Hot, sweaty and scandalous

Bikram Choudhury, founder of the fastest-growing style of yoga in America, has copyrighted his poses and is threatening to sue anyone who teaches his "hot" style without permission. Is this enlightenment?

By Nora Isaacs

Apr 4, 2003 | Kim and Mark Morrison thought they had achieved small-business nirvana. Eight years after Kim borrowed $25,000 to open a tiny yoga studio in Costa Mesa, Calif., it has grown into a bustling enterprise that employs 12 instructors and offers 40 classes a week in several styles of yoga. After years of working long hours, and investing more than $100,000 in expensive renovations, the Morrisons' venture, Yoga Studio Costa Mesa, has become more than just a place to bend and stretch. The studio -- with its meditation room, yoga programs for kids and pregnant women, spaces for baby showers and weddings -- has become the nexus of a small but devoted community.

But that might be about to change.

A year ago, the Morrisons received a letter that threatened the future of their beloved business. The correspondence came from lawyers for Bikram Choudhury, founder of the fastest-growing style of yoga in America, Bikram Yoga. "It was a dagger of a letter -- long, nasty and filled with allegations," says Mark, who is also a lawyer. The missive alleged that the Morrisons were violating a recently acquired copyright and insisted that they comply with a long list of demands and pay fines starting at $150,000 -- or risk a lawsuit. The warning, the Morrisons say, makes a mockery of yoga's ultimate promise of both peace of mind and freedom. "We're not just scared about what this could do to our finances," Mark says. "Yoga is something really personal, something that we love. And that's being attacked."

If Choudhury has his way, every Bikram Yoga studio in the world will soon be franchised and under his control. To start this process, he recently obtained a copyright for his particular sequence of yoga poses -- a 90-minute series of 26 postures and two breathing exercises done in a room heated to 105 degrees. Choudhury says that yoga studios that want to continue teaching Bikram Yoga must pay franchise and royalty fees, change their name to Bikram's Yoga College of India, stop teaching other styles of yoga, use only Bikram-approved dialogue when instructing students, refrain from playing music during classes, and a host of other stipulations.

"From the business side, I kind of understand it," says Judith Hanson Lasater, a prominent Bay Area yoga instructor who has been teaching since 1971. "But from the yoga side I think it's really sad." Mom-and-pop studios across the country, owned by people like the Morrisons who feel they are doing a service by helping to disseminate the teachings of yoga, are outraged by Choudhury's hubris. "Yoga is an old philosophy and an old tradition," says Tony Sanchez, who opened a Bikram Yoga studio in San Francisco in 1985. "It's ridiculous to have someone claiming that these are their postures."

Choudhury, 56, is a yoga guru so brash that he has been known to compare himself to Superman and Buddha, teach from a throne wearing nothing but a tiny Speedo and a headset mike, and proclaim his style as "the only yoga." When asked how he could make such drastic statements, he told Business 2.0 magazine: "Because I have balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each. Nobody fucks with me." Perhaps because of his erratic, grandiose behavior, the hundreds of cease-and-desist letters he sent to studios across the country were remarkably effective. Most studios either met his demands, stopped teaching Bikram classes and using the Bikram name, or shuffled around the standard 26-pose sequence.

But not the Yoga Studio Costa Mesa. After researching current law and talking to several intellectual property attorneys, the Morrisons decided not to comply -- and sure enough, Choudhury slapped them with a lawsuit. The case is now in the discovery stage, with both parties exchanging documents in preparation for court. "To stop them from stealing I must go to the lawyers," says Choudhury. "When in Rome, I must do as the Romans do. When in America, make Bikram copyright and trademark."

The Indian-born Choudhury has embraced the American way since 1971, when he arrived in the United States and sold Americans a sweaty workout and a spiritual practice all wrapped into one neat package. Since then he's developed a cult following and settled in Beverly Hills, where he collects Bentleys and Rolls Royces. Choudhury claims that his yoga, practiced in a mirrored room in extreme heat, cures everything from heart disease to hepatitis C. He has trained more than 2,000 teachers in his method ($5,000 per training) and says he is opening two new studios each day. Worldwide, he has 720 schools in 50 states and 220 countries. With the help of his audio, video and clothing lines, his fortune is estimated at $7 million.

To protect his assets, Choudhury says he must franchise. "I'm not happy about it," he insists. By copyrighting the poses, he says, he will protect his intellectual property and discourage copycats from teaching what he considers his invention. "When I first came here, I never charged a dime," he says. "But my students said, This is not Calcutta; this is America. You have to charge money or else nobody will believe you know something." But many feel Choudhury's actions breach the most basic of yogic teachings -- generosity, contentment, gentleness and, ultimately, self-liberation -- and that his pathological need for control and power renders him spiritually bankrupt and focused solely on the bottom line.

Next Page: Bikram says his detractors are "pissing in the wind"

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