December 16, 2025 • 49 mins
James is the founder of Prison Yoga Project, which brings trauma-informed yoga to prisoners to help them heal and rehabilitate. And last year 57,000 prisoners attended their programming! This life-changing work is led by their own Army of Normal Folks who are facilitators.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
We continue now with part two of our conversation with
James Fox right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
(00:29):
Even in a prison population like this, with really bowed up,
big bad guys behind that shell of toughness, there has
to be an enormous amount of vulnerability. So the ability
to feel safe must be an oasis in the middle
of a miserable metaphorical emotional desert that is prison.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, and really, the average the average incarcerated male is not,
you know, all buffed and everything like that. That there's
a segment of it, but the average average incarcerated male
is like the average average person in the United States, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Then they would probably feel very vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And on top of that, though, however, I will say
that because of their backgrounds, they're very often they're in
poor health, and the mental health issues of incarcerated people
is severe. There's a study that came out It was
(01:30):
projected that forty three percent of incarcerated people in state
prisons have been diagnosed with a mental health issue.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The interesting part to me, I've read that and this
is a little off, but I think it's important. The
interesting part to me is I don't think the research
goes deep enough because I want to know how many
of those mental health issues developed before going to prison
or after getting in prison, because I think prison could
(02:00):
be as stressful and as much trauma as what got
them into prison in the first place. But the fact
is those mental problems remain. I am curious as to
where they started, Yeah, but they do remain well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And part of the issue is, you know that what
about the mental health facilities in this country. I was
pretty well known that the three largest mental health facilities
in this country are Riker's Jail, Cook County Jail, in
La County Jail that came out in sixty minutes a
few years ago.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And that's yeah, so wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, yes, So you're going down this path, like I said,
scroll up a tree. So you're going down this path.
At what point did you say I want to write
a book.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well that was kind of early on because I had
guys who were getting parolled and they were saying, how
do I continue my yoga practice once.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Now that makes sense? Uh huh, okay, how do.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I continue my yoga practice once I get out? Because
very rare. Are they going to show up at a
yoga studio to do yoga?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah, especially right out of prison.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So I decided, Okay, I started writing like a little
pamphlet or something like that, and then I realized and
I should write a book. And then when I started
writing the book, I then thought, I should make this
book available to any incarcerated person who wants a copy
of it, and I can send it to him free
of charge. So that was I wrote the book in
(03:35):
two thousand and nine, started sending it out in twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yoga A Path for Healing and Recovery by James Fox,
the Prison Yoga Project. Interestingly, the book has lots of
different yoga positions and how to do it because you
just heard James wanted any prisoner to be able to
do it, or those who parolled to have a guide
so they could do it on their own. And I
(03:59):
believe the artwork was actually done by a prisoner.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
In San Quentin, by several actually seven.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That's actually really really cool, Yes, that that's it.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
And so the idea was my par old people can
use this so they can do practice in their homes
or wherever. And if actual everything in the prison populations
is distributed by word of mouth. Clearly, word would get
a mouth would get around into other prison populations.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You want to provide this thing, but you want to
do it free of charge.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
That ain't cheap, right, Yeah, So we've sent up forty
three thousand copies of that.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Three thousand copies. Yeah, forty three thousand copies of this
thing have gone.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
To prisons all over the country, all over and lots
of letters back from somebody who receives it and says, hey,
I'm in solitary. You can't believe what this book is
meant to me. Or I received your book. We got
permission from the lieutenant or the captain on our unit
(05:08):
to allow us to start a yoga program, and I'm
leading a yoga class using your book. This is common, now,
this is common. The other thing that this is something
I started doing a few years ago when I was
in the class, and I would do a particularly impactful
sequence and stop for a moment and ask everybody, so,
(05:31):
how'd that go for you? How'd you feel? And the
guys would say, oh, that felt really good. Boy, I
haven't felt that good. And I'd say, how many of
you guys have children? And guys would and most of
them would raise their hand and think, what about when
you get out of here being able to share this
sort of thing with your children, wouldn't that be amazing?
