
  • Specialised pregnancy (prenatal) and postnatal yoga teacher and postnatal doula (The Mother's Journey - 50 hrs), 2016
  • Restorative (Yogic) Massage therapist since 2013 and trainer since 2016
  • Closing the Bones Practitioner since September 2016
  • Closing the Bones Trainer since October 2018
  • Certified Aromatherapist
  • Currently training as a Yin Yoga teacher
  • Currently training as an EFT Practitioner
  • PhD in Literary Studies from the K.U.Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven), Belgium, 30 May 2007.
  • Masters in Germanic Languages & Literature from the K.U.Leuven, 2001.
  • Bachelor in Germanic Languages & Literature from the K.U.Leuven, 1999.

Awards Won

  • For 6 years in a row (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022), ThreeBestRated has awarded Shuniya Kundalini Yoga with their ‘Badge of Excellence’ as ‘Best Business of the Year’ for the category ‘Yoga Classes in Leicester', testifying to the consistent prime quality of classes and services offered: https://threebestrated.co.uk/yoga-classes-in-leicester
  • In 2020 - after almost a full year of online classes due to Leicester's year of lockdown - GHP (Global Health Pharma) awarded Shuniya Kundalini Yoga with their Fitness & Nutrition Awards for "Yoga School of the Year - Leicestershire": https://www.ghp-news.com/winners-list/ and https://www.ghp-news.com/winners/shuniya-kundalini-yoga/
  • Shuniya Kundalini Yoga got chosen as the 2021-2022 winner 'Yoga Studio of the Year' in the Central England's Prestige Awards, and the same organisation awarded her for 2022-2023 the title 'Yoga Specialist of the Year'.