The Money Pose
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BORN IN CALCUTTA IN 1946, Bikram came to the United States in the early 1970s to teach hatha yoga, the most exercise-oriented type of yoga. (He says he was brought in to teach Richard Nixon, a claim that has proved impossible to verify.) He opened his first studios in California and Hawaii, where he combined a series of 26 hatha postures and two breathing exercises, all to be performed in a superheated studio, into a 90-minute sequence that he narrated. "Hot yoga," which he would sometimes call "Bikram yoga," proved enormously popular, even life-changing for many practitioners, who loved its intensity and its discipline, and who found that the heat helped them push their bodies beyond anything they'd imagined. By the late 1970s Bikram had written a book, opened more studios, and started training yoga teachers at his Los Angeles headquarters. "Before me, there was no money, no business with yoga," Bikram says.
Still, back then, he made no attempt to trademark his name or poses. His students often returned to their hometowns to launch studios; today, Bikram says, more than 1,200 studios nationwide practice some form of hot yoga. Sometimes the former students would advertise that they were teaching Bikram-style yoga. Sometimes they wouldn't. "Bikram's sequence wasn't entirely original," says Jimmy Barkan, a studio owner in Florida who trained with Bikram. "There are many parts of it that were commonly practiced for years."
As his wealth and celebrity grew, Bikram became more intense. His talk in class grew bolder. "He'd talk about some girl's breasts, or tell stories about how all the women in L.A. were walking funny after intercourse with him," says one former student. He promised he could cure cancer and boasted of his famous clients and friends; the walls of his Los Angeles studio are plastered with photos of him with the likes of Shirley MacLaine, Luke Perry, and Bill Clinton. (Clinton, in a note displayed near the picture, thanked Bikram after visiting him in Beverly Hills—to get yoga training, Bikram claims; Clinton's press office did not return calls on the subject.) "From pope to president to prime minister, billionaire, superstar, novelist, sportsman, athlete, hooker, street boy, they say, ‘Bikram, you changed my life, you saved my life,'" he told me. "I have balls like atom bombs, two of them, 100 megatons each," he informed Business 2.0. "Nobody fucks with me."
Bikram's business goals also became more ambitious. Rather than simply own studios and train teachers, he now aims to turn his disciples into franchisees and give hot-yoga enthusiasts nationwide the exact same experience, from the poses down to the instructor's monologue. As with Starbucks, he figures, familiarity will prove attractive to Americans—and lucrative, too, with potential for licensing deals galore. "Bikram yoga is so big—this is a bathroom slipper you buy [for] $2 in Kmart," he says, waving a plastic flip-flop in my face. "But you put ‘Bikram' on it, it'll sell for $35 in a second."
Over the past two years, Bikram has applied for trademarks for his name and copyrights for his teaching materials and sequence of 26 poses and two breathing exercises. His lawyers have begun sending out cease-and-desist letters warning other teachers not to adulterate his sequence or take credit for it or anything derivative of it. He has also sued or threatened to sue studio owners, forcing at least one to settle and promise to "never again...infringe upon Bikram's copyrighted works." On the website of his organization, Bikram's Yoga College of India, he has posted a statement threatening to sue anyone who does not obey, demanding $150,000 for each supposed violation. "If anyone steals your intellectual property, you shut them up," he says, his voice rising. "Do you think I feel very happy to do that? Of course not. In India, nobody sues anybody." He sighs. "You guys bring me [to America] to teach yoga. Just simple, teach yoga. Now look at where you've put me today. Why, my friend said to me, ‘You don't look good'—because all the time I have to think about law and justice and courts."
Clearly, many of Bikram's former students remain close to him and might happily join a franchising model. Still, others see a darker side to the concept. "Litigating to take control is so much the antithesis of yoga," says Dharmanidhi Sarasvati, a classical yogi in Berkeley, California. "It's the culmination of commercialization." Sarasvati says that in India, yoga was explicitly anticommercial: Teachers shared information in order to boost their knowledge, and disciples did not pay to learn from masters.
Phil Catalfo, an editor at Yoga Journal, says Bikram's efforts "could have huge implications." If Bikram succeeds, he may prompt other companies to patent and franchise ancient shared ideas. Several other yogis are allegedly researching ways to copyright their sequences. A company that produces video games has sought to own the rights to age-old elements of karate. Some Pilates studio owners and equipment makers have tried to trademark the practice, a form of exercise invented in Europe a century ago. So far, none of these efforts have been successful, but Bikram believes he can establish a precedent.
