Bikram was a charismatic yoga guru who brought hot yoga to the United States. Actually what he claimed was his own teaching was that of his own guru back in India. He made huge, ‘110%’ Donald Trump-sized claims – for example, that President Nixon gave him a green card for curing medical problems Nixon had.
Americans raved about Bikram until his sexual predatory behaviour was revealed. Even after those revelations, some ‘disciples’ refused to believe the allegations women students were making. Bikram made women students dependent on him, as they could not teach Bikram Yoga without his approval. One summed up the situation, “The young women who want to believe in something so badly, he sees it, these are the people he targets because they are vulnerable.” Be careful to whom you reveal your dreams: knowledge is power, and caution is needed about who you give that power to. If someone is too good to be true, especially if it is them who is telling you how good they are, your asshole detector needs to be on high alert!
At one point Bikram asks a young woman, “What they are going to do about us?” As though they were both already considering a sexual relationship. I have come across this before it’s a lazy groomer’s way of quickly assessing if someone is exploitable, sexually exploitable in this instance. If someone makes that kind of assumption I think it best that responses are as blunt as possible. At the very least, “No my 6ft rugby paying boyfriend would definitely not approve.”
Again it’s a Netflix documentary for the whole story – here’s the trailer: https://tinyurl.com/mtf6y9ms
#bikram #sexualharassment #sexualpredator
