Bikram Choudhury is an Indian-born yoga teacher who is widely associated with the development and promotion of a structured form of hot yoga taught in heated rooms. He came to international prominence after relocating from India to the United States, where he founded a global network of yoga studios and a teacher training programme that popularised his branded sequence of postures.
Key facts
| Name | Bikram Choudhury |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Indian |
| Known for | Founder of Bikram Yoga |
| Profession | Yoga teacher |
| Field | Hatha-based hot yoga |
Background
Choudhury was born in India and trained in yoga from a young age in the Indian hatha yoga tradition. He later moved to the United States, where he began teaching a fixed sequence of postures performed in a room heated to elevated temperatures. This approach, marketed under his own name, became one of the most widely recognised commercial styles of yoga outside India.
Bikram Yoga
The style associated with Choudhury consists of a set sequence of postures and breathing exercises taught in a heated environment. Classes are typically of fixed duration and follow the same order of postures, which made the format easy to standardise across studios in different countries. Through teacher training programmes, instructors were certified to teach this specific sequence, leading to the spread of affiliated studios in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
Significance
Choudhury is regarded as one of the figures who contributed to the global commercialisation of yoga in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The standardised studio model and branded teacher training format introduced through his organisation influenced the wider hot yoga industry, and elements of his sequence have been adapted by other studios offering similar heated yoga formats.
Related topics
References
- Wikidata entry: Q860127