And you can see the look on their face, but.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Goes off a little bit, light goes off. I guess
it just for here.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
This is for when I reintegrate this society. Yeah, which,
by the way, serves public safety. We're serving public safety
by providing these practices on the inside.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
What is today's socidivism? Right?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Sixty eight seventy.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
After after five years, Yes, sixty eight percent after five
years rearrest, seventy rearrest.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
And on that point, is it ninety percent of people
will eventually go back home.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
To ninety three percent. Six hundred and fifty thousand people
are released from jails and prisons every year. Two thirds
of them are rearrested within three years. When you when
you expand that out to five years, it goes up
to seventy percent.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
That alone tells us what we're doing ain't work.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It's a broken system. And the and the and the
issue is, let me see if I can grab something
from I want to show this to you, because this
has been our.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
What if prison helped people heal?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
What if to help people heal? That's exactly what I
was getting to is if seven out of ten reoffend
and end up back in jail, and we're talking about
seven six hundred and fifty seven hundred thousand people annually,
what if we actually teach the very folks that are
(07:22):
eighty percent of him And it's not all we don't
you can't paint with the broad brush, and you have
to be honest about the numbers. Eighty percent of the
people that are in prison suffered some type of pretty
extreme childhood trauma that was layered and or were under
the influence of alcohol or drugs when they offended. But
(07:45):
oftentimes the alcohol and drugs come as a result of
the trauma they suffered as a child. So it all
goes hand to hand. And that's eighty percent of the population.
So what if that eighty percent that is let out
of jail to the tune of six hundred and fifty
thousand people, seventy percent of which will go back into jail,
(08:05):
which is about a half million people annually. What if
they were taught how to breathe, how to be centered,
how to control their toxic masculinity i e. Their impulse
control how to instead of learning how to fight when
(08:27):
they're faced with an issue, to breathe and be able
to walk away and still retain their ego and their manhood.
What if they were taught that. The answer is that
recidivism rate plumbts.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Would plummet, would plummet, and you are addressing the core
issues of rehabilitation, the willpower of our prison system to
balance punishment with rehabilitation.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Which is ultimately what you're doing now through yoga.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
That's well or you're attempting, yes, And we're doing it
with other program providers who are addressing origins of violence.
For instance, you don't start a yoga class and say, well,
let's talk about your origins of violence.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Now, hey, roll out or Matt and tell me every
traumatic experience since you're a three year old. It's just
not going to happen there to look at you like
you're crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Now, we're providing the embodiment component that lines up with
that mental, emotional, and physical. The frustrating thing for us
who are involved in prisoner rehabilitation is that we know
it works. We know that if you're a violent offender,
you should be not anger management. You should be doing
(09:46):
a really effective violence intervention violence prevention class that you
invest if you're a violent offender, you're going to be
in for a while, you invest at least a year,
or you are really diving into understanding how did I
become a violent person. Part of that also should be
(10:08):
a component of emotional literacy. Most men aren't very emotionally literate.
I certainly wasn't, and being able to understand that there
are lots of emotions. Emotions come, you have no control
over them. But if sadness or fear comes your way,
(10:29):
do you push it away or do you really explore it?
Do you even know how to explore exactly?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So the program providers. The original nonprofit that I was
involved in was called the Inside Prison Project and it
was based on these four pillars of violence prevention, Victim
of fender education, which is basically working with offenders on
taking personal responsibility for the harm that they cause. And
(11:01):
it also has to do with addressing the survivors or
the victims of crimes and the harm that's caused them.
This is restorative justice. The third component is emotional and intelligence,
emotional literacy and the fourth component is the mind body integration.
So what I'm saying is that will yoga alone do that.
(11:21):
I don't know if yoga alone will do it. Yoga
alone will have an impact on lowering recidivism, but when
you combine these other programs, you've got a winning curriculum.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It is so interesting we're talking about this and at
the top of our conversation we're talking about yoga, But
the truth is it's so much deeper than stretching on
a map, absolutely, which is really what I want our
listeners to fully understand. Prison Yoga Project has developed this
(11:57):
holistic approach to rehabilitation and transform transformation with the criminal
justice system.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
The four programs.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I want you to go into a little deeper force
trauma informed yoga in prisons, Trauma informed training publications and materials,
and then advocacy and consulting. And that fourth one is
really interesting to me. Would you care to talk about
those four issues that are specific to Prison Yoga Project itself.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
So the first one is direct services, direct services and
direct service direct services of bringing prison Yoga programs into
correctional facilities and providing.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
To warton say when you show up and say, hey,
I want to do this.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I mean, I got to think.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You know, I'm trying to make sure my guards make
it home every night safely. Keep some pretty at this
point traumatized, but yes, antisocial people from killing each other
every day, Feed them, get them bathed, try to get
them into some classes and get them housed, and do
(13:07):
this every day without having a riot. And this dude
wants to come in and do yoga, I just do.
