Kavya Shetty

Physiotherapist | Weekend yoga teacher | Bengaluru

I'm a Bengaluru-based physiotherapist, working mostly with people navigating everyday aches, sports injuries and the return to activities they enjoy. I like making rehab practical: a manageable plan that fits someone's day is more useful than a perfect one that doesn't. On weekends, I teach small-group yoga classes with room for questions, modifications and the occasional wobble. Outside work, I'm usually up early, cooking something from my mother's Mangalorean recipe notebook, reading a memoir or planning a long weekend in Mulki.

Teach Saturday morning small-group yoga classes in JP Nagar. Plan accessible sequences, offer individual modifications and keep time for participants to ask questions rather than rush through the last stretch.

Provide outpatient musculoskeletal assessment and rehabilitation at a neighbourhood clinic in Jayanagar. Work with recreational runners, desk-based professionals and people returning to activity after injury; build home programmes around their routines and review progress regularly.

Supported outpatient rehabilitation under senior physiotherapists, including supervised exercise sessions, patient education and clinical documentation. Developed a particular interest in helping people regain confidence with everyday movement.

Musculoskeletal Assessment, Exercise Prescription, Patient Education, Sports Injury Rehabilitation, Functional Rehabilitation, Clinical Documentation, Yoga Instruction, Movement Modification

English, Kannada, Tulu, Hindi

A small change I've made to home-exercise discussions: asking, “Where in your day could this actually go?” before adding another exercise. Sometimes the answer is after the morning tea. Sometimes it's during the ten minutes before the school pickup. We still discuss the clinical priorities, but the plan has to survive an ordinary Tuesday. I'm learning that a useful question can do more than a longer instruction sheet.

One year of teaching Saturday morning yoga, and I now carry spare straps, a small notebook and absolutely no expectation that every class will run exactly as planned. Teaching alongside clinic work has made me more attentive to how I explain movement. “Try this version” tends to open a conversation. “You should be able to” tends to close it. Also, setting up before a 7 am class remains excellent motivation to sleep on Friday.

Back from a few days in Mulki, where my surfing instructor reminded me to stop looking down at my feet. Very sensible advice, which I immediately forgot once the board started moving. Being a beginner at something is a useful reset. There is a difference between understanding an instruction and being ready to do it, especially when you're nervous. Taking that reminder back to the clinic this week, along with a considerable amount of sand.

Spent part of this week simplifying the exercise handouts I use in the clinic. Fewer crowded pages, clearer starting positions and space to write down the changes we agree on together. A handout isn't much help if someone has to decode it once they get home. Not the most glamorous corner of physiotherapy, but a satisfying one. My notebook now contains several very earnest stick figures.