Healthier lifestyles powered by Punjabi music
a.k.a bhangra (about this)
Group exercise to Punjabi music, built to genuine fitness standards
Pungra is a voluntary organisation that facilitates group exercise built around Punjabi music. We believe in growing fitness classes, designed and delivered the same way any other credible fitness format is: by qualified instructors, structured around participant health rather than audiences.
Why the name Pungra, and not "bhangra fitness"?
In 2012, founder Ravi Sandhu came across a video of an instructor teaching a [supposedly] "bhangra workout" using the wrong music entirely, with movement that didn't match it — an honest mistake, born of nobody ever explaining the basics properly.
Ravi imagined what he'd teach that instructor first, if he ever got the chance: not a dance move, but how to say the word, bhangra, correctly.
That became the whole reason Pungra exists as its own name — a fitness format inspired by Punjabi-style movement, designed to the standard expected in fitness centres.
Our principles
- Exercise is at our core, not performing. Instructors coach for effort, not artistry — "push to the highest energy you can hold," not "you can make that look better."
- Non-stop and easy to follow, no choreography, taught on-the-fly to adapt to the class. Constant music, repeatable moves anyone can pick up, no need to "catch up" if you miss a week.
- Everybody participates, no spectators or audiences. No shows, no performing on a stage, no using social media to show-off. Our promotion is about participate with us, not "look how great we are"
- Turn up, exercise, go home. No costumes, instruments, apparatus, or dance divas. Not a conventional bhangra or performing-arts class — no need for any of the trappings of performance.
- Certified and insured, no cutting corners. Instructors working toward Exercise to Music Level 2 or equivalent, properly licensed and insured — no informal shortcuts (what the text calls desi kam). Classes are where future instructors are inspired, so we support people to become instructors.
What you can expect from a class:
- A structured warm-up, main session, and cool-down, led by a certified instructor
- No expectation that you become a good dancer — the class exists for your health, not a performance. We're not preparing for Punjab's Got Talent with Simondeep Cowell
- All fitness levels can join, as modifications are demonstrated
- No costume, no special footwear beyond supportive trainers, no experience needed, and beards and turbans are optional
Learn a lot more through the power of audiobooks
Fell In Love With Bhangra follows Sam Whitfield's real journey from a bored, restless spin instructor to a certified dance-fitness instructor building her own class from nothing.
Little Sam Falls In Love With Bhangra brings the same story to younger readers, following ten-year-old Sam from her first wobbly Saturday to starting her own lunchtime dance club at school.
Eat To Energise Or Release Body Fat brings real, practical recipes to the table — including shopping lists ready to go, so getting the ingredients is as easy as getting to class.
Fat Is Your Superpower argues that "eat less, move more" fails most people not from lack of willpower, but because it ignores the hormones — insulin above all — that actually decide whether the body stores or releases fat. A science-first case for why sustainable change starts with understanding your biology, not blaming yourself for it.
