As I reminisced, thoughts of the lawsuit gave way to fond memories. Some of gratitude.  I believe in balance and it is in this spirit that I would like to share with you one of those lovely memories of Bikram.  It remains true that I disagree with his attempt to own a yoga sequence and institute the sole discretion to prevent anyone from sharing the sacred knowledge that was so lovingly passed down to him.  But, to add some contrast to the conflict, I would like many of you to get a small glimpse of “The Other Side of Bikram”.  peace & love, g

Meditation like no other… the Bikram way

Love him or not, the results speak for themselves.  Bikram has built a dynasty in the face of opposition and disbelief.  You rarely see Bikram or his Yoga highlighted in the many yoga publications.  There is absolute bias against this man, and his yoga, by the self declaring yoga enthusiasts.  I have found that many of the people who don’t like him, have never met him.  Many more have never even attempted a hot yoga class.  Mostly, it is something they heard or read and they won’t be shaken.   I had a real moment of pause early on with this yogi Bikram myself.

It was the summer of 1996 and I was attending the Bikram Teacher Training in LA, at his studio located at Wilshire and Robertson.  It was in the upper 90’s outside and the room had to be, or at least seemed to be, well over 110 degrees.  There were only 28 or so teacher trainers, while in today’s trainings there are well over 300.  It was on this piercing hot day, with sweat pouring down my face and body, that Bikram, as he often did, began one of his stories.

“When I was a young boy in Calcutta I was the fastest boy, no dog could out run me!”

Perfectly timed. We were in a triangle pose. A physically challenging moment for many, myself included, and as I am trembling and sweating, really dying, I thought, “who cares? Shut up and get us out of this posture!”

“And there was this one dog,” He would continue, “nobody thought I could catch that dog!  But I CAUGHT that dog!” he would boast proudly.

By this point my mind was screaming. Shut the fuck up!  I came here for this lunatic? What am I doing here? I need to leave this place- “Continue to do your afternoon meditation.” His voice would interject.  Meditation? Meditation! I honestly don’t remember the rest of the class. I was fuming, and after class I set out to tell him a thing or two.

“You say we are doing our meditation,” I began, “Well, if you would stop telling those stupid fucking stories maybe I could!”  Now granted, in hindsight it was an inappropriate way to approach your yogi, yet nevertheless, without hesitation, he simply held my gaze. I remember as vividly as though it had just occurred. He said, in a kind, patient, unlike him voice,

“You idiot… you Americans meditate, I like it when you meditate, makes my life peaceful.  I like calm Americans.  You go to your room, you play your music, light your candles and incense. You meditate and are happy.  Makes my life more easy…. BUT, ” (and this was a big BUT),  “someone cuts you off in traffic, someone steal your peace at work and you don’t have your candles, you music, your little room, you cry like a baby!

You learn how to meditate in that hot, smelly, stinky room while I talk all my shit and you  can meditate anywhere, nobody steal your peace… NOW GO!”

I have to say, that is a kind of understanding of meditation that is rarely found in yoga circles…and for me it was brilliant….maybe he had something to teach me after all.  We often struggle in life when it doesn’t show up the way we hope or expect.  Bikram’s way of finding that meditative peace in the midst of the challenge..in the midst of our struggles; physical or emotional, this is the invitation of yoga.

It didn’t feel very good but it also didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was being given a second chance at life. I quickly learned how to discern the difference between the pains that came from coming into postures incorrectly with poor alignment and the pains that came from living life incorrectly with poor judgment. The former, I rectified. The latter, I happily accepted as my penance.

Six months earlier, I rang in the New Year by puking my brains out. I had drank a lot of beer and whiskey that night, but not as much as I might have in the past. I was taken by surprise by the sudden vomit. I rinsed my mouth out and felt much better and far less drunk. I drank some more beer and avoided the whiskey and blacked out on my buddy’s floor. When I came to I staggered out into the bitter cold and treated myself to a gypsy cab ride back to my parents’ house instead of taking the bus. I had been planning my breakfast the whole ride back and by the time I made it to the kitchen I was retching into the sink. Eventually I had nothing left to throw up but the retching wouldn’t stop. It felt like my guts were ripping themselves up. I spat blood and bile into the sink for what felt like forever before I could finally curl up on the cold kitchen floor. My insides felt like I had eaten broken glass and all I could do was moan.

This was to be an almost weekly occurrence for the first half of the new year. First I would vomit liquids and undigested food. When I had nothing left to empty I’d cough and spit out bloody bile in between tortuous retches. I would beg for it to end, I made wild and desperate promises to gods I never believed in, if they would just make it stop I would give anything, do anything. It didn’t stop. It just kept on going, seizing me and throttling the life out of me.

There came a day where I didn’t even have a chance to crack open a beer or light up a blunt before the agony found me. All it took was breakfast and I was out of commission. I couldn’t lay down flat on my back or extend my limbs away from my center without causing paroxysms of suffering. I hugged myself into the tightest ball that I could and realized that I was not ready to die. I spent hours waiting for it to stop and as the shock wore off and I settled into the misery of it all I took stock of my life. Here I was, 24 years old, in my parents’ house, no job, no girlfriend, no college degree, and beyond those trivial details the awful truth was that there was no purpose to my life. I wanted to live but I had no idea what it was I wanted to live for. I searched my memories for some meaning and the best I could come up with from the previous twelve years was a blurry mystery occasionally punctuated by vivid snapshots of savage violence and horror.

