I was reading some yoga forums lately about bikram yoga with quite insightful opinions from all sorts ... it is either you hate it or you love it ! One interestingly called it McYoga, likening to the Americanised branding of Yoga, fixed set of asanas easily replicated to all over the world just like McDonald.
I do agree it gave me a very western flavour of yoga. The founder did a good job popularising it in fitness fanatic country USA. He understood what works for the American appetite - intensity, competitive, high energy and the feel-good after session. Put in a few challenging advance asanas make the student coming back again and again perfecting the 26 asanas. It ain't easy at all but very appealing to those up for the challenge. Those who have attended all sorts of yoga classes could well feel that this is the ultimate challenge !
I also agree that it doesn't really care about the philosophy side of yoga, well at least in my experience with the fitness centre, there was no time set aside for dialogues or exchange of yoga philosophy to talk about the spirituality aspect.
The teachers for one were not trained for such deep talks. They were well trained though to push you to maximum, MAXIMUM, MAXIMUM .. just like training for some competitive sports. Wait, they are no coach who understands your body as a sports coach would, so if you move with all the jest to the encouragement from the pretty instructor, you might be inviting injury. In fact, I was appalled that they would still motivate to push further even when you feel discomfort.
My take on this is, had Bikram Yoga started from India, it could well be condemned by all the traditional yogi gurus and may not see daylight at all. So, Choudhury Bikram, you are one smart Yogi !
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