It won't be easy. In the mid-1990s, Vanessa Calder and her parents, Bill and Sandy McCauley, used their life savings to build three small studios in the San Francisco Bay Area, which they named Yoga Loka. The studios were cramped quarters, some on second-floor walk-ups, with rooms barely big enough to hold 30 people. Calder's father, a former construction worker, designed the studios, and her mother, who'd used hot yoga to cure numerous health ailments, became the first teacher. "The yoga is wonderful, and so is Bikram's service—that he brought this yoga here," says Calder, a tall, narrow-faced woman with streaky blond hair.
In 2000, the McCauleys, who'd taught primarily hot yoga but wanted the freedom to teach other styles, declined an offer from Bikram to become "affiliates" of his, which would have meant teaching only Bikram-style yoga. They soon received a cease-and-desist letter telling them to quit using the Bikram name. "Now we were all very afraid," Calder remembers. "We'd never had a lawyer before, and we were terrified. My mother felt like she could lose her livelihood—she has no savings."
Last year, Calder and a group of instructors from across North America formed a coalition called Open Source Yoga Unity—inspired by the open-source software movement, which has tried to break Microsoft's dominance over computer operating systems—and sued Bikram in federal court in California. "I said, I'm not going to live in fear forever," says Brandon Hartsell, an Open Source member and owner of a Dallas studio that teaches some hot yoga. Open Source is asking the court to prohibit Bikram from threatening to sue studios, and to declare a limit to his rights under copyright and trademark law. In April 2004, the judge rejected Bikram's attempt to have the Open Source suit dismissed. The case is now in discovery, preparing for trial.
The wrangling has frightened some yoga teachers. Calder says that when she invites instructors to join Open Source conference calls, many are too afraid to identify themselves on the line. Numerous studio owners also refuse to discuss Bikram in print. One young woman who used her savings to open a small studio spoke with Mother Jones on condition of anonymity. "I gave Bikram every cent I had," she said. (Bikram training costs $5,500.) "Then I had to take out a $30,000 loan to open my studio. I didn't think I should have to pay Bikram to open a studio.... The whole franchise thing is bullshit, totally opposite what yoga should be, but I'm trying to survive." She paused, resigned. "I'm considering just going back to Bikram and begging him to sign up for a franchise."
If Bikram is in one of his magnanimous moods, he might take her back. Leaning back in his plush chair with a broad smile, he reminded me how lucky America is to have him. "I didn't come here without a visa, like everyone from China and Vietnam and Cuba. I came here by special plane...received by the ambassador, by the president of the United States. I should be the most honored man in your country. Why do I have to go through these things today?"
Photo: AP/Wide World Photos
Bikram yoga is FANTASTIC - period! I have been doing it for three months and have lost 42 pounds and feel better than I have EVER in my entrie life! I sleep like a baby, I have no stress, no back pain and my mind is clear as day - ALWAYS!
Bikram took 26 postures out of the 84 Yoga postures and made his own sequence. He did this for people's well being. It was Shirley McClaine who URGED him to charge people for his practice! He did not want to charge (as Yoga is free) and she told him "If you don't charge, people will not take you seriously." So, being a business man, he knew what he had to do.
Bikram is not trying to monopolize yoga, he's just trying to trademark and copyright HIS sequence, which HE came up wih, which HE devoted most his life to, which HE introduced and is still introducing to thousands of people.
People always have to 'hate' on other people. No one can be positive or encouraging about his sequence. I'm a photographer... and I copyright and trademark MY work. Photography is FREE for everyone just as yoga is... but my photograps are MINE just as Bikram Yoga is HIS! Come on, people!
I highly suggest reading his book for beginners. It will put things into perspective and make sense as to why he made this sequence. Yes, he's rich off it... but he's not an idiot! Why would someone not 'bank' off something in the US that is bankable!?!??!!? Let's not be hipocrits here....
Do Bikram Yoga!!
The Barkan Method sucks hands down, why, because he stole it majority of the sequence from Bikram and he ads a sun salutation. No sit ups to tone your abs and one set of the more challenging poses. Its not challenging at all. Jimmy Barkan, you are a joke. You can't even touch the sweat from Bikram Chondry nor John Baptiste balls. Jimmy Barkan, if you are so great, why don't you innovate your own sequence you damn yogi hypocrite.