Some of them look at you like you're half out
of your brain when you ask them about doing yoga
in the prison. They used to, They used to, They
had to, Yeah, they were.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
It was a harder sell. It was a harder cell
twenty years ago. Eighteen years ago, it was a harder sell.
It's not that hard of a cell anymore. I mean,
part of it is because we've developed a reputation. You've
got programs in twenty states, over two hundred facilities. Tell
me some of the facilities. Oh, I know that particular facility,
(13:41):
and maybe I'll reach out to that particular person. Or
they go and they look at our website and they
really look. Most wardens today understand trauma and the impact
that traumas had years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
They probably and they didn't know.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
It wasn't even a word in the lexicon, right, I mean,
combat veterans really brought the awareness of trauma to the
to the culture. I mean that was the original and
particularly post Vietnam. I mean Vanderkok, doctor vander Kok started
working with Vietnam veterans.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
They were the first ones that it used to be, Oh,
they're just shell shocked over Yeah, PTS. It was a
little different than that, right, So trauma informed is that's
called one.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Direct program direct programming, so direct services, direct program programming,
direct services. The training part of it is training certified
yoga teachers who are interested in doing this work.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Oh, that's training the teachers.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
However, however, more and more we're training people who are
part of the criminal justice system who are like, what
do you exactly what you just said?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
What do you get? What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What is it that you're doing that's having an impact
on incusert people. I'm interested in that. So some of
those people, there's staff people, they might be social workers,
they might be, but some of them could be a
facility captain or something like that in a more progressive
jailer or a prison that's really interested in what it is
that we're doing defense attorneys. We've worked with a lot
(15:19):
of defense attorneys. They may never teach a yoga class,
but they.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Want to know what is it that you're doing? What
is it?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And so part of that training is about some judges. Actually,
we have a judge on our board, a former judge
on our board who actually goes into the Max Federal
facility in Florence, Colorado and teaches that the supermax prison,
you aren't telling.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Judgment rup So you got to inform training for all
of these people.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
For all those people, yes, yeah, And part of it
is for the teachers. There's the truma informed part of it.
And then it's like, how do you deal with this environment.
You've never been in a prison before, how do you
how do you how do you create safe boundaries and
things like that because many of our facilitators are women,
Oh many of our facilitators, and we've never had an issue,
(16:13):
never had an issue with women going into male prisons
and teaching yoga. Never.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And then the books, then the publishing, and we have
three books. We have my my original book, Yoga Path
for Healing and Recovery. We have Freedom from the Inside,
which is a book for incarcerated women. We have this
new graphic novel for youth because we're doing more programming
for youth and detention now. And then advocacy starts. That's
(16:42):
where it starts. And if we can, like our our facilitator,
our facilitator here in Tennessee is she's been dedicated to this.
Chawandra Ford has been dedicated to working with youth. And
she sees the results of being able not only to
the youth, not only to the young people, but to
their families so that they understand, oh, there's some value here.
(17:07):
And then the advocacy part is really advocating for rehabilitation,
for true rehabilitation. So let me give you an example.
