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| Bikram Choudhury | |
|---|---|
 Bikram Choudhury at a book signing in New York in 2007. | |
| Born | (1946-02-10) February 10, 1946 (age 78) Calcutta, West Bengal, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | yoga guru |
| Known for | founder of Bikram Yoga |
Bikram Choudhury (born February 10, 1946) is an 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).
Life and work
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 for three consecutive years in his teens.
With the guidance of his guru, Bikram created his 26 posture series which he claims restored his health.
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. Choudhury emigrated to the United States in the 1970s and founded yoga studios in California and Hawaii. 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.
Choudhury holds a copyright for the 26 poses which constitute Bikram yoga under the same theory which allows choreographic sequences to be copyrighted. In September, 2011, Choudhury filed an infringement suit against his former student, Greg Gumucio, founder of a competing chain of hot yoga studios. In June 2012, the United States Copyright Office decided that since yoga poses claim to improve health, they are not eligible for copyright.
Books
- Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class
- Bikram Yoga: The Guru Behind Hot Yoga Shows the Way to Radiant Health and Personal Fulfillment
References
- Erika Schickel (September 25, 2003). "Body Work". LA Weekly.
- Jordan Susman, Your Karma Ran Over My Dogma: Bikram Yoga and the (Im)Possibilities of Copyrighting Yoga, 25 Loy. L.A. Ent. L. Rev. 245 (2004)
- Joshua Kurlantzick (March–April 2005). "The Money Pose". Mother Jones.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help)CS1 maint: date format (link) - ^ Rebecca Moss (July 19, 2012). "Bikram Choudhury Battles for Control of the Hot Yoga Tradition he Invented". LA Weekly.
External links
- Official Bikram Yoga website
- 'Yoga, Inc.', a documentary about the Bikram copyright case, 'competitive' yoga and the yoga industry
- Hot, sweaty and scandalous, Salon, April 2003.