Changing Our Class Name to "Original Hot Yoga"
I've thought about doing this this many, many times.
I've started this very blog post many, many times.
And for myriad reasons (none of them great), I never did anything nor did I finish the blog post.
But here we are now, and it's time this all happens.
To give a little background on this entire subject, I started practicing Bikram Yoga back in 2006 during my senior year of college. Within a few short months of beginning this yoga practice, I felt my whole life start to transform.
My self-worth increased.
My muscles got strong, and I was able to do physical things - like run the Boston Marathon - without injuries or pain.
I could manage my stress.
I could find 90 minutes of quiet that fueled me for the other 22 1/2 hours of the day by getting into that yoga class.
In my honeymoon phase with Bikram Yoga, I went digging for any information I could find on what was changing my life. I watched the 60 Minutes CBS Special where he, Bikram Choudhury - the Bikram of Bikram Yoga - was interviewed. If you've been around the Bikram Yoga block a time or two, you probably know the one I'm talking about.
Immediately I thought,
"Wow, this guy is a complete narcissist. Fueled by money and power. Smart. Manipulative. And able to market something life-changing."
He reminded me a lot of my grandfather, someone who had similar qualities but who, at the end of the day, was still my grandfather.
I learned that Bikram Choudhury's Teacher Training was 9 weeks long, and at the time cost about $10,000 (it's now even more expensive). I knew deep down that I would attend that training, and that I would teach this yoga.
Fast forward two years later to the spring of 2008, and I did in fact attend the Bikram Yoga Teacher Training. It was the first one held in Acapulco, Mexico, and the hot outside temps made for some of the hottest, most humid and challenging yoga classes that I'd ever taken.
At Teacher Training, I got to meet Bikram. I took his classes. I asked him questions. He helped me with my Locust Pose (apparently not too much because I still hate it and I'm still pretty awful at it). He also gave me feedback on my delivery of teaching Half Moon Pose. I still remember it. He interrupted me when I was only halfway done and said,
"Good. Very good. Good voice. Confident. Next."
I remember feeling happy about his comment. Not overly happy, more just, "hey I love this yoga and maybe I'll actually be able to teach it effectively."
There were, however, so many things about my Teacher Training that I thought were weird:
Staying up late (I'm talking 3am) watching Bollywood movies.
Young women brushing Bikram's hair during our lectures and movies.
Hearing racist and sexist comments that Bikram made.
Seeing Bikram's girlfriend arrive at the training ... and Bikram was married.
I share this because I've been asked over the years what my experience had been like.
Even then at 23 years old, I knew I was lucky to have that "confidence" that Bikram recognized as well as the most supportive family back home. My job at that training was to take the classes, learn the dialogue, and get the hell home.
Which is what I did.
About 2 years later, I opened my studio in my hometown and I proudly named it, "Bikram Yoga Natick."** Bikram Yoga was what we taught and Natick was where we were located. I'd never had much business experience, but I figured that being direct and straight to the point was certainly not a bad idea.
I wanted people to know that if they were looking for Bikram Yoga, my studio was the place to come.
Since opening my studio back in 2010, story after story and allegation after allegation have come out against Bikram Choudhury.
The main topics: sexual harassment and sexual assault.
Over the years, my students have asked whether my business was a franchise and if I paid Bikram any sort of licensing fee.
The answer has always been NO.
Even after marketing efforts to let people know that my small business was truly independent and not part of any sort of affiliation or franchise or anything, folks still had questions, and now in hindsight, I don't blame them.
Rightfully so, they wanted to make sure their hard-earned money was going to something that they felt good about. Not redirected to someone who was racking up rape accusations.
When I was trying to make sense of the whole Bikram mess, I thought a lot about my grandfather. Despite some really bad qualities that he had that were similar to so many of Bikram's personality traits, I loved my grandfather, and he inspired me immensely to open my own business.
I often thought, "you accept the good with the bad." I would grapple, feeling confused about whether I could still teach this yoga and practice these postures if I called it something different.
Typing that out feels pretty ridiculous, but in the spirit of transparency and honesty, I figured why not just share what was going through my mind.
And then honest to goodness, one day I woke up, and I realized there are some bad things that we don't have to accept.
Everyone has a different internal barometer for handling negative information and associations. And I reached my limit with the negatives about Bikram Yoga.
Here's the thing: the series of yoga postures that many of us know as "Bikram Yoga" has truly saved countless lives on physical, mental, and emotional levels.
I've watched people relieve their chronic back pain in a matter of weeks.
I've witnessed first hand folks pulling themselves out of debilitating depression by coming to class.
This yoga has helped students quit drinking, be better parents, deal with divorce, take care of elderly family members, and handle grief and loss with grace and acceptance.
This yoga needs to continue, and I believe that I have a moral obligation to teach it and to continue to offer it at my studio because I know there are more lives to be saved.
With that being said, I fear that folks will hear stories about Bikram and get so turned off that they will not try this class.
Would you try a yoga class called Weinstein Yoga, after all? I can't say I would.
My studio, and the thousands of other independently owned studios teaching this incredible series are respites for all walks of life who need healing in some capacity. If even one person who needs this yoga is saddened or uncomfortable or afraid or worst-case scenario doesn't try it because they fear the name, that's one too many.
We often view a yoga class to be a microcosm of the real world: if you can maintain control within a challenging yoga posture and come out stronger on the other side, think about how that experience will help you in your daily life with all of the real challenges you face.
If the yoga class reflects real life, then the studio decisions I make, especially the hard ones, should reflect the world in which I want to live and the world that I have borrowed from my children.
In this ideal world, it's not ok to partake in the kind of behavior I saw first-hand at Teacher Training. Call me wholesome or unrealistic, but what I saw was behavior that was excused, enabled, and explained away and that led to greater desire of control and worse and worse decisions and actions.
I used to cringe when students would ask me about Bikram and his behavior. I don't want to think about it, is what I would feel.
I don't feel that way anymore. I think that in order to improve our world we need to talk about this uncomfortable stuff and stand up against what we believe is wrong.
The decision to change the name of our class offering to Original Hot Yoga has been a long time coming.
To be completely open and vulnerable, I had a lot of fear about this decision from so many different angles.
Would those in my studio owner community who haven't changed their studio name or class offering look down upon me? Would they think I "lost faith" in the yoga?
Would those who have changed their studio name or class offering think, what the hell took you so long?
Would my students still trust that they'll be getting the most healing, life-changing yoga in the world? (They will be, by the way!)
Will new students who desperately want and need 90-minute hard core "Bikram Yoga" be able to find my studio? (Thanks to SEO and kick-ass class descriptions, heck yeah they will).
With those first two questions, I realized that I was worried about my reputation rather than my integrity. I've learned that reputation is what you focus on when you know others are watching. Integrity is what you focus on as if no one is watching. Reputations may change, people will think what they want to think, but I can go to sleep at night if I let my ideal integrity guide me.
People deserve to feel safe and open in the yoga studio in which they practice. Because of Bikram's actions and the harassment suit that he lost, I couldn't shake the feeling that with the name "Bikram" associated with our fantastic and supportive studio and community that everyone felt comfortable, and that future students would feel comfortable. By changing the name of our class offering to Original Hot Yoga, we communicate clearly and openly that we offer this life-changing yoga practice while saying F-NO to the kind of behavior that Bikram displayed.
I have all the faith in the world that this incredible series of yoga postures will continue to transform people's lives, and I can't wait to continue teaching THE Original Hot Yoga at my studio for many, many years.
Many thanks to our incredible Hometown Sweat community.
**re-branded to "Hometown Sweat" in August 2018