Uh-oh

Soooooo, yesterday was a rough day for the Hot Yoga community. Apparently the dude that started hot yoga (Bikram Choudhury, 69) has a few not-so-awesome sexual assault lawsuits pending against him. I feel like him and Bill Cosby might be holed up somewhere in L.A. swapping stories over a pair of overpriced green tea lattes. If you are interested in reading one of the many articles out there, here is a link...

http://newsfeed.gawker.com/bikram-yoga-falling-apart-under-sexual-assault-claims-a-1687553308

Now, I am a huge proponent of being educated about things that I participate in, things I put in my body, and things that I put on my body. I already knew that the 26 pose series that is the foundation of hot yoga was founded by Bikram Choudhury. I already knew he was kinda an arrogant prick, as many self-made people can be. But, in order to sell people on something as crazy as doing yoga in a 104 degree, humid room, you are going to need to exude a pretty high level of self-confidence. I have no idea if there is any merit to the accusations, but I would guess that something inappropriate happened for this ball to get rolling. Plus, let's look at a few pictures of the dude... Tell me that the word "CREEPY" doesn't come to mind.


This is the picture that you of Bikram Choudhury at almost every hot yoga studio. It is the final pose of the 26 series and it was taken back in the day when Bikram either possessed all of his own hair or wore a rug with extremely strong glue.




This is Bikram now.



This is another more recent picture of Bikram donning one of the famous black speedos that dudes are so very partial to when they do hot yoga.




My conclusions are this... Just because this guy has been accused and maybe even did some very naughty, and morally wrong things, doesn't mean that hot yoga is bad. I would be willing to guess that there will be a trend of people dropping the Bikram portion of their name from their yoga studios. And, rightfully so. People will jump ship on supporting and promoting him, but hot yoga will persevere because I have personally experienced the fact that there is most certainly benefits to it. Beach Body (especially Tony Horton's) programs involve yoga quite often. As a matter of fact, here is a link to Tony's daily 20 minute routine...

http://www.beachbody.com/beachbodyblog/fitness/yoga-and-pilates/tony-hortons-daily-yoga-routine?code=SOCIAL_BB_BLOG&linkId=12525920

Flexibility is an important component of your fitness. Yoga is an effective way to achieve it. So, I am not abandoning it. I am also not going to sign up to go to Bikram's yoga teacher school. I am also going to have a hard time burning the above images out of my brain any time soon. Bald and a bun does not inspire confidence in me, it is more of disturbing distraction.