Showing posts with label Yoga for Recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yoga for Recovery. Show all posts

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Reconnecting with Real Yoga: Teaching in Cook County Jail


Cook County Jail, Chicago, Illinois
As soon as I came to the first indoor check-in point, it was clear that things were a little off that day. The guard at the front desk was filling in temporarily and had no clue what the normal procedures were supposed to be. The gym where yoga classes are held was still being used for something else when I arrived. The guard at check-in point #2 told me that I couldn't go in and had to wait in the hallway.

The woman who normally handles the yoga class set-up was gone. Her replacement was annoyed by the general level of confusion and disorganization. I hung out next to him in the hall while he complained to me about incompetence, reduced benefits, and worsening working conditions in between exasperated exchanges on a crackling walkie-talkie.

I waited around an extra 15 minutes before they got it together to let me into the gym. I took in what felt like a higher level of agitation in the air than I'd experienced in the past. 

My sense that something was indeed off was confirmed when the first group of women was finally let into the gym for class. As we set up the mats, I asked them how they were feeling and if there was anything in particular they'd like to work on today.

Several women stopped laying out mats, turned around, and looked at me quite intently. Gazing straight into my eyes, a young looking blonde spoke first. "There's a lot of confusion and anger in the unit today," she said. Her voice was firm, clear, almost deadly serious.

Several other women nodded assent and murmured some comments I couldn't hear. "We really need to use this time to get to some inner peace," she continued.

By now, almost everyone was standing still and looking at me.

"Yeah, I had the sense that maybe something was going on when I came in," I replied. "We'll focus getting centered, calm, and grounded today."

"Can we do some of that meditation?" a young Black woman with braided hair asked.

"OK, sure."

The blonde spoke up again. "I was also wondering if you could give us some handouts or something so that we can practice on our own. I want to do Suns in my cell, but can never quite remember how it goes."

By happy coincidence, the group I'm working with, Yoga for Recovery, had just received word from James Fox of the Prison Yoga Project that he'd donate 50 of his yoga instruction books, so that we could give them to our more dedicated students. Talk about serendipity. I'd just received the email about that a day or two before.

I explained that we were working on it. The women looked pleased.

Then we had class. And it was totally great. Just like any good yoga class anywhere. The cavernous, grimy gym filled with metal cots and stacks of thin mattresses stored to handle the overflow of inmates faded away. The harsh whirr of the industrial-strength fans softened into the background. I felt temporarily transported into a very different, much safer and more intimate time and space.

Class ended and most of the women thanked me for coming. As they walked out, I heard three  exclaiming to each other, "I feel so relaxed now! Don't you feel more relaxed now?" One pretty young Hispanic woman who looked like she could still be in high school came up and shyly gave me a hug.

Warnings of how we're not supposed to get too close to the prisoners, how we shouldn't touch them, jumped into my mind. I made a split-second assessment that it would be OK this one time. A mirco-moment exception to the rule that touched me quite deeply.

I left the jail shaking my head in wonder, thinking of how rare it would be to have a studio class in which so many students were so intent about the opportunity to practice. Not to mention knowledgeable about and interested in the potential of yoga to be much more than a workout, and eager to learn how to make it their own.

The fact that they could so clearly identify what they needed to work on that day on such a deep and meaningful level kind of stunned me.

Plus, it was one of those classes that left me feeling really good the rest of the day. My anxieties, which had been revving up, melted away. They just didn't feel that pressing anymore.

"no mud, no lotus"

I'm still thinking about how remarkable I found my experience that day. And how I wish that I could convey to people that despite the endless bullshit, there really is some incredibly powerful yoga going on in the U.S. today. You may need to travel outside of your comfort zone to find it. But it's definitely there. I'm grateful to know and believe that through these sorts of experiences, which imprint me in a powerful way.

To be clear, the experience of teaching yoga is jail is most certainly not "all good." I mean, let's get real: it's a fucking jail.

