Bikram Choundhury and Hot Yoga
Bikram Choundhury is the founder of the well known “hot yoga”, and considered a guru by many who practice his teachings of yoga in hot rooms of 104-105 degrees.
Six separate civil lawsuits have been filed against him alleging rape or sexual assault.
Essentially, six women, who either attended his yoga classes, or who paid Bikram thousands of dollars to train under him to open their own training facilities are going after Bikram.
When I watch Bikram, I do not believe him at all. I see a very arrogant man, who couldn’t portray a more false sense of himself in his interview with CNN.
He puts on all these fake smiles that are very transparent in an attempt to garner sympathy that he is a nice guy, when his arrogance unveils he is anything but nice with defined crystal clarity.
You can also see him think as he talks, speak in present about supposed past actions, and says things that are flat out contradictory to each other.
Bikram’s arrogance is so over the top he is even willing to brag and boast about how great he thinks he is, and its nauseating.
He says, “Lots of students of mine, they commit suicide because I will not have sex with them.”
Yeah, right.
He truly has no understanding of women at all to say so many of the things that he has said. He is so over-the-top ego-centric that he doesn’t realize that what he reveals with his arrogance is the exact trait that people need to fear in another human being.
Yet ironically, he thinks if he smiles, he will win people over, and that’s because fake smiles have fooled people for centuries and obviously worked for him for quite some time.
When I watch Sarah Baughn, I believe her. See a woman who is frustrated and hurt about what happened to her and wants to get her message out to stop Bikram, and with good reason.
May justice prevail even if it only happens in civil court.
he’s SO insincere… he sets off all my danger flags.
Excellent analysis. This situation has so many red flags that it could fill many pages. To pick up on just one more – toward the end of the interview he is asked a clear yes/no question by the CNN interviewer. He does not give a straight answer to the straight yes/no question – in this case he was asked if his family believes him. Instead of answering the question, he went on about how the western media is to be shamed. He does not ever answer the question in the video clip. That by itself is a red flag. There are many, many more in this video clip.
Sarah is an excellent example of someone who is honest but the emotions are so strong/vulnerable/risky that she has trouble getting the words out. This is entirely different from Bikhram who also has trouble getting the words out, but that’s because he’s making them up as he goes along. Superficially these might appear to be the same, but one is honest and the other is not. I found the contrast to be incredible, and I don’t think I’ve seen it this clearly before. Thanks for posting the link to the video, I learned a lot!
He speaks of getting his mind into their’s. Even without the things that he is accused of, this doesn’t sound healthy I would run the other way. Control of any kind is not what I want in my life.
Good points, everyone. How dare we in this western culture question his integrity! He seems to think that he is above being questioned. He does avoid answering some of the questions, and he uses the angry rant as a means to avoid them.
I saw this unfortunately timed ad on the subway.
He’s no Iyengar that’s for sure.
Bikram’s idea of hot yoga always seemed sham marketing to me.
This in Wikipedia.
In Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class (First Edition), Choudhury claims he conducted medical studies at the Tokyo University Medical School validating the medical benefits of his 26 postures. During one of the lawsuits, defendants demanded copies of the “medical” studies and Choudhury claimed he could not find them. In Bikram’s Beginning Yoga Class (Second Edition), Choudhury removed all references to medical studies.
con artist sounds like
The way he tilts his head back and looks down at the interviewer reeks of arrogance to me.
I think the Speedo tells us all we need to know.
I have no connection to this yoga system (or any yoga system), but some of Bikram’s claims are testable, so I decided to look. One is that “The 105 degree Fahrenheit heat in which Bikram yoga is practiced is, according to Choudhury, meant to mimic the climate of India.” That’s right around 40 degree Celsius. Is that the climate in India?
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_India#Statistics, the temperature is reported in 13 different areas of India for each of the four seasons. (note that the temperatures are in Celsius). Only two of the 13 locations reported 40 degrees, and that’s the maximum temperature for all recorded time for that location. The highest average temperature is 27 degrees Celsius (around 81 degrees Fahrenheit). So the climate in all of India is cooler than the climate in the yoga class.
To put this in perspective, the temperature in the Bikhram yoga room is hotter than the Sahara Desert (the hottest average place on Earth). The average in the Sahara is 30 degrees, with regular peaks at 40 degrees, but then the temperature drops.
It seems like the temperature in the Bikhram yoga class does not mimic the climate of any place on Earth, much less India, from what I can tell.
Oh Russ, what do you know? haha. The heat is what attracts people by the thousands to Bikram yoga. They don’t want facts. That’s the folly of humanity.
I didn’t know he was trying to imitate hot india. I once went to the himalaya’s and there was a yoga school there and the temperature was cold.
Gee, a guy who created a form of yoga that is responsible for loads of injuries beyond what can happen in normal room temp yoga is a sham? I feel for the women accusing him, but I am not shocked to hear this.
