What I am Learning: Prison Yoga Edition

Storytime.

There is a kid in my prison class on Friday nights, we will call him Susan (his name is not Susan).

Susan is really disruptive. Challenging to teach. Whenever there is talking in class, it’s either him or the guy next to him responding. As an experienced teacher, I have a pretty fierce people’s eyebrow that works the way I want it to in the moment, but then not five breaths later Susan is talking again. I came very close to doing the whole “You don’t have to be here if you can’t keep quiet and let the rest of the group concentrate” thing, but I didn’t. I just sorta looked at him. And there’s no evil there. He has the same eyes as my nursing students at Marymount.

I pulled him aside after class and said in a very nonthreatening way that he seemed to have a heck of an attention span issue.His eyes got really wide and he said “Oh yes ma’am, I can’t stay on one thing at a time at all”. I asked him if he had medication, he does on the outside but not in here. 

So we did a little extra work on breathing. How to pull air low into the body as opposed to up into the collarbones and shoulders. The change on someone’s face when they get this the first time will bring tears to your eyes- you can see the relief and this sort of shift in the nervous system. I know stress probably isn’t  the first thing you think of when you think of dudes in prison, but their stress is literally nonstop. They’re not stupid; they know things have gone off the rails. At any moment they can be deprived of their tiny luxuries, lots of them have families on the outside they’re trying to keep together, the fight to maintain dignity (not to mention safety) on the inside is almost constant. I see it in really obvious displays of respect sometimes. I see it in rather tense moments of discord others. 

My point about Susan is this- he is not a bad kid. At least, that’s not what I see, and I spend a lot of time observing people. This is someone who grew up without a lot of advantages, with some pretty hefty ADHD and NO clue how to manage it without pills, who was put into detention or labeled as a “problem kid” by adults who had run out of patience. He may have made many of the same choices I did, but he was also forced to confront options I never was. He was talking about his conviction and my (silent) reaction was “You are in jail for three years for that? I know people who did that…” I was sure my eyes got huge at that moment as well.

I owe my perspective on life to my yoga practice. I also happen to think my body is healthier, gonna last longer, and can do some pretty cool stuff because of that same yoga practice. It is challenging to do in a 60 minute class, but I commit to rising to the challenge of sharing at least a little piece of that perspective every time I teach.  I hope you see you on the mat soon. xoxo, m

PS- Early Bird Pricing for my RYT-200 ends October 20. Lots of Airbnb options to make Sarasota incredibly affordable, or we’ve got a hotel package all ready to go for you. Please visit https://whereboatsgo.com/ryt-200-vinyasa-training for more information, or reach out to me directly.