The abusive relationship I had with my body mirrored the abusive relationship I had with the world. If I wasn’t being a victim, it was usually because I was victimizing somebody. People were always trying to take something from me, whenever possible I would flip it around and take something from them. Come up off that watch and run your pockets, kid. Lucky I don’t take your shoes. Those words were just as likely to come out of my mouth as they were to be spoken to me. Everybody I ran with carried knives. Knives on their ankles, at their waists, in their pockets. Small blades concealed in sleeves or belt buckles. Say the wrong thing, turn your back at the wrong time, get your face cut a buck fifty short. That was understood.

Some of them had guns. Sawed offs and pistols mostly. Serial digits rubbed off. Many likely had bodies on them, I wasn’t dumb enough to ask. Winter was always the most dangerous time. So many pockets, so many thick coats. You never knew what somebody might pull out. In the freezing New York cold, you could easily feel the death in the metal. It would stick to your skin and cling to you.

Everybody had drugs. It would get weighed out and bagged up on digital scales under a cloud of weed smoke. Somebody would count money and sniff coke and somebody would get sent to the store to buy alcohol and sandwiches. We did this instead of going to school. The city was our classroom. The world was our teacher. The lessons were often harsh.

When we were little it was just playground squabbles. Then it became brawls in the streets and bars. Then it became wars. Street generals and soldiers would mobilize and maneuver and mothers cried and cried. First, it was people in the periphery of my life that it happened to. So-and-so’s cousin’s friend got stabbed. Then so-and-so’s cousin got stabbed. Then so-and-so. For all I knew, I was next in line.

As the hours passed and the suffering lingered, the memories contained no relief. The sun was setting and I was still balled up in bed, unable to escape the weight of the past in a miserable present. I determined that if I made it through the night and lived I would build a future that didn’t revolve around hurting myself and hurting everyone my life touched. There would be no visit to the hospital. I would not call for help. I was going to accept whatever came without complaint.

The night passed. Eventually, I was able to lie down flat on my back. By morning, I could walk with one hand on the wall as long as I didn’t try to stand up straight. I managed to keep a glass of water down in the afternoon and I had a piece of bread for dinner. No more alcohol, I decided. No more drugs. No more weapons. No more cruelty. It starts today, I told myself.

The next month and a half was spent in isolation. I had nowhere to go. I had nothing to do. I had no one to be with. I was already skinny but I lost weight anyway. My hygiene was terrible and what little sleep I got was plagued with nightmares. The willpower and determination I had that first day had faded almost completely and I began to wonder if I wasn’t better off drinking myself to death instead of trying to make a new life.

Many people that I had thought were my friends turned their backs on me because I was no longer any fun for them. The people that were actually my friends and stood by me suggested I find a hobby to pass the time. I had no money, so somebody suggested I try a class at Yoga To The People in the lower east side of Manhattan. The classes were donation based and it was $2 for a mat rental. They even spotted me the $2. I had nothing to lose but an hour of my life. I gave it a shot.

Financially, I had spent $2.25 on my metrocard to get to the studio. With my efforts I purchased a new life. I wasn’t sure what was happening to my body and my mind during those early weeks of practice, I just knew that I had to keep doing it. The asana practice was vital to my recovery, but what was really at work was the environment and the people that made that environment possible. This was a place where I was safe and I was trusted and I could be trusting. It didn’t come overnight for me to feel that way, I had to work at it, but it was there if I wanted it and I wanted it desperately.

The staff at Yoga To The People were nice to me. That might not sound like much to you but it meant everything to me. At first, I thought they just wanted a donation from me. No stranger was ever nice to me if they didn’t want something from me. I let it be known that I had no money to offer, that I couldn’t always afford $2 to rent a mat. They didn’t mind. They were happy I was there. These people didn’t know me or owe me anything, I had nothing to offer them besides my awkward presence and my broken self and they were happy to see me. What saints they must be, what a choir of fucking angels, I thought. They couldn’t possibly know what they were doing for me, they just did it because it was their nature as much as it was their job.

After a couple of months of showing up every day without ever paying for class I began to feel the guilt gnawing at me. Here I was taking and taking and not giving, I thought. Same old story that I was trying to change. I offered my labor and they let me close the studio with them. I scrubbed toilets and my soul sang. Take care of the space and the space will take care of you, one of them told me. Time proved them right. Caring about the space taught me how to care about people. Trusting the yoga taught me how to trust and be worthy of trust. I learned how to love somebody, not just for what they did for me but love them for who they are, to love their flaws and everything about them, without conditions and expectations. I learned how to stretch and do a few poses, but mostly I learned how to be a person.

My story is not unique. Everybody, of every race, of every economic background, has suffered in life. Yoga is a healing art, with a profound ability to change lives. Yoga does not care about the color of your skin. Yoga does not care how much money you make. Yoga does not care where you have been, what you have done. Yoga is only interested in your effort and your attention. The more of each you give it, the more it will do for you. When we put a big financial price tag on this tremendous gift, we remove it from the realm of possibility for so many people who are suffering. They don’t even consider it as an option because it is so remote, so inaccessible. To really reap the benefits of the practice it must become part of your life’s routine. If it is something to be indulged in occasionally only when finances allow then the benefits will be small.

Yoga To The People, the name is its mission. Like the yoga, they do not discriminate against your race, your beliefs, your income, your appearance. If you are willing to share the space you are welcome. There are no camps to divide people in, no barriers to erect, no upper class, no lower class. Here, we are just people, healing ourselves and healing each other, just by sharing the space and sharing our practice. This yoga is yours the moment you start exploring it. These are your arms, your legs, this is your breath, your body. You have full ownership over everything that exists within the borders of your own skin. Nobody has the right to tell you that you can’t explore your own body, expand your own consciousness, heighten your awareness. This yoga is for everyone. Yoga To The People!