And what’s he doing standing on people? Is that yoga? I know I’d be wondering what’s going on if I saw that happening.
My first impression that I can’t shake is how Christ on the Cross-like is that pose? So creepy.
He’s almost as creepy as the American Apperal guy, Don Charney http://guestofaguest.com/celebrities/terry-richardson-and-dov-charney-raise-level-of-discourse-perviness
You had me really conflicted with this until I realized it doesn’t matter which one of them is the bigger creep, because in the end, they’re both creeps of epic proportions, and I think not labeling either as “more than” the other on any metric is more likely to drive them both mad, and so I won’t give either of them the pleasure. 😉
We don’t care if he is hard-working. What has that got to do with theses girls? How dare we look at him with anything but adoration! Please!!! He has lost touch with reality, and he thinks everyone is adoring him. He turns the tables on this interviewer by disparaging our western culture, and by doing that, he disparages her. This throws the conversation away from him.
I hope he checks on his student’s health conditions before he has them exercise in that heat. He could have a lawsuit or charges against him for someone dying in his class.
>disparaging our western culture
I didn’t realize how *much* he disparaged western culture until I read that comment and thought about it a bit. He really does slam it hard – all the while not answering the question. But more to the point, it is western culture that is the setting for his business. And I totally agree, in doing this he disparages the interviewer, and throws the conversation away from him.
It’s still shocking to me after all these years the extent people will go to not answer a direct question (in his case, does his family believe him?) and also try to throw the other person off the trail. My regret is not just his answer, but that the interviewer didn’t pick this up and do follow-up after follow-up after follow-up. I bet that would have been even more interesting than his initial deflection and attempt at re-direction.
Yes, he was spewing venom! I am sure she is kicking herself for not catching on to his little trick. Sometimes coming back a second time takes them by surprise, and they have to give an unguarded answer. Either that, or they look awfully suspicious with a second hedge.
I believe the reporter knew what Bikram was doing and didn’t pay the slightest attention to his diversions. For example when he says I want you to tell the truth to the world her immediate reply is I’ve read all the affidavits and there’s a pattern… Later when he puts up his finger and talks about dying everyday she asks politely but to the point ‘Does your family believe you?’. Her questions weren’t even delayed by his stories. That’s good journalism to me.
I took a class from him in LA.
Got to meet several people who were there for his training/certificaton. The cost was $10,000 per person and he can easily have a certification class of 200 people. My point…several of the women I met made it a point, that when not in class, not to go near him ,alone. The Bikram Yoga community has known about this for a long time but, 1) couldn’t prove it, 2) would say nothing for fear of losing their licencing (studio).
What you say matches what happened when Baughn told the staff member what had happened in the office. Don’t be alone with him again.
That’s a shame that this sort of thing goes on for so long and people don’t do anything about it apart from tell each other on the quiet. It’s not as if being quiet makes it go away. My own opinion is that most people are ruled by fear and their actions are often cowardly.
I’d say it depends on the definition of cowardly, because it can certainly be construed as such under certain definitions.
But I can also certainly understand why people aren’t quick to act or do anything about it other than telling people quietly on the down low. It’s unfortunate because it results in way more victims than there ever should be, but it’s still understandable, at least to me. People have to survive, and there are a lot of circumstances where doing anything more would jeopardize their survival, and many others where a person would legitimately perceive that it would jeopardize their survival. These people are actually victims of these predators too, so I tend to take a more understanding, compassionate view of them and their situations, even if, objectively, their actions and choices are way less than ideal. Bear in mind that their telling people quietly behind the scenes shows that their intent is still good.
i can understand why they would keep quiet, also. They may really need their jobs, and they are being brave just telling the women to stay away from getting alone with him. This man is probably cunning enough to get people around him that need their jobs and are more vulnerable people. I am sure that anyone, who was very outspoken on any subject would be fired, immediately. I have to wonder about the culture he was born into. Were women disrespected and treated as less value than a man.
It will be very interesting what his attendants say if they are questioned in court. The full story may come out.
Well yes it could be termed ‘unfortunate’ if it might have prevented a rape that he is accused of.
Sarcasm aside, I understand why people don’t speak up. However having been on the unfortunate side of people’s silence more than once I tend to label such behaviour as cowardly in comparision to how I act in similar situations.
But I do appreciate your positive approach to these situations which if adopted will likely lead to finding solutions. I have some ideas on the matter and am interested to find solutions of why people don’t help further.
That’s the classic “missing stair” in communities – certain people are known to be dangerous, but nobody ever really does anything to resolve the issue. There’s a great description of the phenomenon here: http://pervocracy.blogspot.ca/2012/06/missing-stair.html
Thanks for sharing your experience with him in LA. It’s sad to read that his behavior is well known in the community – hopefully now he will be held accountable for his actions.