Ethnographic Study: Bikram Yoga
Ethnographic Study of Bikram Yoga
Alicia Rawlings
MLS 502
September 25, 2012
Prof. Gereboff
Bikram yoga has become an immensely popular activity in the United States in the twentieth, going on into the twenty-first, century. Bikram Choudhury has 1,650 studios worldwide showing that there is growing popularity for this very specific type of yoga on a very large scale (Shakespeare, 2006). However, it is the United States that is showing the most rapid growth with upwards of “25 million expressing interest in starting it in the next year,” (Gala, 2009). This ethnographic study of the history, current state and proposed health benefits as understood to be alternative health care of Bikram yoga will consider bibliographic research and will include a first-hand account as well as informal interviews. Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta, India in 1946. He started to learn yoga poses and theory as young as three years old. At the age of five Choudhury began to work with Guru Bishnu Ghosh who happened to teach children next door to Choudhury’s home. It was Ghosh who encouraged him to compete in the National India Yoga Championship. Choudhury went on to win the championship three consecutive years starting at age eleven, making him the youngest champion. At the age of twenty, however, Choudhury’s knee was crushed by an eighty pound weight dropped by his weight lifting spotter. Western medicine told him that he would be crippled for the duration of his life. Choudhury was reluctant to accept this reality and decided to better the condition of his knee with yoga under the supervision of Ghosh. It is claimed that he was able to walk and was fully recovered from this life-altering injury in just six to eight months (Schickel, 2003). This miraculous recovery was Choudhury’s inspiration to dedicate his life to the practice and spread of yoga. Ghosh taught Choudhury a more traditional Hatha yoga “picking specific asanas [or postures] for specific ailments,” (Schickel,
Alicia Rawlings
MLS 502
September 25, 2012
Prof. Gereboff
Bikram yoga has become an immensely popular activity in the United States in the twentieth, going on into the twenty-first, century. Bikram Choudhury has 1,650 studios worldwide showing that there is growing popularity for this very specific type of yoga on a very large scale (Shakespeare, 2006). However, it is the United States that is showing the most rapid growth with upwards of “25 million expressing interest in starting it in the next year,” (Gala, 2009). This ethnographic study of the history, current state and proposed health benefits as understood to be alternative health care of Bikram yoga will consider bibliographic research and will include a first-hand account as well as informal interviews. Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta, India in 1946. He started to learn yoga poses and theory as young as three years old. At the age of five Choudhury began to work with Guru Bishnu Ghosh who happened to teach children next door to Choudhury’s home. It was Ghosh who encouraged him to compete in the National India Yoga Championship. Choudhury went on to win the championship three consecutive years starting at age eleven, making him the youngest champion. At the age of twenty, however, Choudhury’s knee was crushed by an eighty pound weight dropped by his weight lifting spotter. Western medicine told him that he would be crippled for the duration of his life. Choudhury was reluctant to accept this reality and decided to better the condition of his knee with yoga under the supervision of Ghosh. It is claimed that he was able to walk and was fully recovered from this life-altering injury in just six to eight months (Schickel, 2003). This miraculous recovery was Choudhury’s inspiration to dedicate his life to the practice and spread of yoga. Ghosh taught Choudhury a more traditional Hatha yoga “picking specific asanas [or postures] for specific ailments,” (Schickel,