Back to Bikram Yoga Tempe for this one. Let's just say the picture on Bikram doing this posture didn't communicate how the posture should look.
I didn’t know where I’d be at this juncture, or any other, in the 30 Day Challenge. I certainly didn’t think I’d be feeling refreshed and invigorated like I do now. It’s really kind of embarrassing, because I feel like I’m schilling for Bikram: “I feel more confident, more energized… and my hair is fuller.” (Apologies to my friend Danny for riffing an old joke of his.)
You see, Bikram likes his bling. He likes his money, his Rolls Royces, his Yoga Gangstah suits. He likes his big mansion. He clearly likes adulation and attention. He’s a name dropper of the highest order. (His favorites: Richard Nixon, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and John McEnroe.) And if you thought Bono had a messiah complex, you need to read one of Bikram’s books or see him in action. To hear Bikram speak of it, his yoga is the one and only way to health, well-being and happiness. His ego is monumental. Try this quote from the now-defunct Business 2.0 magazine: "I have balls like atom bombs, two of them, 201 megatons each. Nobody fucks with me." Is this a yogi, or Muhammad Ali?
At this point you have two choices: drop the program because you find its creator's persona and behavior unctuous; or accept that there's a clear distinction between the man and his work. For example, Kobe Bryant doesn’t cut a likeable figure. Many feel he’s arrogant; he’s childish; he plays for himself and only infrequently for the good of his team; he drove Shaq out of town; and then there was that incident in a Colorado hotel room you may have heard about. The reality is, Lakers fans (and people who simply admire the way Kobe plays) will ignore any and all of those issues, if they even agree that they’re issues, because Kobe is an all-time great player, an assassin on the court, and the owner of five championship rings, including the last two NBA titles. In the realm of athletics, it’s usually not about who are you are, but about what you can do.
So it often is with art, literature, film, music, and now, even yoga. Whether you subscribe to Mr. Choudhury’s regimen—and there are many who argue that it’s too extreme, too rigid in its consistency and control over the practicing environment, and that it lacks the component of spirituality that’s supposed to be essential to yoga—it’s benefited countless people, my wife and me among them. Often, criticisms of the practice yield to more personal objections to Bikram as a guru and public figure—to his ego, his materialism, and the forceful way he enforces his rights to the intellectual property he’s created in his sequence of 24 postures and two breathing exercises. The fact that “copyright” and “yoga” can exist in agreement with one another in a sentence is a truly abhorrent thing to many in the yoga community. But as of 2003, it has legal standing, at least as it pertains to Bikram's program.
Certainly, I understand and in many cases sympathize with these concerns. But if I had to like everyone who created, molded, or accomplished something that was important to me, I’d be crossing a lot of things I cherish off my list—from the works of Rembrandt (had his mistress committed to an asylum to save his claim on his late wife’s inheritance—and enlisted the woman’s brother to help!) to Dylan (his poor treatment of Phil Ochs and many others) to Curt Schilling’s stint with the Red Sox (let’s just say that his political and religious views don’t gibe with mine).
Yes, there may be artists, musicians and athletes I’m a little more predisposed to like because they actually seem, well, nice. But unless we’re looking at utterly unforgivable and irredeemable behavior, I savor the work, and try as best I can to separate it from the person who made it. (In the case of Rembrandt, having his mistress sent to an asylum qualifies as “utterly unforgivable and irredeemable,” and it still doesn’t knock him off my list.) We often hope creator and creation will embody the same ideals, only to discover the work possesses virtues that otherwise seem absent in its originator.
Perhaps the best approach would be to follow the words of the baseball writer Roger Angell, and say, "They are what they do." In an age of incessant media coverage, where we know more about Brett Favre's texting habits than anyone not named Brett Favre reasonably should, that's easier said than done.
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