But: it can be authentically good in its own way, nonetheless.

This, to me, is the true meaning of yoga. It's also why I'm still passionate about the practice, despite the mountains of disillusioning bullshit that have been created in the name of yoga as well.

I hope that more yoga practitioners will be inspired to get real, cut through the crap, and practice in ways that really do open your heart and mind. I'm not suggesting that this requires teaching yoga in jail. There are as many ways to have a meaningful practice as there are individuals.

That said, I believe that by far the most vital yoga teaching and learning going on in America today is happening in the yoga service world. So if you're looking for something more meaningful than you're finding elsewhere, I strongly suggest checking it out.

 *************************************

For more of my writing on the yoga service movement, see:

"Gritty Inspiration: Chicago Welcomes the Prison Yoga Project" July/August 2013

 "Integrating Science, Service, Spirituality, and Healing: The Second Annual Yoga Service Council    Conference" Think Body Electric July 2013

"Socially Engaged Yoga: Healing a World in Crisis" May 2013

"Street Smart Karma Yoga: Terri Cooper and Miami's Yoga Gangsters" Yoga U Online May 2013

"Sweet Delight and Endless Night: Teaching Yoga in Jail - Year 2" Think Body Electric Feb. 2013 

"The Art of Yoga and the Sacred Feminine" elephant journal July 2012

"Yoga Beyond Asana: Launching a Mindfulness Revolution at the Yoga Service Council Conference" elephant journal May 2012 

"Socially Engaged Yoga: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?" Oct. 2011

"Teaching Yoga in Jail: Bittersweet Magic Behind the Barbed Wire Fence" Sept. 2011

 *************************************

Finally, I'm pleased to announce that the Socially Engaged Yoga Network (SEYN), a organization I'm co-founding with , , , and Julia Pedersen, is launching  on October 11th. Our mission is to support yoga teachers, community organizations, and other stakeholders committed to sharing the benefits of yoga with underserved communities in the Chicagoland area. Our vision is to build partnerships in the fields of community health, social services, environmental sustainability, and education that improve health, empower communities, and leverage resources for positive social change. If you live in the Chicago area and are engaged in yoga service work, you're invited!


Friday, February 8, 2013

Sweet Delight and Endless Night: Teaching Yoga in Jail - Year 2

Cook County Jail, Chicago, IL, USA

The first few times I walked in past the barbed wire cyclone fencing to teach yoga at Chicago’s Cook County Jail – through the metal detector (which inevitably goes off, wanding and frisking are SOP), beyond several sets of grimy doors, and into a second cinder block building where classes are held – I felt kind of disoriented. A little light-headed. Like I had suspended breathing for a bit.

A little over a year later, this journey past the front guard-post check-in into the second, smaller check-in location feels old hat. I enjoy that the guards are pretty friendly if you look 'em in the eye and say “good morning." They’ve gotten used to the yoga teachers coming in and out on Fridays and seem to like it. Not infrequently, one of the younger ones will ask if we could offer a class for them.

Our key staff contact inside the jail, Lisa, has a beautiful personality that lights up the room. She’s gotten to know me and the other teachers by name. Little snippets of time spent chatting about this or that gradually add up into a feeling of solid friendliness and familiarity. It’s truly pleasant.

The students are good. Each of the three classes that the group I'm working with, , runs on Friday (one for incarcerated women, one for parolees on a mandatory day program (the “ankle bracelets”), and one for pregnant women) has space for 12 students. It’s voluntary; the women have to sign up. Each class is full every week. Slots often have to be rationed and rotated because there’s more demand than supply.

Compared to teaching in a studio where there can be such pressure to build up your class size, it’s incredibly gratifying to have a full class of students who not only want to be there, but are on the whole very open to experiencing yoga as something that’s got a lot more to offer than simply exercise (although that’s a key part of it too).

So I’ve gotten into a certain groove working in an environment that initially rattled me. This feels good. But it can also produce a certain lull. I can start to feel so comfortable that I lose sight of where I really am – and how much I don’t know or understand about it.

