Bikram Yoga Maroochydore

Bikram Choudhury is the founder of the worldwide Yoga College of India. Born in Calcutta India, Bikram began studying yoga at the age of four with his guru Bishnu Ghosh, brother of Paramahansa Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi, founder of the Self Realization Followship in Los Angeles). Bikram practiced Yoga four to six hours a day with six thousand other students at Ghosh's College of Physical Education in Calcutta. At the age of thirteen, he won the National India Yoga contest and was undeafeated for three years. At the request of his guru, he withdrew from competition and gave yoga demonstrations instead. At 14, Swami Shivananda declared him "Yogi Raj" (King of the Yogis), he is the yougest ever to earn such a title.

As a young man he became a top cyclist, marathon runner and international weight lifter. At the age of seventeen, Bikram severely injured his knee in a weightlifting accident and was told by doctors he would never walk again. Not accepting their pronouncement, he had himself carried back to Bishnu Ghosh's school, for he knew that if anyone could help to heal his knee, it was his teacher. His guru put him though a slow and careful therapy program that totally rehabilitated his knee within six months. Ghosh was a celebrated physical culturalist and the first to scientifically document Yoga's ability to cure chronic physical ailments and heal the body.

Bikram was asked by Ghosh to start several Yoga schools in India. There Bikram came into his own. The schools were so successful that at Bishnu's request Bikram traveled to Japan and opened two more. In a United Nations sponsored research project at Tokyo University, Bikram helped doctors prove that yoga regenerates tissues and cures chronic ailments. Combining Eastern discipline and Western medicine, Bikram perfected his comprehensive system suitable for all ages and levels of fitness. Bikram arrived in the United States in 1973 at the invitation of President Nixon and the urging of Shirley Maclaine. He quickly became the foremost yoga teacher in the West as celebrities, athletes, and others began to flock to him. Since that time he has been healing thousands of students at his school in Los Angeles and traveling the world extensively, bringing the benefits of Bikrams's Yoga to millions of students worldwide.