While many believe yoga should be relaxing and meditative, yoga guru Bikram Choudhury’s systematic style challenges this popular assumption. A yoga style that pushes the body to its extreme in an intense temperature setting, Bikram Yoga aims to unite the mind, body, and spirit.
Developed by Choudhury, Bikram Yoga, also known as Hot Yoga, is practiced in a stifling room heated to 105 degrees F (about 40 degrees C) with humidity of about 40 percent. The classes, which extend about 90 minutes, include 26 postures and two breathing exercises.
Bikram Yoga is designed to stimulate and restore the body’s muscles, joints, and organs, while the room’s intense heat allows for more flexible stretching, less susceptibility to injury, and helps to relieve any stress and tension. A vigorous yoga session in a room at this temperature also, quite obviously, causes a lot of sweating, which is believed to rid the body of toxins.
Although the heat helps the body to stay more limber, Bikram Yoga beginners should stay well hydrated and adjust difficult poses to avoid injury.
Franchising Yoga
Born in Calcutta, India, in 1946, Choudhury founded the Yoga College of India in Beverly Hills in 1974. According to Choudhury—whether truth or fiction—he first arrived to the US after Richard Nixon, the 37th President of the US became impressed with the Indian guru’s treatments. Nixon, who was visiting the South Pacific in 1972, suffered from phlebitis, inflammation of veins caused by blood clots, and Choudhury gave the president specialized hot treatments. The treatments worked, and Nixon invited him to come and live in the US.
Once Choudhury arrived in America, he franchised his yoga style. Today, there’s a Bikram studio in nearly every major US city, with more than a million students served worldwide. Due to Bikram Yoga's popularity, it has been compared to McDonald’s, earning the nickname, “McYoga.”
Copyright Controversy
But Bikram Yoga has also faced controversy. In an effort to ensure that yoga students experience the exact technique, no matter which Bikram studio they attend, Choudhury instructs teachers for around $10,000 a session on his exact style of postures and breathing exercises. When a studio let a non-Bikram trained instructor teach the yoga, Choudhury said they were guilty of copyright infringement. Essentially, Choudhury argued in federal court that his specific sequence of yoga postures and breathing exercises should be eligible for copyright protection, and that Bikram Yoga only be taught by certified instructors who follow his guidelines.
These claims incited debate in the yoga world, where some have said yoga—an ancient Indian tradition that’s existed for thousands of years—cannot and should never be owned. Choudhury, who believes yoga should be practiced in a particular, coherent manner, was awarded in 2005 the copyrights to his yoga sequence, although his claims still face controversy today.