Wake-Up Call 


Checking in at the interior guard desk this morning, I received a wake-up call. I had sailed in with my co-teacher, the beautiful - chat chat, all good. She had gotten hung up at the first checkpoint due to some safety pins on her poncho that she had forgotten were there (they had to be confiscated and every pocket and lining carefully checked), but no biggie.

The young African American woman on guard duty didn't know our regular check-in procedure (show passes and IDs, sign log, get visitors pass). This wasn’t her regular station, she explained. She had just been called in to take over temporarily. So we started helpfully pointing out this and that on her desk, trying to help her get us checked in. “Oh, I think that’s the right log there! No? Hmm, maybe that one?” Fine fine. No pressure, no worries. 

A bigger, slightly older looking, blonde guard joined the conversation. “Yeah, they moved me down here last month when one of my detainees died on my watch. They took me off my regular post because they thought I was traumatized.” Spoken like standard office water cooler conversation. Although it didn't, of course, sound that way to me and Marci. We looked at her.

“Um, died . . . ?,” I said, wondering all the things you'd imagine I might be wondering. 

“Oh, he just had a heart attack,” she reassured us. “It had nothing to do with me. I just happened to be there. But because he died – they thought I was traumatized!” She gave a little laugh and shook her head, like – how silly can these overprotective jail managers be?

The young Black woman looked up from searching around her desk for the visitor log. “Huh,” she said flatly. “I just had three hangings on my watch last week and they still made me finish out my night shift.” Then went back to looking for the visitor log.

And I felt like the ceiling opened up and dumped a ton of bricks onto my sense of normalcy, putting some good cracks into my taken-for-granteds as a highly educated, upper-middle class white woman.

Back to Beauty


Marci and I finally got signed in and went to set up  for class. We knew that we had to acknowledge what we had just heard. “Three hangings?” Marci paused and looked at me.

“Yeah, I know . . . “

There wasn’t a lot of time to talk as class would start soon. And there wasn’t that much I felt we really needed to say. I sensed that we both felt the same shock of recognition, and were going through a parallel processing of it.

Then we each taught a yoga class, back to back, taking turns teaching and assisting. I got lucky; my group was particularly sweet. That sense of magic in the air that you feel in a good yoga class built and deepened. Tadasana, Tree, Cobra, Prayer.  The women brought a level of focus and heart that connected me to the poses on an almost mythological level of feeling. Practicing with them was much deeper and more satisfying than what I’d hurried through that morning at home.

But William Blake had it all right:

Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born,
Every morn and every night
Some are born to sweet delight.

Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night.

We are led to believe a lie
When we see not thro' the eye,
Which was born in a night to perish in a night,
When the soul slept in beams of light.

God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.



Friday, May 25, 2012

Reflections on "Yoga Service"

Tree of Life Tribal by Odari on Deviant Art

Right now I'm thinking a lot about "yoga service." I just came back from the Yoga Service Council Conference on Monday, and want to find ways to share some of the excitement and energy I felt there with others through writing about it. Because I truly believe that this event represented one very important step in moving American yoga in the direction that I'd like to see it go: that is, away from being a simply a self-improvement practice for individuals, and toward being a substantial healing force for our entire society.

As Traci Childress, Yoga Program Coordinator at the Omega Institute (which has been instrumental in supporting the Yoga Service Council and hosted the conference) noted, however, "it's not easy to sell service." Glitzy yoga is enticing, with lush spa-like studios, beautiful clothing, attractive students, glamorous teachers, and promises of health, happiness, and fulfillment.

Service yoga . . . not so much. The settings may be gritty (jails, shelters) or institutional (schools, hospitals). Having too many fashion accessories feels out of place. It's not a "beautiful people" scene - at least to the everyday eye.

