Hot yoga history

It’s a little known fact, that bodybuilding and hot yoga… share ancestry. And, it’s weirder than you think. 

Bodybuilding became a thing, in the early 1900’s. Bodybuilding competitions became an industry, with endorsements, tiny spandex speedos, huge tacky trophies, and the like. Bodybuilding found a boom in the 1950’s, and spawned the events we are familiar with today in America – Mr. Universe, among them. Swaggering through the bodybuilding world of India, was Bikram Choudhury – which explains a bit, about his style of yoga that came later.

Many Americans in the 1960’s-70’s were ‘spiritually seeking’, and practices like yoga and TCM (transcendental meditation) became catchwords eventually landing in popular culture like… ‘The Pina Colada Song! People traveled to India to learn more about the mystical arts, among them Hollywood celebrities primed by the legacy of Indra Devi.

Enter, Shirley MacClane. Hot yoga, is largely because of… Shirley MacLane.

She ended up in a yoga class taught by Bikram – a bodybuilder who had learned yoga from Bishnu Ghosh. (Who is the younger brother of Paramhansa Yogananda, who wrote the book Autobiography of a Yogi and brought TCM to the mainstream.) Bikram had completed asana training (poses) but, unfortunately Ghosh passed away before he could certify Bikram in breath control (pranayama) and meditation. Bikram’s style, having not studied the more ethical tenets of yoga, was… swagger and cockiness. Shirley MacLane was taken with his guru-esque, bold delivery, and… opened a yoga studio in Beverly Hills where he taught stars like Raquel Welsh, Susan Sarandon, and Martin Sheen to name a few. Naturally, his ego grew alongside his popularity, and it wasn’t uncommon for him to boast about things that… were simply false.

The rumor in LA is, that Bikram’s studio didn’t have air conditioning, so when temperatures rose, he would say ‘This is how we do it in India, India is hot!’ But it could also be that Bikram was influenced by the sauna practices he observed in Japan, while teaching yoga there. His students would sauna between classes, so he anecdotally experimented with turning up the heat in class – and noticed the students sweated more, and worked harder. So, the temperature experiment went higher and higher until it became the 107 degree Fahrenheit sweat lodge, that made it famous.

Americans love, to supersize things. The ‘my yoga is tougher than your yoga’, ‘my guru is bigger than your guru’, etc. was compelling. In the spirit of bodybuilding tournaments, Bikram organized ‘yoga tournaments’ where he would sit on a golden throne, and judge the contestants performance. I know some of them, who would get annoyed that gymnasts would show up, instead of people who actually practiced traditional yoga. Overall, a culture that valued punishing heat, physical attainments, and guru worship of a guy who made terrifyingly inappropriate and abusive comments while teaching… flourished.

We are more, than just a pretty pose. The spirit that shines through in our body’s unique languaging, the emotions that drive us, the gratitude we have for ourselves just as we are – those things aren’t cultivated by just physical practice. Life experience, and being inspired by teachers/books/nature/whatever… those help us work with emotion, and gratitude.

To practice physical yoga, and treat the body like an object to be judged and given a gold medal… leaves us like an empty shell. (Pretty, but full of noisy air.)

Too much focus on the physical a little bit like acquiring a really shiny, powerful car… but having absolutely no idea how to drive it or where you’re going.

We are the drivers of this vehicle, the body. Where we go, and how we get there, becomes more joyful and intuitive… the more we slow down and practice with humility rather than ego. It’s a lifelong practice.

Speaking of ego… I’ll leave you with this.

Bikram boasted that he won 1st place in the Indian National Yoga Championship, 3 years in a row in his teens (which would be the 1950s, 60s?)

However, fact-check… that competition didn’t actually begin until… the 70’s. Do you know who actually DID win the first Indian National Yoga Championship?

(insert meaningful pause here)

HIs wife, Rajashree. Ever heard of her? Probably not. Did she assist him in creating the Bikram sequence? Probably, yes. Did she get any credit for being part of his success? Flat no.

There’s a Netflix documentary about his franchise, that is a cautionary tale. I won’t go into it – save to say that Rajashree eventually primly filed for divorce, and will always be the true champion of hot yoga to me.

(Sidenote – Yogacreatives ‘hot’ classes will be around 90-95 degrees infrared delightfulnesss… not, 107. Trust me – you’ll still have an exhilarating workout. I personally can’t wait!)