Our Team
Gobinday Yogic Health was conceived in 2007 by a Kundalini Yoga teaching community who began offering classes by donation, to everyone. We wanted to remove any physical or financial barriers to yoga. Over the years, we gained further training & experience: providing yoga therapeutically for people with health conditions, including anxiety, stress, trauma and burnout.
We took the pause of 2020 to formally structure ourselves as a nonprofit, leveraging the donation model into a fully sustainable model: supported by members, donors, and grants.
We are active members of our local community. We have had regular yoga fundraisers for the Worcester County Food Bank and the Interfaith Hospitality Network, now known as In the Hour of Need Family Shelter.
Going forward, we carry our experience and skills into serving the uniqueness of this present moment: yoga for all, resilience for all.
Shiv Antar Kaur
Founder & Yoga Teacher
Andrea Rigiero, Shiv Antar Kaur, has been serving as a certified kundalini yoga teacher, by donation, in the greater Worcester area since 2007. She has studied the therapeutic approach to teaching, offering chair yoga classes at UMass inpatient and outpatient departments for 2 years. She is a gentle and kind teacher. Her mission is to share this ancient technology with all individuals who seek personal growth & inner peace.
Hari Kirin Khalsa
Founder, Yoga Teacher & Yoga Therapist
Hari Kirin Khalsa, MD, C-IAYT, has been serving in health care since 1976, as a nurse’s aide, then a registered nurse who decided to go on to medical school. Midpoint into a busy career, she found yoga and meditation for her own stress reduction. She became a kundalini yoga teacher in her community, tandem with her medical practice. She began studying yoga for health recovery with Dr. Shanti Shanti Kaur in 2010, and completed medical yoga therapy training through the Guru Ram Das Center for Medicine and Humanology in 2019, joining their faculty. She serves as volunteer faculty for the University of Massachusetts Medical School and is a member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. In her lifelong participation in healthcare, she has been honored to witness the triumph of the human spirit. Her current mission is to empower this unique inner strength, via awareness, stress reduction, and lifestyle change.
BachanDev Kaur
Kundalini Yoga Teacher
BachanDev Kaur
Kundalini Yoga Teacher & Founding Member
Bachandev Kaur/Anne Renzi began practicing Kundalini Yoga in January of 2014. Bachandev/Anne served the public for over twenty years as a Massachusetts State Trooper and retired amidst health conditions likely exacerbated by chronic stress including Breast Cancer and Graves Disease (hyperthyroidism). Just a few weeks after retirement Bachandev/Anne “stumbled” into her first yoga class, a drop-in, by donation Kundalini Yoga class in Worcester, and immediately felt drawn to this practice. As she continued to attend classes her love for Kundalini Yoga and her Worcester yoga community grew and deepened and the practice and people became an integral and healing part of her life. Bachandev completed training to become a Kundalini Yoga teacher in 2017 and has since completed further therapeutic trainings with the vision and goal of sharing the tools and technologies of this transformative yoga which she considers a gift. Bachandev has a special love and interest in mantra and the sound current used in Kundalini Yoga and aspires to share this along with all other aspects of this practice for the holistic benefit of others.
Christine Croteau/Nam Nirmal
Kundalini Yoga Teacher & Founding Member
Christine Croteau/Nam Nirmal is a RYT 200 who has been practicing and teaching Kundalini Yoga/ Meditation for 12 years. She holds a MA in Social Rehabilitation Counseling/Disability Studies. Her teaching is informed by a multidisciplinary approach to life and draws upon all faiths especially Zen Buddhism and Catholic Mysticism. She has personal and professional experience in healing from addictions, trauma, pain/chronic illness and diabetes. She is also an Aunti/ Artist/Endurance Athlete/Activist/Community Organizer/Vegan-GF Cook/Outdoor Adventurer/and person thriving with Type 1 Diabetes. One of her passions is to bring yoga and meditation to undeserved populations.
Gioia Persuitte
Nutritionist & Founding Board Member
Gioia Persuitte is an epidemiologist that specializes in nutrition, lifestyle and behavioral interventions, and chronic diseases including diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and Inflammatory Bowel Disease, among others. She has designed and conducted lifestyle and behavioral interventions for over 10 years. Much of her work has focused on behavior science with an emphasis on permissive and not restrictive dietary patterns as well as small, targeted behavior change that has additional collateral effects on other components of diet and lifestyle. Gioia’s vision is that all individuals have access to science-based nutrition data and that the distillation of this information is easy to understand and culturally competent to ensure all individuals are empowered in their food and lifestyle endeavors.
Nicole Grace Frizzo
Founding Board Member
Nicole discovered Kundalini Yoga in 2016. The integration of the asanas with mantra and meditation quickly drew her into the practice. By day, Nicole runs the communications efforts for a Massachusetts-based retreat center. Her passion for providing access to holistic paths of health, wellness, and healing for all brought her to Gobinday. Nicole received a Certificate in Plant-based Nutrition from the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies and is working to empower individuals to find better health and overcome chronic disease through a whole food, plant-based diet. Nicole is a Usui Shiki Ryoho Reiki Master and Teacher and is trained in Yoga for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Nicole cares deeply for animal rights and participates in various forms of digital activism for the animals.