Competition Is Fierce Between Vancouver Yoga Studios

Image by: Jeremy Maude

Hot commodity: Vancouver Bikram yoga studios proliferate.

Competition is stiff among Vancouver yoga studios. One yogi-cum-businessman thinks Bikram won't be hot forever, and he's hedging his bets with different yoga styles that can still bring the heat.

It’s day two of the grand opening weekend at Bikram Yoga White Rock. The evidence of renovations – a Shop-Vac, paint cans and scattered tools – are hidden behind a closet door downstairs. The stairs lead up to a cube cabinet on which a sign is posted imploring visitors to remove their shoes.

Some pairs sit tucked into the cubbyholes while others have been kicked off and lie haphazardly on the floor. There is a tangible excitement in the air as well-­wishers greet and hug Jennifer Hanover, the owner. She returns their affection but is busy explaining Bikram yoga to a young couple while absent-mindedly standing in tree pose, her heel tucked into her groin.

Lululemon-clad folk of all ages follow Hanover as she gives tours of the facility before the free afternoon class. She proudly points out the alder floor and travertine bathroom tile. Her father, who is signing people in at the front desk, helped her build the show-home-quality studio. “I lucked out on space,” Hanover brags, standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “One of my students owns the building.”

Web: The cost of being a sweat merchant

The actual yoga room feels like a sauna, but the heat is comforting and the view of the ocean is impressive. At the end of the tour, visitors see a poster-size picture of Hanover with Bikram Choudhury, her guru and the studio’s namesake. He’s standing on her back as she executes a sitting-forward bend, with her head to her knees. The photo was taken in 2005 during Hanover’s training in Los Angeles, which culminated in certification that allows her to teach Choudhury’s 26 poses and two breathing exercises in a series that has come to be known as Bikram yoga.

By five minutes to four, the sweat gear has been shed in favour of short-shorts and sports bras for the women, Speedos for the men. Instructor Frank Sinek is herding people into his classroom, encouraging those he knows to stay up front. He counts his pupils: 20. “If it’s not 50, it’s not busy,” he states, anticipating bigger classes to come.

Bikram Yoga White Rock is setting up to be a contender in the South Surrey yoga wars. Four short blocks north, Westcoast Hot Yoga is holding its regular Sunday afternoon class, but on this day it is only half full. The facility, owned by Bikram-trained Eddison Noel and his sister Camille, is a little more worn, the mood more subdued. Its soothing amber tones and soft lighting are in direct contrast to the brightness of Hanover’s yoga studio down the road.

This used to be a Bikram space. It was Bikram’s White Rock until December 2006, when Noel decided to drop the Bikram brand in favour of an independent moniker. The decision does not sit well with Bikram loyalists, who believe the Bikram series should not be taught under any other name. Hanover, who used to work for Noel, is one of those people. When Noel changed the name of his studio, she decided to leave. Like many other instructors, she didn’t want the stigma of working at a non-Bikram studio.

When Hanover left Noel’s centre, her colleagues encouraged her to apply to Bikram’s Yoga College of India, whose world headquarters are in Los Angeles, for permission to reopen a Bikram yoga centre in White Rock. She wasn’t the only one who applied, but Bikram’s chose her. When asked if there was any friction between her and her former employer, Hanover replies, “I wouldn’t know; we aren’t in contact.”

Hanover contends that Noel would have found himself with competition regardless of her plans to open a studio: “If it wasn’t me, it would have been someone else.”

Dropping the recognizable Bikram name may seem like a backward step, but Noel’s reasons were plentiful. His first concern arose when, no matter how much he steam-cleaned the carpet, the sweaty odour remained. When his students started to complain of athlete’s-foot-like rashes on their bodies, he started to investigate alternatives to the Bikram’s-mandated carpeting. The rubberized flooring he switched to was not acceptable to Bikram’s in Los Angeles.

There is no fee to maintain the Bikram’s licence, only an agreement to comply with certain rules, of which carpeting is one. Bikram’s-certified instructors must also use a specific script that is recited in every class, teach the poses in the series according to Bikram’s teachings and heat the room to between 41 and 44 degrees Celsius (depending on relative humidity). They are also forbidden from offering any other yoga discipline in the centre.

This last stipulation also troubled Noel. As a business owner, he wanted to reach as wide a market as possible while serving his existing client base. His students were asking for specialized classes such as pre-natal yoga (which cannot be done in a hot environment), seniors’ yoga and kids’ yoga. And Noel was looking to expand. He wanted to open a Bikram studio in Yaletown. His proposals were denied by Bikram’s head office.

Going out on his own seemed the only way to run a self-determined business, but the challenges just kept coming once he pro­ceeded with a Yaletown location, the second Westcoast Hot Yoga studio. “After I opened Yaletown, my instructors started getting calls. They became afraid that they were going to lose their certification and that they would not be able to work in any Bikram studio again,” Noel recalls. Even though he explained that a court of law had mandated that Bikram’s head office cannot revoke their certification, his instructors were too nervous to risk it. He lost all nine of his instructors and had to train new ones or find Bikram’s-certified instructors who were willing to play on his team, even if it meant they would be excommunicated from the Bikram world.

Lisa Pelzer is the owner of three Bikram studios in Vancouver and was the first to bring Bikram yoga to B.C. in 1999. She confirms that instructors who work in non-Bikram studios are not welcome in her studio. It’s her way of defending the brand and the integrity of this style of yoga. “We’re not trying to put down other yoga; all yoga is good… but there’s a system that needs to be protected,” says Pelzer. “The name is everything,” she explains, adding that she fears people will pin problems experienced doing generic hot yoga on all forms of hot yoga, including Bikram yoga.

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