M: How is it that you came to Bikram yoga?

B: I came to Bikram Yoga I believe it was late 1973 or 1974. I was married to Gene Reynolds who was the producer of Mash, and one night Loretta Swit, who was Hot Lips Houlihan, was a guest at our dinner and she had just started taking lessons with Bikram and she very excitedly spent the entire evening telling us how wonderful it was and insisting that I go and partake of his bounty. Which I did.

M: And what was the spirit of the practice like in those days? 

B: The spirit of the practice? The spirit of the practice was very warm, not in the temperature of the room.  Bikram was adored by all the students.  The classes were fairly small and you know maybe depending on anywhere between 30 to 60 people. And everybody knew everybody else. And it was just very warm and very congenial.

M: Was it the same practice that we currently know as Bikram yoga, the same 26 postures and breathing exercises? Was there anything different at all?

B: It was exactly the same, however what was missing was this hot yoga business. That was not at all a part of the protocol. When I started the room was warm. It was probably, I don’t know, 75/80 degrees. At the far end of the room he had electric heaters going and people who wanted to would work in front of the electric heaters to heat up their muscles even more but this was not at all a part of the practice…

M: And they were calling it Bikram yoga?

B: No! They were calling it Yoga College of India! It was not Bikram yoga. That term hadn’t even been invented. The Bikram yoga is something totally new.  It was the Yoga College of India and the people who were teaching were offshoots of the Yoga College of India.

M: You had mentioned before at the time you were practicing, Bikram was really adored by his students. Can you tell me a little bit about that, why that was, what was his relationship was with his students or the people in the studio?

B: There was always a joke that people have to bring him cookies and they would say, “Bikram, you are going to get fat,” and he would say, “No. No, my metabolism is perfect. My metabolism is absolutely 100% perfect. I burn everything up, I do. My body does not waste anything. I can eat all the cookies I want so you bring cookies!” And he would sit there and eat cookies during the class. I think I actually used–in what I call the red cover addition, the first version—I think I even used the description of the students giggling and laughing as if at a puppy, a lovably puppy. I felt toward Bikram as that during those days, as though he were a totally lovable puppy. (Laughter)

Not what you have nowadays huh? The puppy grew up to be a fighting pit bull.

M: Did he have a clearly expressed vision behind his yoga? Do you think that what Bikram yoga has become today is what he imagined today as in the 70’s?

B: No. In the 1970s he was totally about giving. I was always totally amazed at how he did all the classes in those days. He very, very seldom had anyone sit in for him… He would sit there patiently and work with everybody to try and help them to try and change their lives and to try to mend their health. When I went I was in such bad shape that I had to be lowered into bed and someone had to take me by the neck and pick me up because my back was absolutely disintegrating. I had polio when I was a kid and I thought I had gotten off scot-free from it but at that point even the chiropractors couldn’t help me. Seven days a week my chiropractor came and he was even coming in on Sundays because I was in such bad shape. That is one of the reasons I went in the very first time he looked at me he said “You. You come to me every day for two months and I will give you a new life.”  And I said, “You promise?”  And he said I promise and he kept his promise. He was totally about helping people. And I mean, the night he asked me to do his book I happened to be right beside him…he leaned over and said, “Bonnie I need your help.  I need you to write my book for me.  We have had other people and they just don’t come up with anything good.”  He said, “I need you to write it for me because…” he said, “we’ve got to give this”—this is interesting—“we’ve got to give it to the people.  We’ve got to give this to the world.  We’ve got to help people understand yoga.”  That’s what he was all about in those days.

M: Who would teach the few times that he wasn’t there? And what were his teachers like?

B: There was a tall girl who later, actually when I was living up in San Francisco for six months, I went to her school up there. A tall girl, long brownish hair, glasses, she was very good. As a matter of fact, when I was up in San Francisco, I was working with her and I think technically she did more for me then- and I wish I remember her name I don’t but you could look back at who in 19- I think it would have been- 75, had a school in San Francisco. But she technically was fantastic.  Bikram didn’t teach technique.  He just said do it and somehow you did it but you didn’t know how you did it. She was fantastic at dissecting the postures… Doing the postures I probably learned more about yoga from her than I did from Bikram.

M: Did he seem relatively established in any case?

B: He was getting very big in the Beverly Hills clique as the ‘guru to the stars’. You know this is what he was hyping.  That he was the yoga master to the stars and when you went into his class everyone from Shirley MacLaine down was there. There was a tremendous amount of celebrities who would take his classes and he was getting very popular in the Beverly Hills area. Now also, you know, like with this girl that I studied with up in San Francisco—I don’t know what her financial deal with Bikram was, but certainly he was not stopping his better students—and he didn’t really even have training classes then for teachers. They were just students who has gotten very good and began going out and opening their schools. He certainly was not stopping them. I guess he must’ve been encouraging them but at that point, besides the Beverly Hills school, there was one in San Francisco and I think there might have been one down in Florida… There might’ve been one in New York but that’s all there was at that point.

M: Previously you were describing Bikram as a cuddly puppy and that at the time of the book he was really about helping people. How do you feel like he has changed and do you think you witnessed that change take place?