California is the largest department of correct state prisons in
the country. There's thirty two state prisons. There's little less
than one hundred thousand incarcerated people in California. The annual
(17:32):
budget for the prison system in California is about twelve
billion dollars. It's called the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
That's what they call themselves. Four percent of their budget
is spent on rehabilitation. The rest is spent on corrections.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Is which is also be called penalty.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
We have a retributive justice system, and I mean there's
basically a retributive justice system in most of the world,
which is justice is equated with punishment. The whole purpose
of the criminal justice system is to establish guilt and
then meet out punishment, versus restorative justice, which focuses on
(18:24):
Wait a minute, a harm has been cost here.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So our first responsibility.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Is to address the harm that's been cost And our
first responsibility is the harm that's been cost the victim
and the survivor. And our second responsibility is to work
with those who cause the harm to not cause harm again.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
But we don't do that. We are good at the
first part.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Well, we're good at let's get justice for the offended,
the victim or whatever. And honestly, you know, I don't
want to be a fan of here, but that's what
it should be. If you, if you, if you offend
or harmed one of my family members of loved ones,
I want justice for them.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But and there is punishment.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I think I think I think it was Kennedy who said,
I can't remember what president was, but it was always
forgive your enemies, but never forget their names, and he said,
there is a difference in forgiveness and a pardon. I
can forgive you, but you still have to pay for
(19:32):
what you've done. We'll be right back the first part
(19:55):
of that whole justice thing.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I love.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
The second part on loath because there's still a human being.
And if you unpack that, eighty percent of the people
that have done the offense are themselves from childbirth victims.
Let's punish them. We're not saying they get a pardon
because we feel bad for them. But if they're going
(20:23):
to pay their debt to society, and if society is
going to hold them accountable to their offense, and if
we have gotten justice for the victims or survivors, then
what and then what should be Why can't we do
something to try to help force society's sake the recidivism right?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So, why wouldn't every prison in this country that has
a violent offender, Why wouldn't they have a program that
focuses with the violent offender on their taking personal responsibility
for the harm that they caused.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Why would it first stop before they can do anything.
Why wouldn't we do that?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
There was a warden that I worked with at San
Quentin many years ago, who used to say, what exactly
why a violent offender? The very first thing is it's
mandatory that while you're doing your time, you have to
go through these programs. They're not easy, because most defenders are.
The last thing I want to do is go back
(21:27):
into understanding how I became a violent person. I don't
want to go back into my childhood trauma. It's too
painful for me.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And I sure as hell don't want to discuss it
from everybody ELSEO. I'll show my weakness.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
But that is so beautiful when you do groups, because
it starts out that way. These are voluntary programs, by
the way, all these programs that I'm talking about, and
maybe for the first few weeks when you introduce topics
like the father wound or the mother wound or things
like that, or people are really quiet and you're the
(22:00):
facilitator and you're the only one talking, and you're hoping, okay, well,
I hope this breaks open at some point in time,
and finally one person in the group goes, you know
what we talked about last week. I gotta tell you
that's my life story, and that person starts to talk
about their story and what they went through, and then
all of a sudden, another guy goes, you're talking about me,
(22:24):
And there's a relational aspect to healing also, when you know,
because oftentimes people who've been harmed like that and people
who've gone through that, they feel completely like I'm the
only one who ever went through this. I feel isolated
and they find out no, it's not just.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Me, people in this damn jail.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
But again, why wouldn't we insist if you're a violent
offender and you're going to be doing time for a
violent offense, that you go through a program for taking
personal responsibility for the harm that you cost. And no,
it's it's not you want to talk about punishment. It's
not intended to be easy, but it's constructive punishment. It's
(23:13):
constructive punishment.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
So I get that.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I'm just saying that if the correction part of the
equation is ninety percent and the rehabilitative part is ten
percent or less, which is the fact, because why would
the recidivism rate be that high. Let's bring it up
to fifty to fifty. Yeah, you have to pay for
the harm that you cost, you know, in terms of punishment. Well,
(23:39):
while you're.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Here, it's incumbent upon.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Us to provide you with programs so that when you're
released you're not going to reoffend, that you're not going
to be violent again.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And that way society gets better public safety.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
It's a no brainer. It's to me, it's an absolute
no brainer.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
So where does yoga fit?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yoga provides the embodiment component that the trauma therapists, and
the research is indicated that one of the things that
Vanderkoke has talked about in is research doctor Bessel vander
Koch is you can do all the cognitive behavioral therapy,
you can talk about the trauma that you experienced, but
(24:29):
if you don't involve the body, it's an incomplete job.
