Curriculum Vitae for
Shakta Kaur Khalsa
1259 Bond St.
Herndon, VA 20170
703 471 6935
info@childrensyoga.com
www.shaktakhalsa.com
Yoga Experience
Shakta Kaur Khalsa began practicing yoga in 1972, and has been practicing and teaching Kundalini Yoga since 1976. She is an IKYTA certified Kundalini Yoga instructor, a E-500 RYT with Yoga Alliance. Shakta is an internationally recognized teacher of yoga for both adults and children, having taught extensively at conferences and gatherings of a thousand or more, as well as weekly local classes for the past 30 years. She has also developed a certificate teacher-training program for children’s yoga called The Radiant Child Yoga Program (RCYP), from which she has trained thousands of yoga teachers, school teachers, therapists, parents and grandparents how to teach children yoga.
Education
Shakta Kaur Khalsa is an AMS trained Montessori educator since 1982. She owned and operated a Montessori School in Baltimore, MD for 6 years, and it was at that time that she developed a unique and highly effective program for teaching yoga to young children, weaving yoga into storytelling, and guiding them using relaxation techniques and meditations that incorporate visualizations, songs, and games. Kundalini yoga, which includes Hatha Yoga postures, is a very dynamic form of yoga, so it is perfectly suited to the active nature of children.
Shakta is also trained in Brain Gym, a kinesthetic approach to working with the brain through movement.
Career and Experience
After moving to Northern Virginia in 1989, she decided to use her Montessori and yogic training to specialize in children's yoga, traveling to both private and public schools and teaching as many as 400 children a week. She has taught yoga to children as young as 2 years old and as old as teenagers in drug rehabilitation programs. Her specialty is children ages 3-8, but she has a great love and understanding of children of all ages.
She has taught workshops to several Montessori schools in the Northern Virginia area, training the staff in children’s yoga. In 2001-2 the Fairfax County Summer School Program has asked her to be part of their special visitor program, traveling to different schools and teaching yoga to the children. She also travels nationally and internationally to teacher-train for children’s yoga. On her website, www.childrensyoga.com you will find the names of thousands of children’s yoga teachers from Alaska to Australia to Sri Lanka to Sweden, who have taken her courses.
Life Experience
Beside teaching yoga to children, Shakta is the mother of a 15 year-old son. Additionally, she and her husband, Kartar, have acted as parents to two young children (at different times) who were sent to live with them by the consent of the natural parents, because each of the children had some challenging behaviors—specifically--undiagnosed ADHD and DSI behaviors. Each lived with Shakta and Kartar for three years, and were successfully able to return to their parents, showing marked improvements.
She also teaches children yoga, meditation, and healthy living skills through 3HO (Healthy, Happy, Holy Organization) summer camps in New Mexico, Canada, Mexico, and parts of Europe. She is known in 3HO as “the Mrs. Rogers of 3HO”, and by the children as “Auntie Shakta”. In 1988, she lived in India and ran programs for children at Guru Ram Das Academy, her spiritual community (Sikh) school in India.
Authoring
Additionally, Shakta has authored several books: Fly Like A Butterfly: Yoga For Children (Sterling, 1998), The Five Fingered Family (The Brookfield Reader, l999), Kundalini Yoga (DK, Jan. 2001),, Keep It Simple Series (KISS) Guide to Yoga (DK, Aug. 2001) and most recently, Yoga for Women (DK, Oct. 2002). Her writings have appeared in Mothering magazine, Washington Parent, and Yoga International. She has produced several musical CDs as companions to her books. In 2006 she created two children’s albums, Happy and Cozy, which contain yoga themes, games and dances.
Teaching Style
Her book, KISS Guide to Yoga gave her the opportunity to study all the major paths of yoga, through studying the philosophy and techniques, interviews with masters and senior teachers, and actual experience of each style of yoga through taking classes. As a result, she is able to teach children’s yoga to yoga teachers of any tradition. Additionally, the unique style of Kundalini yoga is perfectly suited to children because of its creative and dynamic nature. Beside using the text Fly Like A Butterfly, she encourages participants to adapt the Radiant Child Yoga Program guidelines to suit each individual’s style of yoga. Shakta has also designed a handbook for teacher training, which is distributed to all participants in the program.
Her teaching style is perceptive, friendly, and fun. Adults become children and experience yoga the way children do. They play circle games, become animals, sing songs. Many have said that it was the most fun and inspiring class they’ve ever attended. In the second level of RCYP, participants network together in small groups to create mini yoga classes which they present to the class, followed by feedback from the group. Shakta makes sure they get all the basics covered as well, and have plenty of time for individual questions.
Website
Shakta’s website www.childrensyoga.com is an educational website where children can sample yoga, and parents can find teachers in their area, or ask questions about yoga and raising healthy, happy, whole children. Teachers who take the RCYP training can be listed on the site.
Her website, www.shaktakhalsa.com focuses on women’s yoga, Shakta’s poetry and prose, and inspiring information about yoga.
REFERENCES
Mary Rentschler, M. Ed.
Licensed Brain Gym Consultant and Instructor
202-244-8280
Elaina V. Sharp, MS, OTR/L
(360) 731-6987
Yolanda Oliver Yancey
Education/Disabilities Coordinator
Edward C. Mazique Parent Child Center in Washington D.C. (A federally funded program that services children from 0-5 years olds.)
work phone 202-462-3375 ext 242/
Home 410-997-0111
“What I do with children is unique, because in everything I do I address the body, mind, and spirit of the child. And I do this in ways that speak to the child, ways that are fun as well as effective. When I look at a child, I see a “big” soul in a small body. Every time I relate to a child in that awareness, I find, without fail, that the child will reflect that same consciousness back to me.” Shakta Kaur Khalsa |