Choudhury also claimed his form of yoga was more rigorous and authentic than westernised forms preaching peace and love. My quality of life is so joyful and I know it’s because of the yoga.” She believes the 26 poses contain a “sacred geometry” that has been handed down from “the ancients”. “At a normal yoga class, you do whatever poses the teacher feels like teaching you. “I immediately saw the benefit of it,” she says. Asumah first went to a Bikram-affiliated studio in London in 2000. What is certain is that his yoga gave his students something they found life-changing. He once told a class that he invented the disco ball. Born in Kolkata in 1946, he claimed to have been invited to America by Richard Nixon, and to have taught yoga to the Beatles and Nasa astronauts. Little is known of Choudhury’s early life. For many, he was a spiritual leader as well as the inventor of an exercise class. At his early 2010s peak, the pony-tailed, waxed-chested image of Bikram Choudhury adorned the walls of around 650 licensed Bikram yoga studios across the world. But it is also a sequence of moves that takes its trademarked name from one man. It is that: Andy Murray credits it with helping his “fitness and mental strength” Serena Williams and David Beckham are said to be fans. I f you’re not up on your chakras and pranayamas, you could be forgiven for thinking that “Bikram” is a term for a kind of hot yoga performed by celebrities and Hollywood types in unsanitary conditions. She wants me to appreciate the hold that these poses have before she will talk any further: “You can’t understand me unless you understand Bikram yoga.” And it’s just as well Jafa-Bodden remains devoted to the 26 poses: last month, Los Angeles county court gave her control of the entire global empire. Sweating next to me is Minakshi “Micki” Jafa-Bodden, 48, former legal adviser for the Bikram yoga company. This is the home of what the yogis in my class call “the Bikram community-in-exile”: people who used to be at the heart of the movement, and who say they suffered horrendous abuse in their pursuit of yogic enlightenment. The message has a special charge in this room.
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