B: No, because I have had nothing to do with him all this time. The only thing I know is what I read in the papers. All I know is what I read in the papers, what Will Rogers said. I have had nothing to do with him. I’ve read about it. I have read about the lawsuits. I have read about him trying to take a patent on something that belongs to the universe and I’ve been very, very, very sad. I love, love Bikram. I love the Bikram that I knew back then I am very sad about who Bikram has become.

M: Let’s talk a little bit about the first book. Was there any collaboration with Bikram when you were writing it or did you do it entirely on your own?

B: I did it entirely on my own. The only input from Bikram was that he gave me a couple of recordings from his classes but I didn’t even need them since I had taken so many years of classes. I did it from memory. And I was living in Australia at the time and in describing the postures I would go through them myself movement by movement and if I were writing a particular posture I probably would do that posture 100 times and I would stop and I would write down this step and that and ideas that came to my mind….My description of the poses and helping the student understand what it was going to feel like and what they were going to have to work their way through.

M: How did you try to reflect Bikram’s message and style in the book?  I feel like your tone is very distinctive… 

B: I definitely wrote it in such a way that people could almost hear him and understand the English, the sometimes hilariously funny way that he has with the English language, or at least that he had then. And I tried to give everybody the flavor of actually being in a class with him. That basically came out in the comments from students that were off to the side—from Bonnie comments, from Shirley comments, from so-and-so that would tackle a different side of the whole thing and give a student interpretation. In the original book I got anecdotes and stories and real-life happenings or feelings from my classmates, a lot of my classmates: Stories that they had told or situations that I knew that they were in. This one I called Lavinia who only came once a week and she was fat and Bikram was always picking on her and it finally came out that she was terrified of not doing things right and the fact that he complemented her on something meant the world to her. I’d have to look at the book again to even remember what the Lavinia story was but that was an actual woman in the class.

M: More than thirty years after the first printing of the book it is still widely read and yet a lot has changed in Bikram yoga. How do you feel about it in retrospect?

B: In retrospect Bikram said he would give me a new life and he kept his promise. He promised to give me a new life. I will be always grateful to Bikram because he did change my life.  I might’ve been in a wheelchair by now with what was happening to my spine. Instead at the age of 73 I am working circles around the teenagers that are employed here. I am in perfect health–the only thing that is wrong with me is a post-nasal that is very annoying, but aside from that I am in perfect health.  And whenever I feel like things are going a little bit bad with my body, I get back to my yoga and I do it straight every day for three or four months and then I can get lazy and go off for a few months.  But yoga is always there to rescue me. Bikram has always said,  “Yoga is money in the bank.  The money is in the bank you can’t take away, your body remembers.” There was one time I had laid off yoga for over two years and when I went back to it within one week I was doing the postures as well as I have done some at the peak of my practice. My body remembered and thanked me. And for that I thank Bikram. He was trying to give this to everybody and he did. Now, unfortunately, he is trying to put a fence between the yoga and people that he so desperately wanted to give it to so long ago and making it into a really ugly thing.

M: When and how did you first hear about the lawsuits that Bikram was filing against studios that were teaching hot yoga?

B: I think I read something in the newspapers. It would’ve been newspapers and magazines. There was a woman who contacted me, oh, probably five or six years ago who was very concerned.  She was teaching here in New York state and she was afraid that she would be sued if she taught it. She provided me with some articles and some of the updates of what was going on. That was my main source of knowledge.

M: Were you surprised to learn about all of that?

B: Yeah, surprised and very disappointed and very saddened. Very saddened, as I say, something that belongs to the universe that he was trying to say is his own. There is no doubt that his 26 postures do a very good job. They have kept me in tip top physical shape all these years even though I haven’t done it all of these years. It is a great boon to anyone who does it but I don’t believe he originated any of the postures. What he did was put together a sequence that he believes prepares the muscles and gets the optimum out of the body when done in that particular progression, and I’m not sure, to me that’s not a patentable thing.

M: What message would you give to young people who are struggling with the lawsuits and entanglements and distractions of the present day?

B: You mean young teachers?

M: Yes and studio owners

B: Well, my advice is continue to give. Continue to give yoga which is union. Yoga is union with God–that’s what its all about. He’s trying to patent union with God. I don’t know what God would have to say about that. I would have to say continue to give. I certainly hope the court rules against him on this…he has made it very difficult. He is putting a fence, he is putting a wall between something very beautiful that needs to be given to the world and people’s ability to give it, and that is tragic. It is worse than sad; it is tragic. It’s tragic for the teachers, it’s tragic for the people, it is tragic for Bikram.  He has become something that was not the Bikram I knew. But you know…even today, I’m sure, if I went into a class, even though we’ve had a falling out and we haven’t spoken and he’s probably very angry with me, if I went into a class and was doing the postures he would do everything he could to get the most out of me and to help me physically as much as he could help me in his class. We could then argue about money until the cows came home after class. But he would try to help me, he would give of himself in the class, in a way that has nothing to do with money. Am I making clear what I am trying to say there? There’s a difference between Bikram giving in a class and Bikram giving outside of a class—anytime you get into finances, hard cash finances. It’s almost a split personality there.

M: Bikram says that he is suing people in order to protect the integrity of the series. What are your thoughts about that?

B: No, that’s ridiculous. Once you’ve done the 26 postures and you realize how absolutely marvelous it is for you, you’ve seen your life change and you’ve got wonderful health and exuberance, you’re not going to change it anyway. That’s ridiculous. He’s just trying to make a lot of money for himself. The postures protect themselves. The results that one gets from doing the postures, that speaks for itself. I would not dream myself, whenever I practice, I wouldn’t dream of doing anything other than his 26 postures just the way I wrote them in my book. That’s also ridiculous because as Bikram always said, “Any yoga is good yoga. Any yoga you can do is good. Any amount, any kind of it, it is good.”  I mean, to say that he has to protect—and that is the only way humanity is going to be helped by him protecting those 26 postures—that again goes against his own advice that any yoga is good yoga.

