inception; the annual Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup is named after his teacher. Yoga in the United States In 1971, Choudhury emigrated to the United States and began to teach yoga. He opened his first studio in Los Angeles, teaching his own style of yoga. The author Brigid Delaney describes the atmosphere around him as "fawning": he was, she writes, treated reverentially, as if he were a guru, though he was a "braggart" openly boasting about the film stars he had taught and the money he had made. He was rude and insulting to students; in Netflix's 2019 documentary film, Bikram: Yogi, Guru, Predator directed by Eva Orner, he uses abusive language and jeers at overweight pupils. The critic Adrian Horton writes that the film "visually synthesizes decades of archival footage with first-person testimony and filmed court depositions into a devastating portrait of an abusive narcissist protected from consequences by his own inflated cult of personality, wealth and professional power within the niche world of hot yoga." All the same, Bikram Yoga expanded rapidly across the United States. In the 1990s, he began offering nine-week teacher certification courses, training thousands of instructors. Bikram Yoga studios were founded in many countries around the world. Choudhury taught celebrities such as the pop singers Madonna and Lady Gaga, and the footballer David Beckham, and claimed to have taught yoga to American presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. From 2009, Choudhury claimed that the series of 26 postures of his yoga practice, Bikram Yoga, was under copyright and could not be taught or presented by anyone whom he had not authorized. Choudhury began making copyright claims on Bikram Yoga in 2012. In 2011 Choudhury started a lawsuit against Yoga to the People, a competing yoga studio founded by a former student and with a location near one of the Bikram Yoga studios in New York City. As a result of that lawsuit, the United States Copyright Office issued a clarification that yoga postures (asanas) could not be copyrighted, and that Yoga to the People and others could continue to teach the series. Sexual assault and harassment allegations Choudhury has faced lawsuits alleging sexual harassment, assault, racism and homophobia. By January 2014, five women were suing Bikram Choudhury with allegations including sexual harassment and sexual assault. Two lawsuits accusing Bikram Choudhury of rape were filed in May 2013, with other counts of sexual battery,