And you've got that's interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, when I read that, and your you've said that before,
and when I read that, I read that two or
three times and really thought about what that meant. I mean,
I think that's really interesting, and I don't think many
people think very deeply about that.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
A lot of people just do cognitive behavioral therapy and
stop there.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, that's that's that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And vanderkok has done lots of research on this, and
as have other trauma therapist Peter Levine, Stephen Porges gobblor Mate,
this has now really risen to the four of the
approaches to healing trauma.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So a t a YTT participant, he said this, if
you want to truly learn and know yourself while healing
from trauma, as well as help others find their way
to self knowledge while redefining what a typical yoga practice
looks like, this is the way to go. Don't tell
me his name, but tell me about who at is.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Well, that was a yoga teacher training that he did,
so and and we so we have a to become
a certified yoga teacher, you have to do two hundred
hours of a of a certified a certified certified program.
That organization called Yoga Alliance is the one that controls
(25:56):
that and says, you know, you have to do two
hundred hours and it has to in these components in
order to get your certification. We started a Yoga teacher
certification training. We actually have trained people while they're incarcerated
to become certified yoga teachers. But our yoga teacher certification
on the outside is a virtual training that involves meetups
(26:20):
in person meetups and it's focused on changing the face
of yoga. Not the pretty white woman in the yoga
outfit and everything like that, not the aerobics as teacher,
but somebody who looks like the person that somebody who's incarcerated,
(26:45):
the community that somebody incarcerated comes from. So and we
focused heavily on people who've been system impacted. So they've
had somebody in their life who's been incarcerated, they've had
a family member, which is huge. It's very high percentage.
I can't tell you the exact percentage, but very high
percentage of people in this country. I've had a family
(27:07):
member or they know somebody who's incarcerated. And then the
real bullseye is training people who were incarcerated who come
out and they want to teach yoga. They become certified
as a teacher, and then they bring yoga to their community,
not to a yoga studio, but they start a community program.
And this is a lot of the kind of work
(27:28):
that Chawandra is doing here in Memphis that I talk
about community yoga. It's spreading out, which is what got
me started. I don't want to teach yoga in a
yoga studio. I want to bring yoga to people aren't
being exposed to yoga, why shouldn't they get the benefits
of yoga. So I don't know who that person is,
(27:49):
but that's the training that they took.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Bureau a Justice Statistics twenty twenty two data. At the
end of twenty twenty two, there were one million, eight
hundred twenty seven thousand, six hundred people incarcerated in state
or federal prisons or in custody of local jails.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, we're closer to two million again, now, is that
what it is? Yeah, so it's going up. It's gone
up after COVID. COVID went down for a while and
it's gone back up again.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But the thing is, if six hundred thousand, I mean,
it's the cycle, right, it's it's six hundred thousand coming out,
eighty percent are reoffended. It dawns on me that there's
two million people in jail. Aren't two million new people
every year? It's the same people just rolling in and
(28:41):
out over and over and over again.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, certainly in county jails, you know, and there's about
a half a million people in county jails who are incarcerated.
Of the half a million, about four hundred thousand have
not been convicted. You're kidding, They're wait, kidding, they're waiting.
State prisons have the majority, over a million, over a
million people incarcerated, and then federal prisons have about a
(29:06):
half million. So that's that's how you divide up the
and then when you get into the racial inequities of
those who are incarcerated. For instance, African Americans comprise the
thirteen percent of.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
The US population's fourteen now.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Thirty eight percent of the prison population.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Yeah, I think there's other data that goes along with that.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That's said. I want to be careful with this, but
because there's also a much and I'm not saying this
is right. I'm saying it's just the facts that I've read.
Because there's also a greater higher percentage of African Americans
who grow up at a low income or poverty level,
(29:55):
they are more susceptible to dramatic and things in their childhood,
which leads them to a higher percentage of criminal activity
and thus incarceration. So while there is a disproportionate amount
(30:16):
of African Americans in prison according to their population of
the country, the real scourge to me is that there's
a just appropriate percentage of African American people in poverty.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
In the first chase, it's an economic thing, and it
is and it's directly related to also legal representation. Yes,
they of the quality of legal representation, right access and representation. Correct.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Given all of that, when we talk about needing to
fix the proverbial it as it pertains to our prisoness
systems are over populations in jails, the enormous costs to
our society of incarcerating people and crime in certain areas
of our world that is absolutely out of control. But
(31:11):
we also should understand the data that there's two men
and people in jail as there's seventy percent recidivism rate,
meaning those two me and people, large percent of them
are just rotating in and out and in and out.
