| Bikram Choudhury | |
|---|---|
Bikram Choudhury at a book signing in New York in 2007. |
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| Born | February 10, 1946 Calcutta, West Bengal, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | yoga guru |
| Known for | founder of Bikram Yoga |
| Religion | Hinduism |
Bikram Choudhury (born February 10, 1946) is a multi-millionaire Indian yoga guru and the founder of Bikram Yoga, a form of hot yoga performed in a series of 26 hatha yoga postures done in a hot (105 degrees Fahrenheit or greater) environment. Choudhury is a student of Bishnu Ghosh (brother of Paramahansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi). The Bishnu Ghosh guru lineage has focused on translating Eastern philosophies and practices into a language that is more closely attuned to the Western mindset than can be found within their original traditional Indian contexts.
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Born in Calcutta, India, Bikram Choudhury began learning Hatha Yoga poses at the age of three. At five, he began studying with Bishnu Ghosh (Paramahansa Yogananda’s brother) and won the National India Yoga Championship four consecutive years in his teens.
With the guidance of his guru, Bikram created his 26 posture series which he claims restored his health.
At 14, Swami Shivananda declared him "Yogi Raj" (King of the Yogis). At age 20, a weightlifting accident crippled Bikram. Although he was told he would never be able to walk again, with the help of Ghosh, he claims to have fully recovered within 6 months. [1] As an adult he opened yoga schools in India and Japan, and in 1972 he opened his first U.S. school in San Francisco. Bikram arrived in the United States in 1973. Celebrities, athletes, and others began to flock to him. His main school is currently near Hollywood, California. In the 1990s he began offering nine-week teacher certification courses, and certified instructors now number in the thousands with Bikram Yoga studios all over the world.
Bikram's car collection includes over 40 Rolls Royces and Bentleys, including cars owned by the Queen Mother and the Beatles. His collection of watches numbers in the 100s, valued in the millions. 'It's huge,' he says, 'I'm making - I don't know - millions of dollars a day, $10 million a month - who knows how much?' [2]
He pioneered the world's first yoga franchising operation by charging operators fees to yoga studios that practice Bikram yoga. [3]
Bikram emphasizes his own celebrity interactions and his program's celebrity ties. Although he admires Madonna for being “extremely ruthless” when it comes to keeping in shape, he says she “treats people like dirt... If you disagree with her, you’re immediately blacklisted... She came to me and asked for private lessons. I would have none of that. If you are to learn from me, then you will have to come to my classes. You have to leave your starry airs and ego behind.”[4] “It is beyond medical science,” Bikram shrugs. He claims NASA scientists tested Bikram Yoga on osteoporosis patients for eight months, seeing a “100%” improvement, and has said: “They couldn’t write a thesis how this happened; I prove this every single day. Whether a president [such as Nixon, whom Bikram claims to have taught in 1972 and who then gave him an open invitation to live in the United States] or a prime minister [Indira Gandhi, whom he calls his godmother], or the Pope [Paul VI].” Bikram claims to have rejuvenated them all. “I saved years and years and years and years and years.” [5] Bikram's claim to have carried out research for NASA, although extensively repeated, has not been confirmed by that organisation. His claims to have treated Nixon are similarly unverified and do not appear in Nixon biographies. In a BBC radio documentary he claimed to have treated the Beatles in 1959, even though the Beatles had not been formed at that time.[6]
Bikram has pursued and received a copyright for his series of poses and aggressively pursued legal action against anyone who violates that copyright. On his website, Bikram announced, “No one may teach Bikram Yoga classes unless he/she is a certified and licensed Bikram Yoga teacher. No one may teach or certify others to become Bikram Yoga teachers other than Bikram Choudhury. No one may offer obvious, thinly disguised copies of Bikram Yoga and represent to the public that it is ‘their’ yoga.” There are significant disagreements about the validity and meaning of this copyright. Considering that Bikram himself took his postures from the ancient practice of Hatha yoga, what is he really copyrighting, a steam room?[7] In 1979, Choudhury first registered the copyright for Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class and then filed additional copyrights for various books, audiotapes and videotapes. [8]
Bikram has promised free yoga after completing their teacher training, unfortunately this is not honored at many Bikram sites. There are also dangerous claims made about the curative properties of Bikram yoga on significant diseases, including cancer. Also, Bikram is presented as a cure-all for weight issues.