Bend it Like Bikram

"Welcome to Bikram's torture chamber to kill yourself for next 90 minutes."

- Bikram Choudhary's way of starting his class

When I came back from vacation and got my school schedule, I stared at it for about 25 minutes, trying to comprehend how I had only one class a day except for Monday, when I would have three. I realized, soon enough, that this is what happens when you're only taking 4 courses. Queen's Commerce way of saying, "It's your last semester! Enjoy it!" So I decided to add another course to my schedule: Bikram's Hot Yoga.

Bikram's Hot Yoga is an exact set of 26 postures each done twice, and 2 breathing exercises. The room is pumped up to a staggering 105ºF - heat which loosens the body and allows the muscles and tendencies to go farther and stretch even more. Needless to say, you're sweating bullets even if you stand there doing nothing. My first class was challenging, really difficult, left me gasping for oxygen, and made me run home to research Mr.Bikram and see what I had gotton myself into.

Bikram Choudhury is a native of Calcutta, India who has been practicing Yoga since the age of 3. By the age of 13, Choudhury won the National India Yoga Championship. He continuted to win this competition for the next three years, until he finally decided to retire as the All-India National Yoga Champion. When at the age of 17, a knee injury left Bikram unable to walk, he left the European doctors and resorted to his old Yoga guru (Bishnu Ghosh) to start the healing process. It was the 26 postures that Bishnu and Bikram created together that helped cure the knee injury in only 6 months.

In 1972, President Nixon was in the South Pacific when he came down with an attack of phlebitis (inflammation of a vein). Bikram Choudhury was summoned and proceeded to give Nixon his special hot treatment. Soon enough, Nixon was cured and headed out to his next meeting. Before leaving, he called Bikram the "Indian black magician"and offered the yogi an open invitation to come and live in the United States.

And so Bikram's Yoga College of India was founded in Los Angeles, California. It is the world headquarters of Bikram Yoga. Nowadays, entry into the College can only happen if you have been practicing Bikram Yoga for 6 months. Your application must also hold a letter of recommendation from the studio director, of the affiliated studio, where you satisfied the requirement. The fee is $6,000 and is 9 weeks long, offering two Bikram Yoga Classes a day (from Bikram Choudhary himself) and two Posture Clinic lectures. Successful graduates from this course get a license and are allowed to open up their own Bikram Hot Yoga studio.

In an interview with 60 minutes back in 2005, Bikram was questioned how this hot yoga treatment was "relaxing and mediating" (as yoga has been marketed to be). Bikram exasperatedly replied that this was the biggest problem with America. That was how Yoga was introduced to America. He says America isn't ready for that kind of Yoga. That Yoga meditation starts from the outside, pushing the body to its extreme. That there needs to be a "marriage of mind and body before you can knock on the door to the spirit."

Then the interviewer mentioned some doctors she spoke to thinks there should be a warning before you enter a Bikram studio. Bikram's reaction was so funny. He stared at the interviewer for 10 seconds before scrunching up his nose, frowning, and then asking her, "What warning?"

At the end of the interview, Bikram says that although he has lived half his life in America, India will always be his home, believing it is one of the only countries that has any spiritualism and humanity left.

Bikram: "In America, even you have everything, more than anybody else in the world, still you are not happy."
Interviewer: "Hmmm...what are we doing wrong?"
Bikram: "Everything."
Interviewer: (confused) "Like.....what?"
Bikram: "Money. Only materialistic successes are the successes of human life in America. India - no. [5 minute pause]. I like money. You like money. We need the money - but money is not going to bring humanity and spiritualism into your life."


Bikram is now a multi-millionaire. And of his wealth, Bikram clearly explains [in a rich Indian accent]:

"I started with nothing! Zero! And I never care for business! YOU PEOPLE gave me everything! And why? I make you understand what is the value of me and my country's philosophy to make your life better than anybody's life in the world. Most the people think so that in Calcutta they have nothing, Beverly Hills they have everything. I have everything in Beverly Hills - why? Because I bring Calcutta to Beverly Hills."

Here is a picture of Bikram Choudhary. Can you believe he's 69?