If we could break the cycle of that rotation, we
could bring this prison population down by probably half.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, would I would think. So there's a fairly large
population of people who are life sentence with the possibility
of parole or life sentence without so they're doing longer
periods of incarceration. But that recidivism rate has to do
with those who are actually getting out.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, So if we could teach them while in prison, absolutely,
how to control impulses, how to deal with the trauma
that got them there in the first place, how to breathe,
how to be centered, how to take care of oneself.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Doesn't the recidivis in them draw?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, And it's not that everybody's going to embrace that too.
I mean they could go through a program and go
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I mean, I mean,
if you do involve the other things that I talked about,
which is, you know, really really diving into issues of
violence and things like that, it's pretty hard to avoid,
(32:32):
you know, really feeling those issues.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Did you ever think when you started yoga to fix
your aching back and then thought, you know, these kids
they could benefit from this because I remember them from
my days in Chicago, And then no, I want to
give some time to the prison population see if this
can Did you ever think that you would be putting
(32:59):
out cards to say the Prison Yoga Project and diving
into what if prison actually helped people heal? Could you
imagine the evolution of this very simple fault you had
that is now what it is global?
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah? No, I didn't. From the time I walked into
San quentin as yoga man with a yoga man, yoga
man under my arm. I had no idea. I had
no idea. Even when I wrote the book, I had
no idea.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
So you're in how many prisons?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
We're in twenty states and we don't break out you know,
the number of facilities that were in in the United
States and the ones that were in in the country.
But we're in over two hundred and twenty correctional facilities,
and probably at least eighty percent of those are in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
So what other countries?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
We're in? The UK? We actually trained staff in the
UK Okay Physical Education Department, staff that runs their PE programs,
but they are they're full on correctional officers. We're in France,
We're in Portugal. We're in Sweden, and people go, oh, Sweden.
Sweden is very gnarly these days. Oh, Sweden has got major,
(34:18):
major problems, and a lot of it has to do
with problems that they've had with immigrants who they allowed
into the country and they weren't able to assimilate.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And turn they allowed too many too quickly and at.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Exactly and then we have.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
We do business in Sweden, and there are towns in
Sweden the Swedish police will not go into exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah, the gang violence in Sweden is off the charts.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Mexico, we have.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
A big program in Mexico and we're in the federal prisons.
We are in some of the state prisons in Mexico,
but mostly mostly the federal prisons.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
We'll be right back. Tell us about how this white.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Dude from Chicago living in San Francisco gets invited.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
To the genesis of yoga.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And how that even happened and what that ended up
being to you.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
You know, in reality, I have a very very strong
feeling of giving back. I take literally, treat your neighbor
as yourself as you treat yourself, treat your brother and
sister as you treat yourself. And I had a driving
(35:53):
voice inside of me that was saying, when are you
going to align your work with that? And I had
no idea how it was going to turn out, But
to be really honest with you, very honest answer to that,
it was prayer. It was prayer, and my prayer was
how can I be of service? How can I take
(36:16):
the benefits that I've had in my life? How could
I take the benefits of yoga and bring benefits to
other people and get out of the way. It wasn't like, oh,
I'm going to make a lot of money doing this.
It really changed my life when I really focused on it,
and it really became And I don't talk about this
(36:38):
very much. I don't because it's sort of a personal thing,
but it has been my driving force and it's one
of the things that really appealed to me about coming
on this podcast. An army of normal folks. What is
an army of normal folks doing to better society? What
are they doing to take things into their own hands,
to improve things in their community, to improve things with
(37:02):
their neighbors. That's what it means to me, an army
of normal folks. And it's not waiting for the government
to do it for me. It's not it's like I
don't want to sit around and talk about all the
problems in this country.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
It's like, get off your do something.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
That's how I felt about it, and I thought I've
received all these benefits in my life. There's a practice
of yoga called karma yoga, which is being of service.
