The New Yorker is my most favorite magazine. I read it, more or less cover to cover, every week. I loved the recent cover drawing, which showed our beloved President sitting back and watching, with evident glee, two Republican candidates in football regalia, going after the elusive pigskin. But then I moved on to “The  Talk of the Town” section, which had an article that caught my eye, entitled “The Yoga Wars”. Here is the hot link for all of you, thanks to my friend Andrea Mulrain.  Fact is, New Yorker articles are tricky to read online, unless you are a subscriber

But do not disturb yourself on that account; I shall summarize the article. And then I will begin my rant. I am afraid that I am becoming more and more like the late Andy Rooney, yet bear with me. If I get too acerbic, you can always opt out of reading further!

So, the article. the author describes a suit/ countersuit situation in the Big Apple, where, as is the case throughout most of our great land, there are far too many litigators. It seems that Bikram Choudhury, who has made it into my blog on more than one previous occasion (cf. blog on yoga-related injuries and “News of Note” section on yoga competition), has opted to bring suit for copyright infringement against a previous yoga student. This student, Greg Gumucio, perhaps somewhat surprisingly not from NYC or even LA, but formerly from Seattle, has adopted most of the basic tenets of Bikram yoga, more or less wholesale, in his studio, called Yoga to the People. He sets his room thermostat at a sizzling 105 degrees, just like his former franchise mentor. He utilizes the same 26-pose yoga sequence. The difference, you ask? He charges far less for his classes (so far, at least). A mere $8, which is less than you will pay for a glass of freshly-squeezed OJ in NYC.

Now it appears that Bikram himself has come to regard the particular sequence of 26 poses as his personal property. Never mind the fact that the poses are used by the more than30 million Americans who have been exposed to yoga, the vast majority of whom keep away from “hot yoga” as if it were the Plague. (Bacterial infections have been reported from hot yoga studios, although the plague bacillus has not been spread via yoga class to date, so far as we know.) Never mind that most of these poses are over 100 years old, some many hundreds of years old.

The basic premise of the countersuit is that the suit is frivolous, if not preposterous. They are basing their position on a statement from the U.S. Copyright Office’s performing arts division, that: “Exercises, including yoga exercises, do not constitute the subject matter that Congress intended to protect as choreography going to get involved in yoga poses?

The Choudhury attorney has yet to respond formally to the countersuit., although he has suggested that Mr. Gumucio had been “expelled from Bikram yoga”. Are we talking sour grapes here?

What to say about this, other than to use the benchworn legal phrase: res ipso loquitor, which is too say the thing speaks for itself! Isn’t there yet again something unyoga-like in the Bikram approach? To be more accurate, one should say in the approaches of Bikram and his wife, since the Bikram people are quick to say that it is not the man himself, but rather his wife, who promoted the infamous yoga competition in NYC, and who are pushing, one would hope, with scant success, to make yoga an Olympic sport. Let’s face it, there are more than enough people in search of good yoga teachers and nice studios in which to practice than there are good teachers and nice studios.

Where is Rodney King when we need him? “Can’t we all...just...get along?”