I picked up this book yesterday for $9.95: Beyond Power Yoga by Beryl Bender Bircher, whose 1995 book “Power Yoga” named the genre.

Another book that I bought at an earlier sale and have found very useful is this one: Yoga and Pilates for Everyone, multiple authors. It has 1500 source photos in it, and has comprehensive sections on Iyengar Yoga, Pilates, Yoga Therapy (asanas grouped by ailments), Yoga in Pregnancy, and Childrens Yoga.

The most useful section for me so far has been Jonathan Monks‘ section on Yoga - Pilates fusion, especially his introductory body awareness / postural alignment stuff.

This and the alignment focus of my Iyengar classes has been helping me a lot in my power classes.

Speaking of which, check out this CBS 60 minutes report on Bikram: Bikram on CBS (.mov, 28 MB).

Evil is the new good…

Here are some more resources on Bikram to help you get a fix on the phenomenon:

• Bikram Update- A blog entry by a Bikram student that highlights some of the advantages, including the fixed sequence.
• Bend It Like Bikram - A short article from Yahoo! India.
• Helter Swelter - featured quote: “Many people don’t know this, but Bikram yoga is actually the black sheep of yoga practices. Whenever I find myself sipping chai and chatting with a group of yogis, as soon as I confess my love for Bikram, the conversation pauses, as if I’ve just told a group of Christians that, funnily enough, satanism has me feeling better than I’ve felt in years.” (ha! )
• Bend It Like Bikram - The Guardian Observer (UK)’s expose on Bikram.
• The Money Pose - People either love this guy or hate him…
• New twist to yoga positions as guru sues - Bikram copyrights his sequence.
• Open Source Yoga Unity - The left-wing hippie organization that formed to oppose Bikram’s copyright claims.
• Yoga Suit Settlement Beggars Open Source Ideals - “OSYU’s apparently altruistic act of draping itself with the mantel of the open source movement now seems crafty and disingenuous. The true state of matters has emerged and it’s just business as usual. The OSYU is just another set of pragmatic business people who cut the best deal they could for themselves. When it was time to reach a settlement, openness was the first casualty.” Oh dear… I guess they weren’t such left-wing hippies after all
• Wikipedia on Bikram Yoga, and Bikram Choudhury himself.