Bikram Choudhury

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Bikram Choudhury (born February 10, 1944) is an Indian-born-American yoga instructor and the creator of Bikram Yoga, a form of hot yoga that includes a sequence of 26 postures performed in a hot environment of 40 °C (104 °F).

With a variety of celebrity students, the company became a hit in America and then around the world.

Rajashree Choudhury's former wife supported him with his yoga career. Civil lawsuits have been filed in the United States alleging sexual assault and discrimination against racial and sexual minorities.

A court awarded $7 million to his former prosecutor, Minakshi Jafa-Boden, who took over his yoga practice when Choudhury fled to India in 2017.

Since then, he has been teaching yoga teachers in other countries, including Spain and Mexico.

Life and work

In 1944, Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta, British India. He claimed to have started training yoga with Bishnu Charan Ghosh and went on to win the National India Yoga Championship for three years in his teens. However, the first ever Yoga competition in India took place in 1974, long after he had left the country. Latest findings from Choudhury's podcast show him the wrong date, including Jerome Armstrong's book Calcutta Yoga, has contradicted his assertion that he did not begin his training under Ghosh at the age of 5, but rather in 1962, when he was 18. His first interest was on bodybuilding and massage. Bikram completed his education on Asanas under Ghosh and other senior teachers in 1969, but he did not get the opportunity to complete his Pranayama (breathing exercises) or Dhyna (focused meditation) before Ghosh died in 1970.

Choudhury created a 26-posture collection by piecing together existing sequences from over 500 poses and variations created by Ghosh and transforming it into his signature series, which takes about nine minutes to perform. According to Choudhury, Bikram Yoga is practiced in a temperature that is supposed to be similar to India's. Choudhury was closely associated with the United States' competitive yoga from the start; the annual Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup is named after his tutor.

Choudhury immigrated to the United States in 1971 and began to teach yoga. He opened his first studio in Los Angeles teaching his own style of yoga. Brigid Delaney's book describes the ambiance around him as "fawning": he was treated reverentially as if he were a scholar, but he was also a "braggart" who was openly boasting about the film stars he had taught and the money he had earned. In Netflix's 2019 documentary film, Bikram: Guru, Predator, directed by Eva Orner, he was rude and insulting to students; in Netflix's 2019 documentary film, Yogi, Guru, Predator, Predator, he used abusive words and jeers at overweight students. "The film "fully synthesizes decades of archive footage with first-person testimony and film court depositions, resulting in the creation of a traumatic portrait of an abusive narcissist shielded from consequences from his own inflated cult of personality, wealth, and professional fame in the niche market of hot yoga," according to analyst Adrian Horton.

Bikram Yoga also expanded rapidly throughout the United States. He began offering nine-week teacher certification courses, instructing thousands of students in the 1990s. Many nations around the world have established Bikram Yoga studios. Choudhury trained pop stars Madonna and Lady Gaga, as well as footballer David Beckham, and even claimed to have taught yoga to American presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.

Choudhury claimed that the collection of 26 postures of his yoga practice, Bikram Yoga, was under copyright control and could not be taught or displayed by anyone he had not authorized. Choudhury began circulating copies of Bikram Yoga in 2012. Choudhury, a competing yoga studio founded by a former student and with a New York City location near one of the Bikram Yoga studios, started a lawsuit against Yoga to the People in 2011. The United States Copyright Office released a statement that yoga poses (asanas) could not be copiedrighted, and that Yoga to the People and Others could continue to teach the series.

Charges have been filed against Choudhury, alleging sexual harassment, assault, bigotry, and homophobia. Five women were suing Bikram Choudhury for alleged sexual assault and sexual assault by January 2014. In May 2013, two lawsuits accusing Bikram Choudhury of rape were filed, as well as other charges of sexual assault, false arrest, discrimination, and harassment. According to one, a cult-like atmosphere in which Choudhury's inner circle assists him in finding young women to assault. According to another lawsuit, Choudhury recruits volunteers from overseas who are "so afraid of defendant Bikram Choudhury's wrath that they would fly to the United States and risk violating immigration laws in order to serve him." Choudhury was sentenced to $6.5 million in 2016 for similar charges.

Minakshi Jafa-Bodden was in charge of Legal and International Affairs from Spring 2011 to March 13, 2013, when she was "abruptly and unlawfully terminated." Jafa-Bodden was both the perpetrator and witness of Choudhury's "severe, continuing, pervasive, and insulting behavior" against women, homosexuals, African Americans, and other minorities over the two years he served closely with him. Sarah Baughn, a Bikram Yoga instructor, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit in March, well before Jafa-Bodden was fired. A jury awarded Jafa-Bodder $924,500 in real damages on January 25, 2016, finding that Choudhury acted with malice, injustice, and fraud. The jury awarded Jafa-Bodden additional $6.4 million in punitive damages on January 26, 2016.

Choudhury returned to India in May 2016, where he opened yoga studios. Choudhury's counsel said in October 2016 that his client would not return to the United States to prosecute himself in person at the other pending court cases. "Why do I have to shame women?" Bikram asked in a late 2016 interview with Bryant Gumbel. People spend one million dollars on a drop of my sperm, as well as calling his accusers "trash" and "psychopaths" on their accusers.

A Los Angeles judge issued a warrant for Choudhury's detention on the grounds that he had left the country without paying any of the $7 million owed to Jafa-Bodden in compensation and punitive damages. According to the New York Daily News, luxurious cars and other items of Choudhury's had been relocated out of state, and a court order prohibiting him from moving any of his other possessions out of warehouses in Florida and Nevada had been released.

Despite Choudhury's disgrace, students continued to attend his teacher trainings, including in Murcia, Spain, and Acapulco, Mexico in 2019. After all of the rape charges against him, yoga instructor Jessamyn Stanley called it "bizarre" that people would continue to attend his classes.

Many studios omitted "Bikram Yoga" from their name and replaced it with the term "Hot Yoga" after the Netflix 2019 documentary Bikram: Guru, Predator. Some studios kept it, while others kept it.

Personal life

Choudhury married Rajashree Choudhury in 1984, who was instrumental in the establishment of the United States Yoga Federation and the International Yoga Sports Federation (IYSF). She captured the first National Yoga Championship held by the Yoga Federation of India in 1979, followed by four years as National Yoga Champion. Rajashree filed for divorce in December 2015 after 31 years of marriage, citing irreconcilable inconsistable differences. In May 2016, the divorce was finalized. Although Rajashree kept the apartment in Hawaii, he was given the houses in Beverly Hills and Los Angeles, as well as some of his luxurious vehicles. Rajashree was relieved of financial responsibility in Bikram's pending (or soon) lawsuits.

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