What struck me at the Yoga Service Council Conference, however, was that there is a quality of energy generated by people who are passionate about sharing yoga with communities that normally wouldn't be able to access it - kids in low-income schools, youth in juvenile detention, women in shelters, men in jail, etc. - that's exceptionally inspiring and infectious. I can't help but feel that if there were a way to convey that feeling effectively, many more people would be interested in getting involved.

Now, I don't want to come off as a reverse snob who's saying that spa-style yoga is no good. On the contrary, I appreciate the experience of having a beautiful setting to practice in, and feel that it's important to devote resources to create such aesthetic oases. It's valuable to have such places to go for retreat and rejuvenation, definitely.


But I also believe that for those of us fortunate enough to be able to access yoga in such comforting settings, there's a charge that comes from bringing some of that ease into settings in which it is normally in woefully short supply -  and that this is energizing and rejuvenating in its own way.

What I experienced at the Yoga Service Council Conference reinforced this feeling for me. There was a level of passion, purpose, and, yes, love there that felt like a natural by-product of the yoga service experience.

This morning, I did my own little bit of "yoga service," teaching yoga to women in Chicago's Cook County Jail with Yoga for Recovery. Since then, I've been reflecting on precisely why I find this to be such a positive experience. In truth, I find it strangely hard to identify.

Writing about "the joys of service" feels like a hollow Hallmark Card cliche. Really, I don't even like the word "service" much in this context. It carries connotations for me that feel hierarchical, distancing, wrong.

I think perhaps there is something about creating a positive energetic connection that crosses so many socially entrenched boundaries that's really powerful. For me, it's like that magical zing I often feel running through the participants in a really good studio class gets amped up to a new level. I don't want to say that it's better, because when yoga is good, it's good. At that point, there's no better or worse - but there are meaningful differences.

Cook County Jail

One difference that's really important for me personally is that it makes me feel less afraid of what I don't know and more confident of my ability to generate positive connections in unfamiliar and even discomforting environments. This, in turn, reinforces my faith in yoga as something that really works.

And there's always a certain mystery to that. After class today, one of the young women seemed really moved by joy and just spontaneously came up and gave me a hug. That's never happened before . . . and why it felt like such a meaningful gift, I honestly can't say. But I know that I'm feeling a whole lot better now than I was before I taught that class.

When I and another teacher were walking out of the prison gates, a young male guard suited up in tough-looking police gear smiled at us and said, "How was the yoga class, ladies?"

"Great!" Of course, we smiled back.

"I should try yoga sometime . . . I'd like to do that," he replied.

"You should! We should offer a class for you guys too . . . "

The female guard next to him looked at us and more shyly joined in. "Yeah, I'd like to try it too."

Nothing like that had ever happened before, either. Maybe it was the nice spring weather . . . maybe word that yoga can be accessible and good - and not weird or flaky or only for rich women - is getting around. I don't know. But in that moment, I felt proud to have done my own little part to bring yoga into an environment where the centeredness, regeneration, and love it can bring really are needed in a big, big way.


At the Yoga Service Council Conference, I got to learn from some of the most dedicated and knowledgeable teachers in the country about how to to make this sort of yoga outreach work. And to be part of a group of practitioners that love doing it and were on fire to grow the movement. It was wonderful to be there.

I want the conference to be at least twice as big next year. Interested? If so, you can join the Yoga Service Council here. Hope to see you at the conference next year . . . mark your calendar for June 7-9, 2013!

Monday, February 27, 2012

Back to Basics: Yoga as I know it, 101


Of course, I've been following the Anusara scandal lately. And I have many, many thoughts about it. And there's many of you that I'd love to sit down and talk them over with - hashing it all out over a cup of tea. Or maybe a luscious glass of red wine.

But otherwise - right now, I'm feeling like it's not my story to tell. So I'm going to write about what I know . . .

