About Bikram.
Bikram’s Yoga
Bikram’s Yoga is a series of 26 beginner’s postures performed in sequence in a heated room for 90 minutes. Bikram’s Yoga is suitable for all ages and levels of ability. Each posture stretches, strengthens, and prepares the body to work every muscle, organ, gland, and cell in the perfect order. The result is 100% exercise! Bikram scientifically designed the series to bring your body back to a healthy working order, to promote weight loss, prevent illness, and limit the effects of aging. In addition, the series of postures combine skills of concentration, patience, determination and self-control, which lead to increased mental clarity and reduced stress. Bikram’s Yoga is done in a heated room to warm your muscles, prevent injury, and cleanse the body by flushing out all toxins. As Bikram says, “Yoga is the only exercise in the world you can do at any age. There is always some posture that will improve your health, mind or soul.” The 26 postures, much like the alphabet, cannot be changed in any manner, or the series simply does not work. Please make sure to attend schools labeled Bikram’s Yoga College of India for authenticity.
Bikram Choudhury
Bikram began learning hatha yoga poses in his native India at the age of three. At five, he began studying with Bishnu Ghosh (Paramanhansa Yogananda’s brother) and quickly became a yoga champion. At age 11, he was the youngest contestant ever to win the National India Yoga competition. At 14, he was delared by Swami Shivanada as ‘Yoga Raj’ (King of the Yogis). A weightlifting accident crippled Bikram when he was 20. With the guidance of his guru, Bikram created his 26 posture series, which actually restored his health. Combining Eastern discipline and Western medicine, Bikram perfected his comprehensive system suitable for all ages and levels of fitness. Bikram arrived in the United States in 1973 at the invitation of President Nixon and the urging of actress Shirley Maclaine. He quickly became one of the foremost yoga teachers in the West, as celebrities, athletes, and others flocked to him. Since that time, he has been healing thousands of students at his school in Beverly Hills. Bikram has been traveling extensively, bringing the benefits of yoga to millions of students worldwide.
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About the Studio director.
Brad J Colwell (shown here alongside Bikram himself) has been inspired by Mr. Choudhury to carry a message sent from his guru, of what a yogic system of health culture has to offer. Brad started practicing in December of 1999, in Kitsilano at Lisa Pelzer and Danny Dworkis' studio. He has been teaching yoga since completing the teacher training program under Bikram himself in 2000. The mission statement Brad has at his studio is to offer a healing center for anyone who wants to help themselves in any part of their life, including to bring back the ‘fire’ that might be lacking in one's life.
Brad also lives by Bikram’s mantra: “Never too late, never too old and never too sick to start again from scratch.”
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