M: It’s like you’ve hit on the struggle that so many people are facing, in terms that they love the man and they feel that they are taking a stand against him. Do you feel this is a stand against the man or a stand for the yoga?

B: What I am talking about? You mean me? No, I am not against the man. As I told you I love Bikram. I will always love Bikram. I will always, I consider him one of the angels of my life. One of the most important people of my life. He certainly gave me something that was a great treasure. He gave me back my health and my ability to move and function in the world.  Certainly I am not against the man. I am saddened. I am sad at the way he is using his great gift and sad at his tactics. There’s a big difference between being against the man and being against his tactics and against his actions.

M: I feel like a lot of people who are coming up against lawsuits against, with Bikram right now have sort of a similar attitude of genuine affection and admiration for the man and even love I would say.

B: It’s making a stand for yoga itself… This is just a beautiful yoga, go out and do it. It’s, yeah, I mean, it’s very difficult for me, loving him the way I do and being grateful to him as I am, for me to speak on as I’m speaking. But one has to stand with their principles and one has to speak the truth to what they are saying. As I say the truth is that he is erecting walls between this great gift that he started out giving to the world and wanting to give to the world and the actual ability to give it and share it.

M: Do you consider yourself still a member of the Bikram community or do you feel pretty distant?

B: Oh no, I’m definitely not a member of the Bikram community. He’d be the first one to say that I’ve been banished to the nether regions… I tell people when I give them a copy of my book that I believe in this with all my heart. I don’t believe in what Bikram is doing now but I believe in the basic 26 postures to do wonderful things for you. And so in that way I am a—how would one put it?–I’m a user of what I learned those many, many years ago to keep my own life on an even keel. But being a member of the community?  No.

You can learn more about Bonnie Jones Reynolds at www.bonniejonesreynolds.com and www.springfarmcares.org

When Greg came to our teacher training at Bikram’s Yoga College of India over 11 yrs ago we learned a lot from him and had great respect for him as a teacher but this respect has been crushed many times over at this point.

We understand everyone’s need to follow their own path but doing it at the expense of others is a path we will never undersand.

I’m sure there are some Bikram studios who are doing exceptionally well financially but the majority of us are simply paying the bills and making a small living, at the expense of family time and more financial freedom that would come from higher paying jobs, because we love the yoga and want to heal the people that walk through our doors.

If you feel the need to open more studios, be creative and find your own location, don’t do it a few blocks from an existing studio.  I’m sure every business class would tell you this is good practice but you state in your website that you want to bring yoga to everyone, it seems to us you simply want to steal it from those who have done the leg work; this is not good karmic practice.

You are not hurting Bikram at this point, you are hurting us, the people who have put years of ourselves into our small businesses and would like to continue to do so.

Greg’s email reply:

I welcome and appreciate anyone sharing their thoughts with me.

You have taken the time to write and express yourself…that deserves, at the least, a response.  I hope you take the time to read my point of view as I have read yours.

First, I struggle with the term “we”?  Who is “we”?  You also use the term “us”… who are you speaking for beside yourself?  If you simply wish to express your own displeasure, say what you wish to say and if you righteously feel your point of view is the only view that matters then it is a moot point.  If however, you are expressing yourself and are trying to understand something beyond your own point of view then say who exactly you are speaking for.  You are speaking to me: Greg.  I am responding directly to “we”, to “us”, to you.

I am following my own path; it is not calculatedly designed to be at the expense of you or of anyone else.  My path came about from starting a purely donation based studio.  My inspiration was Bryan Kest of Power Yoga Santa Monica.  It was clear in my own heart and mind that a tremendous amount of people simply couldn’t afford yoga.  We—YTTP— put an empty tissue box in the studio and people dropped in what they could.  Volumes of people started showing up to take class.  There is a thirst for yoga, a need for yoga, and I have countless emails, phone messages and comments from students that very simply said, “I couldn’t afford to do yoga, thank you for making this possible, it has saved my life.”  I also learned that people of incredible means, people who like to avoid crowds and could afford anything, were coming to the studio because they enjoyed the mission, the vibe, and the experience.

I’ve always thought the hot yoga and the vinyasa yoga were a compliment to each other so for several years, I recommended that students and my teachers take Bikram yoga.  They would go and consistently the feedback was that it is too expensive.  In Manhattan you drop in for $25, rent a mat for $5, buy water for $2 and they just couldn’t afford to go.  After a few years of this, I was clear that there is a HUGE segment of the population that would love to do Bikram yoga and simply could not.  That is what moved me to open up the hot studios.  I offer it at an affordable rate; I have had several students that couldn’t pay and never turned a person away.  There is never an intention to open a studio to put someone out of business.  Most, not all, but most of my students are new to hot yoga.  Very, very few are from existing Bikram studios.  Most Bikram students are very loyal and they like routine.  They don’t jump ship just because someone else opens and is charging less.  My belief is if you are teaching from your heart and your students experience that, they stay at their yoga home.

You say you love the yoga and that you want to heal people.  Wonderful.  Why you would think one less studio in the world is better in any way is confusing to me…if you are committed to a kind of yoga that transforms not just a person but a community, a state, a country, the world…more yoga is needed.  And people who are of less economic means should be entitled to practice yoga.  In these hard financial times yoga is becoming cost prohibitive and these are the times when people need yoga the most.

