Yoga was founded as a spiritual practice: the physical poses, or asanas, were merely one element of a lifestyle that also included vegetarianism, community service and meditation. Though all these may be desirable, none is necessary for someone who wishes to benefit from yoga — and there are many benefits to be had. Yoga has been shown to help treat cancer, diabetes, heart disease and stroke, which kill two out of three Americans; yoga also soothes depression, aggression and many other mental problems. Think of the class cost as health insurance. For about $15 a class, it’s a great deal, and all the side effects are positive.

There are many kinds of yoga taught on the Island. For people who are not shopping for a new lifestyle but simply want to improve their physical health in a reliable setting, one option is Bikram yoga. Limited only by their own flexibility and strength, many students report astonishingly rapid and steady increases in both. Though most Bikram participants are female, the sex ratio is not as skewed as with most other schools. And there is no talk of spirituality: class is a workout, plain and simple.

Named for its founder Bikram Choudhury, Bikram yoga is a patented, standardized series of 26 poses and two breathing exercises, performed the same way every time — whether in Santiago, Singapore, Seattle or anywhere else. Studios must be kept at at least 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and some are much hotter.

Poses begin with gentle stretching and deepen throughout the class, until finally the spine is curled all the way forward, arched all the way back, and wrung out left and right in a twist. At the end of a class, students are often drained both emotionally and physically, hair and towels are soaked with sweat, water bottles are empty.

According to the Web site, “Bikram Yoga’s 26-posture exercises systematically move fresh, oxygenated blood to 100 per cent of your body, to each organ and fiber, restoring all systems to healthy working order, just as nature intended. Proper weight, muscle tone, vibrant good health, and a sense of well-being will automatically follow.” Perhaps that’s exaggeration: take a glance around a typical class and judge for yourself. For an investment of 90 minutes a couple of times a week, it looks to me as though people are being well-rewarded for their efforts.

The only Bikram studio on-Island is Vineyard Yoga, located across the street from up-Island Cronig’s.

In the past I took all my yoga classes there. Andy Estrella, the owner, is courteous, competent and professional, and so are the people he hires. He believes he is selling a good product, and he leaves it up to the student to decide how much of it to take. So the only person who’s emotionally involved in your practice is you.

Given the high intensity of Bikram, this is vitally important. Trawling through online forums will show an awful lot of people reporting injuries resulting from doing, or overdoing, Bikram yoga. I suspect that this is not due to the series itself, but more to the inherent competitiveness of the people it attracts. Bikram himself competed in yoga tournaments, and many Bikram aficionados brag of other endurance feats in a way that is seldom seen among practitioners of other styles. To help protect against this, Andy encourages his students to listen to their bodies, stop and drink water and rest whenever they need to. And many of them do: especially near the end of class on a hot summer’s day, half of the students may be resting on their mats at any given time.

Though some studios (including Vineyard Yoga) offer hot yoga classes that are similar in many ways to Bikram, they are not in fact the same thing. Hot yoga classes are usually not as hot as Bikram, and they are usually less intense, though they follow much of the series. More importantly, they do not have Bikram’s name on them and are thus not Bikram Yoga any more than every hamburger is a Whopper or every water bottle a Nalgene.

To use the name Bikram, franchisees must jump through a series of legal and financial hoops. They must submit a business plan, a tentative lease and floor plan of the building, and the demographic breakdown of the surrounding area. Only then will Bikram allow his trademarked name to be used: and he may revoke that privilege at any time for any reason. This bothers many people, some of whom refer to the series as McYoga, or in the words of a 2006 documentary, Yoga Inc. Because yoga has been in the public domain for thousands of years, many people object to its being copyrighted, trademarked and profited from by a single individual. And it doesn’t help that Bikram’s lifestyle is antithetical to that of traditional yogis: he is a millionaire who lives an opulent lifestyle, complete with Rolls Royces and Rolexes.

Regardless, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Bikram adapted yoga to fit the demands of Americans, played by American rules, and succeeded outrageously. In spite of his restrictive rules, people still flock to his classes: if there were truly nothing special about his series, his customer base would dry up. He doesn’t try to restrict other yoga practices, he just standardized his own.

I did Bikram Yoga probably a hundred times in the summer of 2007, and can vouch that it changed my body. Like all cyclists, I once had steel-tight hamstrings; almost two years after stopping Bikram I can still put on and tie my shoes straight-legged. I improved my practice almost every class, lost 10 pounds, and my lungs grew so much I could float on my back to nap. During two years on the high school swim team, stretching for hours five days a week, I was never as flexible as I still am. There’s no denying that Bikram is intensive, and the postures get monotonous after a while. That’s why I stopped going — but I don’t deny that I’d be healthier if I kept it up.