Bikram yoga is a hot yoga practiced in temperatures of 105°F and high humidity to simulate conditions in India. The practice involves a specific series of 26 postures and breathing exercises, with many physical benefits claimed. Controversy surrounds the founder’s exclusive control over the practice’s name and poses.
Bikram yoga is a style of yoga that is practiced in extreme heat; the thermostat is usually set at 105 degrees Fahrenheit (about 40 degrees Celsius) and the room is awash in high humidity (40 to 60 percent). The goal is to simulate conditions found in India, the country where yoga originated. The heat also helps the practitioner’s body to achieve a level of flexibility that is not easy to achieve in normal North American conditions. This helps the student stay in a deeper, longer stretch and also prevents injury.
High temperatures also induce profuse sweating, which can be a helpful way to detoxify the body. Because of this, teachers in this system generally ask their students to come prepared with at least two quarts of water to avoid dehydration during the 90-minute practice. Bikram yoga is also appropriately called hot yoga.
Bikram instructors guide their students through a specific series of 26 postures, or asanas, each performed twice. They are meant to stretch every muscle, engage the joints, and massage the organs within the body. There are also two breathing exercises included in the Bikram series. Completing the series is an intense experience, but Bikram yoga is an unapologetic system. Students are encouraged to push their bodies to the limit, which is very different from the teachings of most other forms of yoga.
Another distinction from traditional yoga systems is the lack of sun salutations before the beginning of the series and the absence of inversions, which are usually found towards the end. Sun salutations warm the body, but the high temperatures in Bikram yoga accomplish the same goal, while inversions are out because many yoga students don’t have the strength to complete them without injuring themselves. The benefits of inversions, such as increased circulation to the brain, are obtained through other poses that involve bending at the waist and dropping the head. Bikram yoga practitioners and instructors claim many amazing physical benefits, including full recovery from old injuries and chronic illnesses.
There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram yoga, due to a copyright and trademark case regarding his yoga system. Bikram, who uses his first name only, would like to reserve the name Bikram for those who have been certified by his Yoga College of India. They must teach your specific series of 26 postures and breathing exercises, at the precise temperature and humidity you specify, with the study set up in a prescribed manner. Anyone else who wants to teach hot yoga may not call it Bikram yoga. His case was settled out of court, but there are many yoga communities in North America and India who feel that Bikram’s exclusive control over poses derived from traditional practice is objectionable. Others, however, agree with his right to control his intellectual property.
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