And you know, you could say Mahama Gandhi was a
karma yogi. Mother Theresa was a karma yogi. A lot
(37:40):
of Americans have been karma yogi's. You know, you don't
have to call yourself a karma yogi, but you basically
your life was about serving other people. Does that make
me a special person?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
No, makes me somebody who's doing what I'm supposed to
be doing.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
We often talk about that the magic happens when somebody's
passion and abilities intersected opportunity.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
That's this.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
You became passionate about yoga because of what did for you.
You became trained in it, and you started to become
interested and passionate and able in what rehabilitation meant, and
it intersected it opportunity that you created by trying to
put it into where you thought the most need you were.
And now look how many do you have any sense
(38:30):
of how many prisoners have taken yoga classes through Prison
Yoga Project thousands? Do you have any sense of how
many have been released and are continuing to use yoga
to keep themselves free.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
You know what's interesting about that and I was talking
to Alex about that too, and that is you get
out of jail or prison and your main focus is
how am I going to make a living that's number one.
Number two is where am I going to live? Number
three is am I going to reunite with my family?
What's that going to look like?
Speaker 1 (39:05):
That makes so much sense. I need a job, I
need someone to live, and I need people who love me.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Exactly, exactly, And so are you gonna Are you gonna
roll out a yoga mat? But if you get a
job and you get into a beef with your boss,
what are you gonna do? Break out into a yoga post? No?
And I gotta break out into a.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yoga post that's a layer.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yes, No, you're not going to break out do a
yoga post.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
You're going to remember that breathing practice to calm your
nervous system. You're gonna remember James always saying your ex
sale is your body's built in release fialve. Don't forget that.
Or another one of ours is take five mindful breaths.
It can make a difference between a blind reaction and
a cultivated response. And that's the reports that I get
(39:57):
back over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Hey, James, ten years ago, I would have beat this
guy's ass. This time I took five deep breasts and
I'm still out of jail.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Even somebody who was in class last week will come
to class early and go, James, I got to talk
to you, gotta talk to you. The other day, I
got into it with this guy and in the past
we would have gone for it. And I took a
couple of breaths and I remembered hearing you say, just
see if you can back off for a few seconds.
(40:30):
And I didn't do it. I didn't do it. And
they're all excited about the fact that they found impulse control.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
What a payoff.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, that's a beautiful I love that when I hear that.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I mean, that's got to be like worth it to you.
But I'm sure all of these trained yoga facilitators you
have all over these prisons, all over the place, they
all have to have those same stories.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, they have their own stories for sure.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
So what's next.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
You told me about a cool program in the car
that you're working on.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
So one of the programs that we developed last year
that we're going to roll or this year, that we're
going to roll out in January is a wellness program
for correctional staff. Prorectional staff staff recognizing that you know,
the average life expectancy of a correctional officer in this
country is sixty one years, is that right? Versus seventy
(41:26):
three from the rest of.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
That's ten twelve years less than normal. That's right. And
they were not not because they're getting killed at work,
just stress.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Probably vicarious trauma, the trauma that they experience basically working
with a traumatized population, and the uncertainty where there's a
lack of safety, predictability and control. They're in the same boat,
there's no safety predictability. Well, they supposed to have control,
but do they really have control?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
And then the issues of you know, how many people
did you say, we're at San Quentin.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Right now, there's about thirty about thirty five hundred?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
How many guards on shift?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I wish I knew that. I wish I knew that.
I'd say a thousand, you know, and that's three different
that's three different probably, Yeah, about three hundred a shift you.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Have out numbered eleven twelve to one.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, about that, I would say, that's about right.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
That's stressful. Yeah, it has to be.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah. And then you know they work and it's like this, Okay,
we're done with work. We've experienced, you know, the stress
of work. Let's go have a few, you know, then
they have a few and all of these issues. There's
a there's a professor at the University of South Carolina
named Hayden Smith who's done all this research on officer wellness.
(42:44):
The substance abuse issues are off the charts.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Among the prisons.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Around, among guards, Suicide off the charts, off the charts,
all of this because of the issues that they're dealing with.
It's vicarious trauma, chronic stress, they call it. Toxic stress
is what it's called.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
So project, the Prison Yoga Project, not only for the prisoners,
but for those who keep a person that's right, that's right?