Some of you "yogi's" get real, not every practicing yogi wants to change their name to Ohm Shanti or act "indian", some of us are proud of being who we are. Bikram is real and has a mission to have "quality control" over his sequence. I respect that, since yoga teachers are hit or miss. In bikram classes, you get nothing but quality and if Bikram has to slap someone with a lawsuit to teach QUALITY YOGA... so be it. God Bless Bikram Chondry. You know what jerks, I lost 25lbs and felt great since I did his work out. my anxiety and depression is gone, i am so proud of myself and others who see the change in me are happy for me. So half you all don't know what is the deal, you would rather be HATERS. hey what comes around goes around.
First, Bikram is trying to copyright a specific sequence of movements by the human body. It is questionable whether that can be done at all, similarly to whether it is allowable to copyright a sequence of genes. Can you copyright walking? How about a specific form of dance? (e.g. could Michael Jackson copyright the moonwalk and sue everyone who does it? Is it good for society if the legal system makes that possible, and if not, when don't we change it?) Against him, you have the requirement of no prior art; I think it would be difficult for him to show that none of the postures he includes in his sequence have been done before, in the 3000 years in the history of yoga, especially given the widely acknowledged and documented existence of other styles of yoga (Iyengar, Ashtanga, etc.). In his favour, perhaps the specific ordering of the moves is original enough to be copyrightable, but that remains to be judged by a court of law. In this case, I would argue that any sufficiently different sequence of moves taught by another teach does not violate his copyright (e.g. it is not a derivative work).
Note that this does not mean that (with current law) he could not copyright "the materials" he produced, such as a book, or a video recording, of his approach.
Second, and much more importantly, the entire notion of "Intellectual Property" is a concept which is going to become more and more subject to debate. Copyrights have been introduced in order to stimulate the production of materials by insuring that the author would be able to get some benefit out of his/her work, in order to stimulate development in the same libertarian sense that property rights exist to support a thriving economy. Today, thanks to Disney and other large media companies, copyright law has been extended to a ridiculous time, way beyond what is needed, to more than a person's lifetime, which is in my view outrageous and detrimental to the freedoms that artists should have. We need to keep in mind that copyright law is there for the benefit of society and may change in the future; in other words, if society benefits less from a strict application of intellectual property as "property rights", and that this becomes demonstrable, the elected should change the law (law is there for the benefit of society as a whole). Unfortunately, lobbies and special interests make this difficult at the moment.
The term "intellectual property" is by itself misleading. An eloquent discussion on the topic of IP can be found in "The Comedy of the Commons", a talk by Lawrence Lessig (link below). In it, he argues that resources can be categorized as being rivalrous or non-rivalrous (you can also find a discussion of this in any good old book on Economics). Rivalrous resources are such that if *I* enjoy it, *you* can't enjoy it. This is the case of a house or a car, for example, only its owner can use it at any one time. "Ideas", on the other hand, are non-rivalrous resources, and deserve special treatment. First, the resource (the idea, in this case, the "yoga sequence") is *more* valuable to its users the more it is shared (the knowledge becomes more valuable as more people can teach it, and it can also be more easily evolved and improved, think "Linux" if you like). Second, the "idea" does not lose its value or appeal if it is shared by more than one person. *My* enjoyment of the Bikram sequence does not make *your* enjoyment of it any less than it would be if I could not enjoy it. Lessig also clearly shows how this distinction has been known back to the days of Jefferson and others. Here is a link to this enlightening talk:
http://itc.conversationsnetwork.org/shows/detail349.html
The problem is that current copyright law in most cases does not make this important distinction between rivalrous and non-rivalrous resources. We have become accustomed to thinking of media as "someone's property". But this is bound to change: due to the advances of technology (e.g. remix culture, P2P), there are several instances where information-as-property is raising questions as to the benefits for society of this legal framework. The rising reconnaisance of community networks and the amazing value they can sometimes provide (e.g., Wikipedia) is providing more and more evidence that in many instances, society benefits less from a strict application of property rights than it would with a freer model.
In my view, you cannot discuss this issue unless you take into account the nature of the legal system. Bikram may sue, but in my view he is just hurting the spread of the ideas provided by his system (however valuable they may be).