You judging my karmic position in the world is a byproduct of your ego.   I might suggest you wanting to restrict my desire to enable more people to do yoga is bad karma… but I don’t know that…. I haven’t a clue.  I am not trying to hurt Bikram.  I am not.  I am not trying to hurt the you, we, us that you represent.  Perhaps you might consider what you can do to have more people come to your studio… offering a groupon to get a quick push is nice but is it followed up with a deep commitment to have as many people do yoga as possible?

I don’t know if you even made it this far in my response, or if the return address is even valid…. but I am open to whatever follow up you might have and who knows, maybe you will just lower your price point and get more people in the door and truly realize your dream of loving, helping, and healing even more people.  Your feelings about me have no effect on my feelings for you.  You teach yoga.  You have made sacrifices to do so, to me that makes you an incredible person.

be peace, be love,
g
yttp!

And now this community faces a huge challenge: will it transform itself?  Will it heal what is broken? Will it restore what has been damaged? Will it build something more beautiful, something stronger than what has gone before?

We know from our own practices that a huge part of any change is struggle.  To transform this community will be a struggle, mostly against the myriad fears that assail us all when change is imminent.  Many will struggle with fear of the suddenly unclear future where the rules of the game seem to have changed, where the training they worked so hard to complete may need to be reworked and revised, amended and supplemented.  And others will fear that their market will be flooded with competitors all fighting over the same pool of customers.  Some fear the loss of what they have known and loved for so long.  Others fear that whatever comes next, it won’t be as good as what they had before.

IF the community is to move forward in a positive way, these fears must be faced, the struggle against these natural fears engaged.  Change IS happening, but we can insure that the what comes next is better than what came before. By engaging in the struggle to overcome our fears and shepherd in a new era, we can salvage what is best from the past while opening up bright new horizons for our future.  We all can succeed in a world without IP and battles for control of asanas and contracts that act as straightjackets on our creativity and people owning what is ancient and rightly available to everyone. It is not the asanas themselves, or a particular group or sequence of asanas,  that build thriving communities and studios!  Success comes from the passion and love with which we share the asanas with our students.   We CAN succeed if we return to the thing that set our feet on this path in the first place: yoga, and our belief that the more people practice yoga, the healthier and happier the world becomes.   We practiced because it changed our lives for the better.  We went to training so we could share our passionate belief in its healing powers with other practitioners.  We opened studios so that we could bring the yoga to our communities and work that same transformation in our towns and cities.  A world of yoga practitioners is a world where studios that offer great instruction, delivered by loving knowledgeable teachers, are thriving.  The more voices students have to choose from , the more enthusiastically they will embrace the voices that offer them that passion and knowledge; the more students we shower with  love and compassion, the more they will want to share that love, and yoga, with their friends and neighbors.  But first we must stop being afraid!  We must return to our love, our passion, our mission: to love our students until they learn to love themselves…and to do this through the power of yoga.

To live in a world without IP agreements and ownership of asanas is a world where more people get to think, learn, practice, share, embrace YOGA.  And the more people think, learn, practice, share, and embrace yoga, the more studios there will be to meet this increasing demand for great instruction.  That is the world that is waiting on the other side of fear.

Someday my son, Patrick, might wish to be a yoga instructor. He is fascinated by the poses that I have programmed into my iPad and has spent hours looking at them and then modeling the poses. He is very proud of his “boat pose” that his instructor, Aunt Vanessa, taught him. Someday he might wish to be certified as an instructor. This is only natural since I own Yen Yoga & Fitness, a studio in downtown Traverse City, Michigan, offering about 19 different yoga classes, in addition to spinning, Pilates, and kettle bell classes. Oh, yes, Yen Yoga & Fitness also offers Zumba classes, which Patrick and his younger brother, Henry, will dance when they walk next to the studio when classes are in session.

Someday Patrick or Henry might like to be instructors. If they are anything like their dad they will want to try lots of different yoga styles, experience many different teaching methods and wish to understand the deeper, spiritual, and sacred roots of yoga. Hopefully, they will see yoga as service, as a spiritual path, and as a calling to help people be happier and healthier. While I am not an instructor and suck at every pose, I am happy that the instructors at Yen Yoga & Fitness are skilled, knowledgeable, happy, service-oriented, great teachers, and just wonderful people.

But the purpose of this essay is not to chat about Yen (which means “peace”) Yoga. It is to chat about a yoga movement that is currently gaining momentum but that could potentially damage yoga’s spiritual and sacred roots. I am referring specifically to the system of yoga started by Bikram Choudhury.

If Patrick were to go through Mr. Bikram’s classes and become certified in the Bikram style, I would worry that he would sue my son if he taught in my studio or any studio other than a Bikram center. I come to this conclusion because of the fact that Bikram has already tried to sue me and one of my instructors, along with a very long list of other people, alleging that we are practicing and teaching his style (which we are not). According to the lawsuit, Bikram’s style of yoga, which is wildly popular, is very specific: a room temperature of exactly 105 degrees F, no music (he sued one of his former instructors for playing music as she taught yoga), carpeted floors (yuck), 26 poses that must be completed in an exact order, and a scripted 90-minute program.

Yen Yoga & Fitness does not have carpeted studios, we do have music, we don’t follow the Bikram script, we allow the instructors to dictate the poses, and we have 60- and 90-minute classes. Plus, the temperatures vary so much that I don’t ever remember seeing the temp exactly at 105. But Bikram sued us anyway.

