In 2017, a court awarded $7 million to his former lawyer, Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, who gained control of his yoga business when Bikram Choudhury fled to India without paying her.
15 Facts About Bikram Choudhury
2.
Bikram Choudhury was born in Calcutta, British India in 1944.
3.
Bikram Choudhury claimed to have begun studying yoga under Bishnu Charan Ghosh, and to have won the National India Yoga Championship for three consecutive years in his teens.
4.
Bikram Choudhury developed a 26-posture series, by piecing together existing sequences from over 500 poses and variations created by Ghosh, and put it into his signature series which takes about ninety minutes to perform.
5.
Bikram Choudhury was closely associated with the United States's competitive yoga from its inception; the annual Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup is named after his teacher.
6.
In 1971, Bikram Choudhury emigrated to the United States and began to teach yoga.
7.
Bikram Choudhury opened his first studio in Los Angeles, teaching his own style of yoga.
8.
All the same, Bikram Choudhury Yoga expanded rapidly across the United States.
9.
Bikram Choudhury taught celebrities such as the pop singers Madonna and Lady Gaga, and the footballer David Beckham, and claimed to have taught yoga to American presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.
10.
From 2009, Choudhury claimed that the series of 26 postures of his yoga practice, Bikram Yoga, was under copyright and could not be taught or presented by anyone whom he had not authorized.
11.
In May 2016, Bikram Choudhury returned to India, where he began opening yoga studios.
12.
In October 2016, Bikram Choudhury's attorney stated that his client would not return to the United States to defend himself in person at the other pending court cases.
13.
The New York Daily News reported that luxury vehicles and other items of Bikram Choudhury's had been moved out of state, and that a court order preventing him from moving any of his other possessions out of warehouses in Florida and Nevada had been issued.
14.
In 1984, Bikram Choudhury married Rajashree Bikram Choudhury, who assisted him in founding the United States Yoga Federation and the International Yoga Sports Federation.
15.
Bikram Choudhury won the first National Yoga Championship held by the Yoga Federation of India in 1979, followed by four more consecutive years as National Yoga Champion.