A court found Bikram Choudhury's attempt to copyright a series of yoga poses a bit of a stretch. 
 
 Choudhury, creator of Bikram Yoga, attempted to sue Florida-based Evolation Yoga for teaching what he claimed was his signature sequence of poses. 
 
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 Practicing Bikram Yoga involves performing 26 poses in a prescribed order inside a room heated to 105 degrees. Many studios not affiliated with Choudhury offer classes with a loosely similar philosophy under the banner "hot yoga." 
 
 On Thursday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled that Choudhury's sequence of poses weren't protected under copyright law. 
 
 "Copyright protects only the expression of this idea — the words and pictures used to describe the sequence —and not the idea of the sequence itself," wrote Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw in the court's decision. 
 
 Related: Want to Try Hot Yoga? 5 Essential Tips for Beginners 
 
 Choudhury helped popularize yoga in the United States with his 1979 book "Bikram's Beginning Yoga Class." But with success hasn't been without controversy. The founder has been hit with multiple sexual harassment lawsuits, all of which Choudhury has denied. 
 
 The court compared the Bikram Yoga sequences to recipes in a cookbook. Even if a particular cookbook is protected under copyright law, the recipes it contains are not. 
 
 "Although there is no cause to dispute the many health, fitness, spiritual, and aesthetic benefits of yoga, and Bikram Yoga in particular," Wardlaw wrote, "they do not bring the sequence into the realm of copyright protection." ||||| "Before cancer, I didn't know. Had I had yoga in my life, I would have been a lot less scared. I would have dealt with it a lot better. We want to share that with people. It's a mind/body connection. It helps get you get through it. It was a big part of my healing process." 
 
 "It helps me focus on what I want to do this week." Taylor Carey, 11, San Clemente 
 
 "If I'm like stressed it helps me with that. It just makes me feel like a better person." Sasha Canzone, 9, Ladera Ranch 
 
 Tabay Atkins, 11, had no inkling in 2012 that he had inadvertently selected his mission in life. He was 6. His mother was battling cancer. 
 
 The son of Larry Atkins and Sahel Anvarinejad observed first-hand the dramatic emotional and physical lift that his mother’s discovery of yoga contributed to her recovery from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. 
 
 By year’s end, she was cancer-free and had completed a 200-hour certification as a yoga instructor. Tabay, being 6, tagged along at some of her training and soon found himself assimilating the flow. 
 
 Today, Tabay is a certified instructor – perhaps the youngest in America, or anywhere, as far as his mother can tell – having earned his Yoga Alliance certification last summer when he was still 10. 
 
 He doesn’t charge for his services. He puts out a donation jar, all proceeds going to children with cancer. 
 
 “He is the sweetest person you will ever meet,” said Taylor Carey, 11, who attended one of Tabay’s recent classes at the family’s studio, Care 4 Yoga, in San Clemente. 
 
 “When he told me he was an instructor, I said, really?” said Kim Hanley, who is Tabay’s sixth-grade English teacher at Vista Del Mar Middle School. She has been doing yoga for 16 years. She decided to try one of his classes. 
 
 “I had a hard time not crying the whole time,” she said. “He did so well. He said all the right things at all the right times. He taught me a few new tricks today. Very impressive. Sixteen years and I learned something new today.” 
 
 Yoga may seem an unusual passion for the nimble 79-pound son of a retired 6-foot-3, 250-pound National Football League linebacker. But Larry Atkins, formerly of the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders, said he is proud of his son and is sold on yoga. 
 
 “It has benefitted me a lot,” he said. “I wish I had started this early on, when I was playing. Now my body is a lot more flexible than it ever was. This takes it to another level, not only physically but mentally.” 
 
 Tabay said his mother lost her hair to chemotherapy and couldn’t walk on her own in 2012. He watched her take up yoga and dive into training intensely. “She healed mentally and physically,” Tabay said. “She could walk on her own.” 
 
 Once certified, Sahel began teaching. She also began offering yoga for physical education in Tabay’s second-grade class at Concordia Elementary School, earning specialty certificates to teach children, teens, cancer survivors and children with autism or other special needs. Tabay accompanied her at some of these trainings. Attending one in its entirety, he so impressed the teacher that she certified him in that specialty. 
 
 Tabay began assisting his mom at her classes. “At first I was a little nervous,” he said. “After a while, it’s easier to do.” 
 
 When he graduated fifth grade, his mother offered him a summer trip to Europe or an intensive 200-hour full yoga instructor certification course in Los Angeles. Europe will have to wait. 
 
 Madeline Macchia, 11, who has known Tabay since the first grade and practiced yoga since then, said there isn’t much difference between Tabay’s classes and his mom’s. “I love being around them,” she said. “He has gained a lot more knowledge about yoga and has definitely grown as a teacher.” 
 
 “You could tell he had something special, teaching,” said Rachel Pattin, 13. “He was like a little version of his mom. He has like the happiness ... and the kid energy. He’s a lot of fun.” 
 
 As word about the 11-year-old yogi has spread, the Atkins family has suddenly found itself fielding inquiries from news reporters and television stations. Tabay said he has upcoming travel dates for tapings of TV shows he isn’t at liberty to divulge. 
 
 “He is an amazing boy,” his mother said. “He touches everyone’s heart. He has love for everyone and wants to share that. He wants to help people who are sick.” 
 
 Sahel said the donations her son collects to go to Children’s Hospital of Orange County, to cancer families the Atkins family knows or to a basket of other charities they are confident will apply the proceeds well. 
 
 “I am with him 100 percent,” said his dad. “I played professional sports – what I did was temporary ... a few years, and then it’s over. What he is doing can last a lifetime. He can do a lot more than I did, as far as inspiring people.” 
 
 Learn more: care4yoga.com 
 
 Contact the writer: fswegles@scng.com or 949-492-5127
– It turns out, you can't legally stop people from performing ancient yoga poses in a particular order. On Thursday, a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in California ruled against Bikram Choudhury, the founder of Bikram yoga, who was attempting to copyright his sequence of 26 yoga poses, NBC News reports. According to the Los Angeles Times, Choudhury—who didn't invent the poses, which are thousands of years old—claimed he alone had the right to decide who could teach them in the order he first published in 1979. Choudhury has threatened multiple lawsuits against yoga studios in the ensuing years, often with the studios caving or settling out of court. But one Florida studio fought back. Thursday's ruling was in support of Evolation Yoga's right to teach the 26 poses in any order they like, including Choudhury's sequence, NBC reports. The court compared it to a cookbook—in that the cookbook itself can be copyrighted but not the recipes inside of it—and also to surgery. “The copyright for a book describing how to perform a complicated surgery does not give the holder the exclusive right to perform the surgery,” the Times quotes from the judge's decision. Evolation's lawyer called the ruling “a very big victory for yoga studios and practitioners everywhere.” Choudhury was instrumental in yoga taking off in the US in the '70s, but he's been a controversial figure. In addition to his copyright claims, he's been sued multiple times for sexual harassment.