After we got the letter accusing us of practicing Bikram’s style of yoga, we invited him, his lawyers, his local Bikram instructor, and any of his other representatives to visit the Yen Yoga & Fitness facility firsthand, attend any classes they liked, and to chat about the matter in person. No one came, just the lawsuit.

I also own Spirituality & Health magazine. Our mission is to help and support our spiritual communities and our spiritual practices. At its core, the magazine is about helping people to live happy, fulfilling lives full of health, inspiration, love, and peace. We have many readers in our community who are yogis and who have a love for yoga.

I believe yoga is for everyone, and it is very personal. I also believe that the key to practicing yoga (rather than just “doing it”) is the personalization that each instructor brings to his or her class. Instructors should have the right to teach as they see fit, taking a little from here and a lot from there and putting it all together as they feel they should express their craft. Great teachers are authentic, sincere, and loving, and they inspire the student to “love to practice.” I believe that the best yoga instructors are also spiritually motivated. They “get” the sanctity of their craft and express vitality, humility, love, and compassion wherever they go. In other words, they try to “live it” 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If Patrick or Henry wishes to have the room at 107 degrees F, not use carpet, and script a session that best suits the class, they should be able to without the worry of someone threatening them, suing them, or trying to put them out of business.

We are devoting a whole section of Spirituality & Health’s blog to the topic of  “Who Owns Yoga?” and have included links to documents, websites, PDF files, articles, and essays on this very subject. But we want to hear from you—what do you think? Is yoga for everyone? Should anyone be able to “own” yoga? Does Harvard “own” teaching? Does Yale “own” its instructors and graduates? Should Bikram be able to “own” how his students practice or teach? Should anyone be able to say they “own” even a little bit of the sacred poses or teachings of yoga?

We look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Paul Sutherland

http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/blog/who-owns-yoga/#more-603

Forgive the language in this story. It’s a locker room tale about a yoga mogul who reminds me of an Eastern version of Arthur Jones, the late American fitness mogul. Art Jones was a workout fanatic who came to the Mr. America Contest in 1970 with the prototype of a Nautilus weight machine—and soon introduced serious weight training to the mall set. As Jones became one of Forbes 400 riches people, he became increasingly colorful. A pistol-packing chain-smoker, his motto was “Bigger alligators, faster airplanes, and younger women.” When my college rowing team toured his factory in the late ’70s, Jones promised that a circuit on his weight machines would have us “vomiting and ‘fribilating’ on the floor.” He showed us his alligators and pictures of his airplanes. Later, we met the last of his six wives (each married between the ages of 16 and 20.) He was about 60, and she was a supermodel.

What Jones did for weight training, Bikram Choudhury did for yoga. Choudhury took yoga out of the ashram and brought it into the mainstream marketplace as an intense workout for physical fitness and health. His success comes from a series of 26 postures and two breathing exercise that are done in the exactly the same order to exactly the same script, in a room kept at a temperature of 105 degrees. Bikram Hot Yoga was the first “McYoga”, and in 2003 Choudhury became the first and perhaps the only person to get a proprietary trademark on a sequence of yoga poses. Now a worldwide franchise, studios reportedly pay a $10,000 franchise fee and a monthly fee of at least $1,000, and instructors must attended a nine-week class that costs $10,900. The instructor certificate must be renewed every three years.

Like Jones, Choudhury has become rich and increasingly colorful. Here’s a snippet of his life as recounted online in “Bikram Yoga Law: Savasana, Baby!”

“Meanwhile, back at the palace, Bikram lives and acts like a royal Indian prince. One graduate tells a story of Bikram in only his tiny black Speedo, reviewing students at a recent training seminar while lying on his back in a lounge chair, his long hair brushed by an attendant while another ran for a glass of water. The Internet is rife with images of Bikram wearing tiny white speedos with red flames. He once told a reporter in defending allegations of sex with his students, that he did it only to save them from suicide.”

About himself, Choudhury is widely quoted as boasting to writer Paul Keegan at Business 2.0 magazine, “I’m beyond Superman . . . I have balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each. Nobody fucks with me.”

But there are differences between Jones and Choudhury. Jones invented Nautilus machines. Choudhury, who was born in Calcutta, began learning yoga at age four. His teacher was Guru Bishnu Ghosh, a brother of Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship and author of the landmark book “Autobiography of a Yogi.” Choudhury mastered the ancient poses so well that at age 11 he became the youngest person to win the National India Yoga contest. When Choudhury came to Beverly Hills with his wife in 1971, he initially continued inside his own tradition of teaching yoga for free. Nobody denies that he was a great yoga teacher, but given the ancient nature of his poses and the fact that 105 degrees is not uncommon in Calcutta during April and May, Choudhury may not have realized that hot yoga was something LA would see as new.

Another difference between Jones and Choudhury is the nature of their business model. Jones’ company sold machines and the knowhow to train with them. Choudhury, on the other hand, essentially sells himself. What I mean by that is that his teachers are trained to parrot his script—odd language included—and are forbidden to change a pose, a word, or even to add music. Obtaining or renewing a Bikram certificate is also at the sole discretion of Choudhury himself. One can imagine a young woman who has spent all her savings and many weeks to obtain a certificate that the man in the Speedo may not deign to give her. What if the alternative feels like suicide?