Which is:

I spent two hours practicing by myself today in a mostly empty room. And it was wonderful. And I realized that - yes, I am so, so blessed to have this knowledge. Of how to get into my tight spots and feel them start to open. To sense something wonderful, and even mysterious, about such a seemingly banal process. Um, just stretching . . .  yeah, just stretching my mind open again, prying off the scabs of ancient samskaras and feeling the liberated fresh skin breathing underneath.

Jail

Mia, a Chicago yoga teacher I don't really even know (we volunteer for the same organization and briefly met once) sent me (and the other members of our little "Yoga for Recovery" group) an email yesterday explaining that she's just had a conversation with a MD who works at the Cook County Jail (where our group runs yoga classes for women on Fridays) that made her realize just how little she (and by extension, all of us) knows about the women we're teaching there.
i felt ignorant. maybe i'm the only one in the dark, but did you know that our clients are in this usually court-ordered "sheriff's women's justice program" for 120 days and are drug addicts &/or mentally disabled &/or prostitutes trying to leave the life?
She embedded the link below, which previews a documentary on prostitution produced by the Oprah channel. Surprisingly to me, it highlights the program we've connected with through our program. Lisa - the woman who starts speaking at 1 minute 24 seconds into the video - is someone I've worked with a number of times. She's our insider point person and a huge yoga booster.

Lisa lights up the room with her enthusiasm whenever she helps me set up the room for yoga, chatting brightly and energetically as we push furniture to the sides of the room. I had no clue that she's been a prostitute for 20 years. I can't even imagine.

But while we're working together to get ready to provide a yoga class to a dozen or so women, the truth is that . . . I don't even care. I don't mean that in a callous way. I just mean that - if we're working together, and if we both believe that the yoga's worth our time and effort, then - we're just  together, absorbed in that project, in that moment. And the past and the present and society and its cruelties and inequalities don't go away. But they don't divide us either. We're just there, dedicating some time to some yoga - and to some exploration, and some healing.

And while there's no silver bullet, there is a distinct, real sense that - this is valuable. It does work. How? Why? Right then, it doesn't matter. I don't have to analyze it, prove it, or even say it. I just notice that my mind is clearer, that I feel more grounded. And I see enough students lighting up, and smiling, and thanking us as they say "goodbye" to feel assured that no, it's not just me - they're getting a lot out of the yoga, too.

And it's a good feeling. 


Sneak Peek: Prostitution: Leaving The Life
Prostitution: Leaving the Life tells the story of the world of prostitution from the people that know it best - the women that live it. Three former prostitutes work with the Cook County Sheriff to help women in Cook County Jail leave the life, and gain the life skills and confidence to escape prostitution.



Blather 

Now, the latest iteration in the endlessly spooling Anusara scandal story is "Science of Yoga" author William J. Broad writing with easy, jocular journalistic authority in the New York Times that since yoga "began as a sex cult," practitioners today shouldn't really be surprised when libidinous gurus color outside the lines when it comes to ill-advised or even abusive sex with their followers. OK . . . sigh. How to muster the energy to even start to address all the problems involved with framing the issues at hand in this way? Right now, I don't have it in me. So I won't.


Basics

There's a lot of interesting talk about Tantra circulating around in the newly opened space created by John Friend's current implosion. What I used to call the "Anusasra Police" formerly had Tantra on commodified lock-down - it was their thing, damn it, and they were going to control the terms of discourse so that it was quite clear that they had their copyright right there, squarely on top of it.

Well, that's no longer the case. And that's good. But still, all of this intricate Tantra talk that's been circulating in the blogosphere recently can just feel like a lot of - blah blah blah. At least to me.

Bottom line is that: I don't really care about your religion or your ideology or your atheism or your science or your whatever. But if you love yoga, and find that the physicality of asana can in fact ignite some magic for you - then it seems to me that the core issues are quite simple:

Is it helping you to heal, and through that process, helping others?
Is it helping you to grow in wisdom, and compassion?
Is is helping you to connect with something mysterious, and sustaining?

If we can pretty much answer "yes" to those questions, then - do we really need anything more?

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