:: May 2006 Volume 5/Number 3

Teacher Profile: Rajashree Choudhury

By Bob Belinoff

Behind the long counter in the Bikram Yoga College of India front lobby there are two glass doors, one engraved with a big frosted B for the man most associated with the yoga that bears his name. The other with a big frosted R, for his wife, the woman who seems to be its soul.

Rajashree Choudhury is Bikram Yoga’s chief trainer of teachers and, it’s been said, though not by her, the person largely responsible for the distinct system and sequencing of the 26 postures that comprise Bikram Yoga. Much of this work, the story goes, was based on her extensive background in yoga therapy and physiology. She is a past Mrs. India and Mrs. World Photogenic, 1985 and has been practicing yoga since the age of three.
Rajashree grew up in Calcutta across from a park where children practiced yoga daily. Today the family of yoga that she has very much helped to produce includes thousands of practitioners and teachers around the country and the world. On the home front, her 22-year marriage to Bikram, whom she was introduced to by guru Bishnu Ghosh’s son, Bishu Ghosh at the Ghosh Yoga club, has produced two children Lajwanti, 16 and her 13-year-old brother Anurag. This is Rajashree’s first family and her first priority in life. Then comes the yoga family.

Rajashree, like the form of Yoga she teaches, believes in the foundation of things. The idea, in all aspects of life, she believes, is to get the foundation right from as early a stage in life as possible. One suspects that that is why each set of the 26 postures that comprise Bikram Yoga is done twice, the first time just to play with it, to get the foundation for the posture right. The second time is to build on that foundation a thing of beauty and balance - a connection to spirit.

This connection to spirit is not a thing to be discussed, it is something to be experienced. Rajashree’s class, indeed all of Bikram Yoga has something of the dojo to it, a refreshing martial edge leavened with a good and giving heart. Her words are of responsibility and discipline. Her presence is open and giving, and speaking with her in her office one has the sense of a foundation in spirit that goes down to bedrock.

Her early schooling was in a Montessori school and much of her early life consisted of running, studying and yoga, and later, dramatic expression through the practice of poetry, painting and writing, the last of which has returned in the form of a book she plans to write about Bikram Yoga from a women’s perspective.
“The problem we face here in L.A. is that we have so much choice and so often so little ability to make a commitment. In L.A. it seems like everyone wants to keep their options open, it seems everyone wants a backup - so we end up having something called ‘a convenient relationship.’”

She believes much of this problem comes from the lack of a solid (here comes that word again) “foundation” at the earliest stage of life - well before the age of 13. “If there is no foundation, happiness in life becomes more difficult. Just like in yoga if you do not have the proper foundation for a posture, you will find it difficult to practice or perfect it.”

Rajashree’s own foundation goes back to her teachers Drs. P. S. Das and Kushala Das who are disciples of guru Bishnu Charan Ghosh. She teaches her own classes with the kind of exuberance and passion indicative of so many Bikram yoga teachers, but her classes also demonstrate a knowledge of the inner workings of yoga - the therapeutics of Yoga. As you go from one posture to another you are not only encouraged to do your best, push yourself beyond yourself, but you are told why: this posture improves your circulation, this posture affects your pituitary gland, this posture is so important for hormonal balance.
What does she want from her Bikram teachers? “I want them to teach with passion and caring. I want teachers to really push people who need to be pushed. And get people to understand balance. You can’t push yourself and be unhappy. You do not push yourself to adjust to a posture. You push your mind, your body will follow. It will adjust to the posture.”

“I have come to love L.A., people are so open here and I can experience all parts of myself here easily: mother, yoga therapist, yoga teacher,” she says. She fails to add that part most obvious by her bright eyes, open smile, and relaxed and commanding presence - her connection to spirit and the deeper stuff.

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