Another difference between Jones and Choudhury has to do with the purpose of lawyers. In his online memorial, one of Jones’ friends tells this story: “Inevitably, someone would ask Arthur what he fed Gomek. Just as inevitably, Arthur would cast a glance in my direction, with a twinkle in his eye, and growl: “What do you think we feed a man-eating crocodile? LAWYERS!”  Choudhury, however, keeps his lawyers well fed. When Choudhury received his copyright and trademark, he announced that, he would “seek damages of $150,000 per infringement and all attorney fees.” One Bikram instructor immediately found herself facing a suit for adding music and not keeping the room sufficiently hot. She settled, as have others, and one reason is the disparity in available resources. For a yoga studio to fight a man as wealthy as Choudhury can be likened to jumping naked into a pool of crocodiles.

Judging from what is on the Internet, legal battles have been going for years over the question of who owns yoga. One lawyer, a veteran of fighting Choudhury, has fought pro bono because he believes the answer to the question is both obvious and important: No one owns yoga. But he also says the lawsuits run the same peril as “getting into an argument with an idiot. After a brief time, it is hard to tell who the idiot is.”

What spurred me to write this story now is that Spirituality & Health’s Zenvesting columnist, Paul Sutherland—who owns Spirituality & Health as well as the yoga studio Yen Yoga & Fitness in Traverse City, Michigan—has been named in a lawsuit by Choudhury as a result of hot yoga classes taught at Yen Yoga. Says Sutherland, “We started Yen Yoga & Fitness because we saw a need for an elegant, clean, happy, positive, convenient and inspiring place for our community. In our visioning work we looked on this as a mission or movement more than a business. We wanted it to be “Teacher” centered where great happy teachers could express their best to the students. Yen Yoga and Fitness offers 19 different classes, including Yen vinyasa, Yen gentle, hot yin, ashtanga & pre-natal yoga.”

As a result of the hot class, Sutherland now has to fight the lawsuit for his studio and himself. But it seems to me that the real fight is larger than any class or studio—and perhaps the Spirituality & Health community would care to help. No one denies that Choudhury’s sequence has done enormous good, but yoga needs to keep growing for the good of everyone, and Choudhury seems clearly in the way.

Says Sutherland, “It would be easy to ‘just settle’ and financially easy to just be done with it, but I really have a problem with bullies, the strong taking advantage of the weak, untruthfulness, and lies. I was the stubborn, stupid kid that would stand up to the bullies even if I got beat up. So I guess, ‘Kids just get bigger’. Anyway it will be obvious along the way what the right next step is. Right now we will move forward on this. I think that is the right thing.”

-Stephen Kiesling

P.S. If you would like to share a Bikram story or get involved, please email editors@spiritualityhealth.com.

Much of the background on Bikram comes used here comes from Your Karma Ran Over My Dogma: Bikram Yoga and the (Im)Possibilities of Copyrighting Yoga by Jordan Susman. To read the article in its entirety, click here to download it.

http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/blog/from-the-editor-in-chief-thoughts-on-who-owns-yoga/#more-617

Is Bikram a bully?  Many people struggle with this question.  Many good-hearted, well-intentioned, Bikram-Certified teachers and studio owners are at a crossroads; they struggle internally about the “rightness” of what is happening.  I, too, am very conflicted.  I have a personal and deep appreciation for Bikram the man, and for the yoga that has come as a byproduct of his lineage—a lineage he proudly acknowledges.  This lineage is rich from his beloved guru Bishnu Ghosh, to Bishnu Ghosh’s brother Paramahansa Yogananda, and on through Budda Bose and others.

Since Bikram posted his lawsuit against YTTP on his website, I have received much support.  I have also received letters saying what I am doing is wrong.  I want to be very clear that this issue is not about choosing sides, as many may think.  This is not about being for or against Bikram.  This issue is much bigger than Bikram the man, much bigger than Bikram Yoga.  It is much larger than myself or Yoga to the People. This is about whether yoga asanas and the sequencing of asanas that are part of Traditional Knowledge will remain in the public domain for everyone to use, for everyone to teach, and for everyone to practice.

If Bikram prevails in his lawsuit and the courts rule that he owns this yoga sequence, then any person can create a system of yoga—trademark, copyright, or patent it and prevent others from teaching at their “sole discretion.”   Basically, holding captive yoga and how it is utilized with the ability to grant permission, withhold permission, and revoke permission without reason, warning, or cause.

What happens if this floodgate opens?  Less yoga for less people?  Less awareness, more confined consciousness?  What does the world look like if yoga is owned?

I believe that Bikram’s tactics are meant to intimidate and domineer.  I don’t agree with Bikram’s suing yoga studios across the country, threatening to put them out of business and creating financial ruin for people whose sole intention is to share yoga with others. What’s more, his actions are not simply contained to those outside the Bikram community.   Bikram studio owners’ help share this yoga with thousands upon thousands of people.  These owners are now facing an ultimatum—sign a new agreement with Bikram or be disenfranchised, face possible legal action, and lose their livelihood, which affects not only themselves but their families.

What about the students?  What about the communities ALL yoga studios serve?  The floodgate continues… yoga as a boutique rather than a way of life…yoga as a market as opposed to a union.  Instead of practicing sacred knowledge, yoga becomes property—a commodity not a community.  Something bought and sold rather than something shared.  A transference of one person’s experience rather than a guiding into feeling for your own.  Selling as a substitute for teaching.

Bikram and his supporters would argue that they are only protecting the integrity of this sequence.  At what price is this protection being achieved?  Does Bikram’s actions enable or restrict more people from discovering yoga in the world?  My hope for this site is to offer many voices, a diversity of experience.  My intention is to educate and inform.  To some, Bikram will seem a bully.  To others, not.   You decide what yoga truth means to you…