Tag: Bikram Choudhury

The Prime Minister’s ill-conceived attempt to criminalise incitement to “religious hatred” has received a lifeline that he would be well advised to grasp. A series of amendments to be debated in the House of Lords tomorrow could yet rescue the Bill from some of its inherent flaws. If ministers refuse to accept them, however, they will be responsible for ushering in some of the most serious curbs on free speech since the prosecution of Gay News under the blasphemy laws some 40 years ago. The Racial and Religious Hatred Bill is not yet the talk of locals in the public

While London reeled under attack, the teachers of extremism were celebrating — and a Sunday Times reporter was recording every word On a Friday evening late in July a small group of young Asian men gathered secretly in the grounds of a Victorian manor house on the edge of Epping Forest, east of London, to listen to their master. Debden House, a property run as a bed-and-breakfast and campsite by Newham borough council, was chosen because they were running scared. Earlier that day police had arrested the remaining three suspects for the failed 21/7 London bombing. While millions of Britons

A leading health expert has branded the popular Bikram yoga “cult-like” and has warned it carries serious health risks. “I think there is a significant danger of exercising in such heat,” said Dr Anita Green, the director of the peak health body Sports Medicine Australia. Bikram is the latest, and trendiest, yoga to hit Sydney and involves 90-minute classes being conducted in a room heated to 37 degrees. Bikram teachers claim benefits include increased blood circulation, better cardiovascular conditioning, detoxification through sweating, improved muscle and tissue elasticity and reduced risk of injury. But those who believe that are wasting their

HAMTRAMCK, Mich. (AP) – Residents of this once-predominantly Polish city on Tuesday upheld an amendment to the city’s noise ordinance, a victory for those in favor of allowing mosques to issue the call to prayer over loudspeakers. The vote, which supporters of the prayer calls acknowledged was merely symbolic, was 1,462 to 1,200, or 55 percent to 45 percent. The City Council unanimously passed the amendment to the noise ordinance in April after a mosque asked for permission to begin broadcasting the Arabic chants, traditionally issued five times a day. Call to Prayer About the Adhan (Call to Prayer) Q&A

Copy these moves and I’ll sue, says top yogi. Bikram Choudhury likes to get people hot and bothered and he likes to get them in a twist. The yoga guru, who lists Madonna, Raquel Welch and Serena Williams among his celebrity followers, is also hugely protective of his famous and controversial style. Anyone thinking of adding, altering or in any way changing his 26 copyrighted and trademarked postures – each to be performed twice in a heated room – has received a “cease and desist” letter from his lawyers. The letter is curt and pointed: if a yoga teacher has

Yoga practitioners are tying themselves in knots over a millionaire guru’s attempt to copyright a series of positions. Bikram Choudhury, a former weightlifter based in Los Angeles, is being sued over his claim to own the copyright of a series of 26 postures used in Bikram yoga, a fast-growing style in which exercises are repeated in a studio heated to 40C (104F). Mr Choudhury has sent letters to more than 100 Bikram yoga schools and teachers, accusing them of violating his copyright and trademark by deviating from his strict teachings and employing instructors who were not trained by him. Yoga

Ev’rybody’s Doin’ a Brand New Pose Now, C’mon Baby, Do the Yoga Motion If anthropologists in the next century ever go searching for the exact moment when yoga passed from spiritual endeavor to mere fitness craze, they might well look to a tall, terrifically fit woman in her 30s named Beth Shaw. Concerned that her traditional yoga training had not prepared her to teach in a fitness club, Shaw created a course that promises to churn out yoga instructors in a single weekend, which is no small feat given that yoga is a 5,000-year-old Hindu spiritual practice that attempts physical