Here we go! As we suspected, a heated response on the heels of the Bikram Choudhury Chicago Tribune interview from the other day.
In this letter to the editor Ms. Mary E. Kocsis calls out Bikram for being a heartless bastard, er, “rude, insensitive and mean.” And encourages all you clowns to boycott Bikram. We have to wonder if this is just the first ripple of Bikram backlash.
Full firey text after the jump…
Boycotting Bikram
August 21, 2008
What a sad state of affairs for all of the proud yogis living in this great country of ours…
This is in response to the Bikram Yoga founder (Bikram Choudhury) interview by Julie Deardorff (“Yoga’s top dog oversees a hot commodity,” Tempo, Aug. 20). Kudos to her for her journalistic integrity. She kept her decorum despite the irony of it all.
I have practiced Hatha yoga for 10 years under a variety of wonderful and kind teachers. I have never considered practicing yoga in stifling heat, so I have happily ignored Bikram yoga. After reading your interview with its pompous founder, I am so very glad that I did not give him one cent of my hard-earned money. He came off like a megalomaniac and I felt deeply hurt for all of the hard-working American hatha yoga teachers who he referred to as American circus clowns.
How rude, insensitive and mean.
He is the “anti-yogi” in my humble opinion and he ought to be ashamed of himself. I call on all fellow yogis to boycott his silly hot yoga and to not buy his book.
At the end of the interview he says, “the body is a temple the finest machine in the world. It’s so sensitive, but if you treat it nasty for too long, of course it will backfire.” Does he realize that he is being nasty to American Yogis? The ones who made it possible for him to have 35 Rolls-Royces? I think the heat in the yoga studio seriously fried his brain. BOYCOTT BIKRAM!
–Mary E. Kocsis
Proud American Yogi
St. Charles, Ill.
Earlier…Yoga ‘Don’ Bikram Choudhury Calls American Yoga Fucked Up Circus
