So I watched the Bikram documentary last night
Trigger warning: sexual assault
So I watched the Bikram documentary last night. I am disgusted.
I know it came out years ago, but I haven't been able to bring myself to watch it until now.
Bikram bent yoga into the shape of greed and abuse of power, shaming the broader yoga community in the process. He even agrees that McDonald's is an apt metaphor for his school of yoga. I imagine he means this as a point of pride: he immigrated to the US and built a multimillion-dollar, possibly billion-dollar, franchise. But when I hear that comparison, I think about how McDonald's sells a product that temporarily scratches an itch while contributing to ill health, all while showing little regard for the human cost of making a living off of suffering.
Bikram has sexually assaulted an unknown number of women during his yoga teacher trainings, and, as far as Google knows, he continues to teach. We are so accustomed to men taking power, committing violence against women, and never being held accountable. This story is painfully familiar. Watching it wasn't surprising, but it was still deeply disturbing. It is heartbreaking to see a beautiful spiritual practice weaponized by a man posing as a guru.
Bikram played a significant role in the hypersexualization and commercialization of yoga. He embodies so much of American patriarchal, capitalist culture. His classes, many of which appear in the documentary, involve twisting people into shapes while he yells obscenities at them and uses violent, oppressive language. He encourages extreme vanity while acting in direct opposition to the values and ethics of yoga philosophy.
This is exactly why it's so important to understand the fullness of yoga. I'm sure some people, particularly white, leftist folks, might find it rich coming from a white woman who teaches and practices yoga to criticize an Indian man who brought yoga to the US. But I see Bikram as a product of colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism: systems that harm not only the survivors of his sexual violence, but all of us who have to witness and navigate the consequences of that violence. And yes, even Bikram Chaudhary himself. He is also a product of these oppressive systems. I'm not saying this to absolve him of responsibility. I'm saying it because we need to understand the systems that enable this kind of harm, rather than treating the people who perpetuate it as isolated exceptions. Bikram is responsible for his actions, but he didn't invent the conditions that made them possible.
The yoga and wellness world isn't immune to Western colonial culture. It's embedded within it. Bikram giving himself guru status and assuming power over other people's bodies, often when they're in vulnerable places, is a symptom of a much larger problem. Yoga and wellness spaces can become cult-like when we stop questioning the people and practices we're being asked to trust.
Bikram continues to offer trainings today. After fleeing the US, he has yet to be held accountable. My original yoga teacher training was in hot power yoga. It's a little different from Bikram yoga, though it comes with some of its own related issues. I've also attended classes at a Bikram studio in the past. It's so important that we don't appropriate yoga by taking only the parts that are shiny to us Americans: the athletic classes, the booty shorts, the 95-degree rooms. We run into problems when we ignore the harder, less marketable parts of yoga philosophy and focus exclusively on asana, the physical postures, while overlooking the other limbs of the practice.
Yes, we can of course wear whatever we want. We do not deserve to be sexualized because of it, and we certainly do not deserve to be abused. AND. What if we paused to question a couple of things? Why aren't we just going to the gym if all we want is a workout? Why do we want to practice yoga at all?
The documentary is disturbing. It's exhausting to repeatedly witness the same abuses of power by men. It's infuriating. It's also motivating. Bikram's story of violence against women and extreme greed, playing out within a culture that still struggles to hold people accountable, makes me feel even more committed to supporting yoga teachers and students in changing that culture.
At its root, yoga has so much in common with what we now call trauma-informed practice. You could even argue that yoga has been doing some of this work all along. So, yes, calling something trauma-informed yoga could be considered redundant. But it's also necessary to name it, because people like Bikram have helped distort what yoga is supposed to be. At its best, yoga can be a practice for spiritual and psychological growth. It can help us recognize that our bodies have an internal compass. But that requires learning to stop overriding our own sensations, making space to understand them, and making choices from that place.
Bikram seems to have missed something fundamental. It's as if he started with asana, decided that was enough, and figured out how to get rich teaching people just that. If he had truly engaged with the other limbs of yoga, he would have had to reckon with the yamas: a set of ethical principles that guide how we interact with the world around us. These include nonviolence (ahimsa), truthfulness (satya), non-stealing (asteya), right use of energy (brahmacharya), and non-possessiveness (aparigraha). If he had actually practiced these principles, perhaps he would have understood that sometimes the right thing to do is speak truth to power.
Some of his students eventually found the courage to do exactly that, but they found it in response to the violence he inflicted on them, not because he had taught them to question authority, pay attention to their own experiences, or stand up for themselves. It's heartbreaking to see this. And it's motivating. I want to change the culture of how yoga is taught and practiced.
This is part of why we're offering trauma-informed teacher training for all movement teachers, not just yoga teachers. I've been teaching yoga since 2011, and I'm also a clinical social worker with a focus on trauma. Bringing these two parts of my work together feels especially important right now. So many teachers could benefit from this kind of training. It isn't about treating trauma or turning movement teachers into therapists. It's about looking at how we teach, how we hold power in a room, and how we create more opportunities for choice, autonomy, and consent.
It's about supporting students in developing their own sense of agency. Helping them build trust in their bodies, listen to their internal compass, and make choices that feel right for them. Movement spaces can be places of liberation, where people practice listening to themselves rather than overriding themselves to please someone else. That's the kind of teaching I want to support.
Reach out with any questions: Liz@ElectricCottageCollective.com
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