“F**k Bikram Yoga, that’s not real Yoga.”

An actual statement uttered by someone, to me, a few years ago.  Sadly, I’ve continued to hear similar statements over the years.  My response is always the same, I offer to pay, out of my own pocket, for the person behind the bold statement to do an uninterrupted month of this apparently ‘fake’ yoga they seem to be so knowledgeable about.  No one has ever taken me up on the offer. 

Not even once. 

I can’t seem to figure out why.

Article after article always blather on about Bikram’s cars – his Bentleys, Rolls Royces…sometimes highlighting that subject more than what the article is supposed to be about…the Yoga.  Just as the media likes to do, spin a great story, make it interesting or controversial to get tongues wagging.  (not unlike my blog title…that got you going a little bit, didn’t it?  Especially perhaps if you are a teacher reading this.)  Well, here’s a little tidbit to complete the report.  If you were to read even just a few pages of Bikram’s book, you would learn that Bikram’s obsession with cars started when he was very young.  Do you have anything that you’ve been obsessed with for as long as you can remember?  Maybe it’s films, rock-climbing, dancing, acting, you name it.  Or how about music?  Perhaps you sat alone, locked in your room for days on end, strumming a guitar, writing and playing tirelessly and endlessly.  Maybe every penny you made went to buying that guitar you’d been coveting in the window of the music shop you purposely passed every day on your way home from school.  Music was and is the one thing that made you feel truly happy.

Even if music isn’t your obsession, you could read the previous few sentences and say “Ok, I get it.”  Right?  Well, Bikram’s obsession was and is cars (and yoga, of course).  Bikram learned how to repair cars in India when he ran a garage, while running his first yoga schools.  And here’s another fact, the cars he owns now were bought as (quote from his book), “near hopeless wrecks and restored with [his] own two hands.”  That might put a little perspective on the whole flashy car thing, huh.

So, back to the real subject:  Yoga.  Yoga has been at work for 5,000 years.  FIVE THOUSAND YEARS.  What other form of discipline carries with it such a distinguished reputation?  Martial arts perhaps?  Let’s talk about martial arts for a moment.  I’ve never taken ANY sort of martial arts class in my life, but I know that the minute I were to walk into any Dojo or even be in the presence of any Sensei, Master, Teacher, I would show complete and utter respect to them as a teacher for their knowledge and the discipline that they were about to instill in me.  Why do I know this?  The idea of that respect, focus and discipline has long been told in tales and stories and movies.  Hello, it started for me as far back as Karate Kid!  Miyagi didn’t mess around.  Paint the fence.  Wax on, wax off.  When Danielsan started getting pissed that he felt like Miyagi’s slave, The Big M knew better than him that all that work, pain, crying, soreness, piss and vinegar would BE the discipline Daniel needed.

This is what many people fail to see that Hatha Yoga…Bikram Yoga…is.  It is a discipline, it is fucking hard.  Yes, I said fucking.  It’s fucking hard.  And unlike what most people believe, you don’t get your ass kicked…you kick your own ass, which is why you appreciate and love and respect yourself a million times more when you walk out of that room.  Because YOU did the work, no one did it for you.  Even with all the riches in the world, it is impossible to buy, from someone else, what this yoga rewards you with.  You must---must---must do the work yourself.

“It’s bullshit, you do the same postures over and over again, and how can you meditate without chanting first?”

This simply is not the Peace, Love and Light Yoga class you went to last week where you chanted Ohm Shanti, Shanti before you even did one posture.  Nor should you expect it to be.  Make no mistake, peace, love and light…all great things…we just arrive at the destination driving a little bit different of a vehicle.  Did someone tell you that there would be music?  Sorry to disappoint you.  Really, I mean that.  I love music.  It just has no place in a Bikram class.  Did someone promise you you’d get a Hatha Yoga class?  Good, because that’s what it is.  Period.  End of sentence. 

“I’m not going to tell you what you want to hear.  I’m going to tell you what you NEED to hear.  I’m going to tell you the truth.  I’ve got balls and I’ve got guts, so I say and do things I think my students need, whether or not it hurts their feelings.  But along with all my yelling and rough talk, my students can see the love and compassion I have for them as well.  They can feel that they’re healing.”               

~ Bikram Choudhury

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EXCERPT from Bikram Yoga by Bikram Choudhury

Because I was a noisy and energetic little boy and used to disturb my mom all the time, she had Ashim and Jayanti take me with them to the club so that I’d be out of her hair and she could cook in peace.  While the others were getting their lessons, which lasted for about three hours, I would sit on the old guru’s lap.  Afterward the guru would say, “Your friends, your brother and your sister all study Hindi and do the chanting, so they all get candy.”  We had a sugar candy then that we called prashat.  “You didn’t do anything , so you are not going to get prashat.”

I said, “Are you kidding?  For three hours, I sat on your lap quietly---that’s the hardest thing I ever did  in my life.  So I deserve candy.” 

Even then, I had a big mouth.

The guru said, “Well, rules are rules.  You’ve got to do something in order to earn a reward.”

“What do you want me to do?” I asked him.

He just smiled, grabbed my feet and hung me upside-down with my head touching the floor, which is called Sirsasana, or Headstand.  He also used to hold my hands and feet, and lift me up in Bow posture; at the time, I didn’t realize that he was teaching me yoga asanas.  So, every day, seven days a week, he used to hang me upside-down and make me practice various postures.  It all seemed very strange to me---and, it turned out, I still had to learn the chanting.  But I  didn't really mind:  I did it all for the candy.

Right after I turned six we moved back to Calcutta, to a house next door to a playground and gymnasium where all the neighborhood children played.  In a club upstairs from the gym, I saw all these bodybuilders exercising.  I was interested; you know how boys are naturally fascinated by muscular men.  One day I went there with my friends, walked upstairs and saw them all practicing the same things that old guru had taught me in Bihar!  I bragged to one of my friends, “Hey, I can do much better than that---they’re not even doing a good job.”  I was never a bashful person, even as a kid.

“Oh yeah?” said my friends, “show me.”  So I took off my shirt, and started doing the exercises with the friend.  There was a man sitting on a bed at the front of the room, and he said, “Hey, come here.  What’s your name?”

“Bikram”, I replied.  As I got closer I could see that he was a very short man; I also noticed that he had the most penetrating dark eyes I’d ever seen.  They were black, and his gaze immediately struck you when it fell upon you.

“Where did you learn those things?” He asked.

“From Punditji”, I told him (Punditji means Master.) “In Deoghar.

“Show me more”, he commanded.

So I showed him all the postures I knew.  “A little boy doing all eighty-four postures?” he said, very surprised.  “Come every day; I will teach you more.”

This man was Bishnu Charan Ghosh, the youngest brother of Paramahansa Yogananda.  Widely considered the greatest physical culturist to emerge in the last 500 years, he became my guru and the greatest influence in my life.  I remained at his side, studied with him, and learned everything I know about yoga from him for the next 20 years.  If you ask me today what it is that I do, I will tell you, “I practice my guru’s wisdom.”

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How fortunate I feel to have stumbled upon this yoga and have it resonate with me so strongly that I decided to become a teacher myself.  And then, to be taught by Bikram himself for nine grueling, tiring, killer, extraordinary, life changing weeks.  And then someone is going to tell me that what I've gone through in my training, what I teach and what I witness changing the lives of students (all over the world, no less) every single day isn’t real?

You know what, they're right, this isn't real.  This is a dream!