The yoga teacher world champions trained with.
Thirty years of rehabilitation and peak-performance coaching — Olympic medallists, Formula 1 drivers, international cricketers. Today Sukhdev works privately in Singapore with people who simply need their body to work again.
Three people walk through this door
He does not run classes. Every programme is built for one body, after he has watched it move.
The one who has stopped bending
Forty to sixty, desk-bound, a back that has been “a bit off” for years and is now dictating what you will and won’t do. Physio helped for a fortnight. The pain came back because nothing upstream changed.
Back pain & posture →The athlete with a ceiling
Golfers losing rotation, runners breaking down at the same distance, players whose recovery is the thing holding back the season. This is the work Sukhdev did on tour for twenty years.
For athletes →The team that sits all day
Companies who have noticed that a floor of people hunched over laptops is a health cost, not a productivity gain. On-site sessions and workshops that people actually turn up to twice.
Corporate →Three decades. Some of it on the world stage.
He does not lead with these names. But when someone asks whether yoga can really change how a body performs, this is the answer.
- 1996Represented India at the Asian Triathlon Championships
- 2001–2005Personal yoga & conditioning coach to Jyoti Randhawa, Asian Tour No. 1 golfer
- 2003–2004Coach to Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore ahead of his Olympic silver medal in shooting
- 2005Worked with Ernie Els, four-time Major champion
- May 2007Worked with the India squad at Eden Gardens, Kolkata — photographed by The Telegraph with Sourav Ganguly and by The Indian Express with Sachin TendulkarThe Telegraph, Calcutta, 4 May 2007 · The Indian Express, 5 May 2007
- 2007Invited by the BCCI, alongside Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram
- 2008Travelled with the Indian squad on the Australia tour
- 2008–2011Performance and recovery coach to Mark Webber, Formula 1 Grand Prix winner
- 2012–presentBased in Singapore. Private practice in yoga therapy, posture correction and athletic performance
Kolkata, May 2007
Two national newspapers photographed him working with the India squad at Eden Gardens on consecutive days. The cuttings are his own.
Yoga expert Sukhdev Kumar helps Sourav Ganguly familiarise himself with “cooling-down techniques” at the Eden on Thursday. Kumar, who flew in from Singapore, had yoga sessions with the players at the team hotel in the morning and evening.
Sachin Tendulkar (L) with his yoga instructor Sukhdev Kumar at a practice session in Kolkata on Friday.
Quoted from the published captions. Neither newspaper, nor any player, endorses this business — these are contemporaneous reports of work he did.
Three steps, no membership
A free 15-minute call
On WhatsApp video. You describe what hurts and what you want back. He asks you to try two or three movements on camera. At the end he tells you honestly whether this will work — and if it won’t, who you should see instead.
A 90-minute assessment
How you stand, breathe, rotate and load, measured and filmed. You leave with a written plan you can start that week, not a vague suggestion to “do more stretching”.
Ten sessions
Ten is the honest number for structural change. The programme is rebuilt every third session as your body changes, and at session ten he shows you the week-one footage next to today’s.
This is closer to physiotherapy than to a yoga class
A studio class has one teacher, thirty bodies, and a sequence decided before anyone walked in. It is a good hour of exercise. It is not treatment.
Here, nothing is decided until Sukhdev has watched you move. Then the programme is built for your hip, your shoulder, your breathing pattern — and rewritten as those change.
- One person in the room, not thirty
- Filmed on day one so progress is a fact, not a feeling
- Breath assessed first — most chronic pain has a breathing pattern behind it
- Works alongside your doctor or physio, never instead of them
Questions people ask
I am not flexible at all. Is this for me?
Flexibility is the result, not the requirement. Most people who come to Sukhdev cannot touch their toes and have not exercised in years. If you could already do it, you would not need a coach.
How is this different from a yoga class at a studio?
A studio class has one teacher and thirty bodies, and the sequence is decided before anyone walks in. Here the programme is built after Sukhdev has watched you move, and it is rebuilt as you change. It is closer to physiotherapy than to a group class.
Do you come to my home or condo?
Yes. Sessions run either at the studio on Teo Hong Road in Tanjong Pagar, or at your home, condo gym or office anywhere in Singapore. Home sessions are the same price within the central districts.
I have a diagnosed injury or a slipped disc. Can you still work with me?
Often yes, and it is a large part of the practice — but not always, and Sukhdev will tell you honestly on the free call. Where there is an existing diagnosis he will work alongside your doctor or physiotherapist, not instead of them.
How long before I feel a difference?
Most people feel something in the first two sessions — usually in how they breathe and sleep. Posture and pain patterns take longer. Ten sessions is the honest number for structural change.
Start with a free 15-minute call.
Tell him what hurts and what you want to do again. He will tell you honestly whether he can help.