Bikram Choudhury is, in fact, a living, breathing, human being and the founder of Bikram's Yoga College of India with over 400 studios (and counting) worldwide.

Born in Calcutta, India in 1946, he began practicing yoga at the age of four with his guru, Bishnu Gosh, brother of Paramahansa Yogananda (author of the most popular book on yoga, The Autobiography of a Yogi).

Practicing 4 to 6 hours everyday, Bikram quickly became a yoga champion and at age thirteen was the youngest contestant to ever win the National India Yoga Championship. He was undefeated for the following two years and retired as the undisputed All-India National Yoga Champion. At 14, Swami Shivananda declared him "Yogi Raj" (King of the Yogis).

At age eighteen, a weightlifting accident crushed his knee and had leading medical doctors predicting that he would never walk again. Refusing to claim that fate, Bikram went back to his teacher, Bishnu Gosh, who in six months time totally restored his knee through yoga.

Bikram was so inspired by this "miracle" that he devoted the rest of his life to teaching yoga. Not just to one person at a time with a specific ailment as had been his teacher's way for years, but to develop a Sequence of 26 postures that would be performed in such a way as to benefit many people at one time regardless of what their individual issues were. With his guru's blessing, Bikram developed what we now know of as Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class. The original "Hot Yoga".

In 1973, Bikram opened his Yoga College of India in Los Angeles and quickly became the foremost yoga teacher in the West as everyone including celebrities and athletes flocked to his studio. Since that time he has been healing thousands of students at what is now his headquarters in Los Angeles and traveling the world extensively, bringing the benefits of Bikram Yoga to millions of students worldwide.