Not that makes so much sense? Your roll that out
next year.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
We're rolling that out in January. Yeah, and it'll be
a virtual so they can have their you know, they
don't have to get into a group with each other
and have to talk about it. They can they can
have tools to deal with these things. We have developed
what we call micropractices that are practices that you can
do within one or three minutes to interrupt some kind
(43:37):
of emotional response that you're having. And then a lot
of other things, you know, they have to do with
simple kind of things for self care.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Are you still doing it everything?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I'm still doing it well, I actually i'm I'm I
gave up the class that I taught every single week
and now I'm the substitute, and I launched another program
I'm working with. San Quentin has what they call pure
support Specialists, and these are mostly lifers, incarcerated lifers with
(44:09):
the possibility of prob most of them who have life
experience that they can share with their brothers in terms
of being there for their brothers in different ways. And
so they're under the medical staff. The chief medical Officer
of San Quentin, a physician, is basically training them and
all these things. And she asked me, would you do
(44:30):
a training with these guys on trauma and introduce some
tools for them? Said absolutely, so I'm doing that. Last
year I provided a twelve week training for the mental
health staff at San Quentin. The clinicians. Oh, oh my gosh.
It's like and there may be a book, another book
in the offing, but this book is going to be different.
(44:52):
It's going to be told through me, but it's going
to involve the voices of a lot of people that
I've met along the way, incarcerated people, chaplains. I mean,
San Quentin's got a Muslim chaplain, a Jewish chaplain, a
Protestant chaplain, a Native American chaplain, and a Catholic chaplain.
I've known them all over the years. And then a
lot of the other characters.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
They're probably stressed. You need to have a chaplain yoga class.
Probably they probably need it too.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, they're they're they're in better shape. They're they're in
better shape.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
So it's started, all of us started in two thousand,
two thousand and two, two two, twenty three, twenty years ago. Yeah,
twenty states later. Yeah, thousands and tens of thousands, and
it's still growing.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
It's still growing.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
I think you're on your website it says that fifty
four thousand participated in your program last year.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
That's right, Yeah, fifty four thousand, Yeah, in our prom
and you imagine.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
And that's the data that we're getting from attendance. Yeah,
so that's not an estimate. That's from attendance.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
But that's because you had a sore back after you
ran eight miles one day. It's just phenomenal that it
is so true and a passionate ability intersected opportunity. Amazing
things can happen, and this is morphed into an entire
focus on rehabilitation for those who need it the most.
(46:20):
What an amazing story, dude. Thanks mean it's awesome. It
really is awesome. So when you hear Prison Yoga Project,
don't think we're giving match to a bunch of prisoners
and letting them stretch out on the ground. It's so
far deeper than all. Yeah, it's a deep dive anything else, Alex.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
I just think for people listening, if you know people
who are in yoga or yoga instructors and might be
interested in receiving this training, make sure to share the episode.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Of helping their own. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Yeah, if you know people who work at the prisons,
you could share this with them to consider the program.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
How do they get into so they can get in
touch they get If they want to email, they can
email info at prison yoga dot org. Our website is
prison yoga dot org.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Got it. So, if any of you are listening, and
you yoga instructors out there, if you want to serve,
here is a really cool opportunity. And I bet if
there's a prison you're not in and it's close to
someone who thinks I would like to do something there,
especially maybe even a women's facility. All they got to
do is email you and you'll tell them to how
(47:31):
to get it done right.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
We'll help them. We'll definitely help them.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I can't wait to get your next book. I'm not
in prison, but will you send me one?
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Oh yeah, for sure?
Speaker 1 (47:40):
All right. James Fox, everybody, founder of the Prison Yoga
Project based in Bolinas, California, San Francisco BA area, who
is making a difference for our society and those in
it who need rehabilitation the most through yearning, using the
basics of what yoga teaches or rehabilitation and trying to
(48:04):
better our saidy and James. The twenty three years of
this this trip is I mean, what a gas. But
I wish you the best and I just got to
believe it's just going to keep on, to keep it
on making a difference in our community.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
And I thank you for all your hard work.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Thanks so much for this opportunity to have the conversation
with you. Bill really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Thanks for bending, and thank you for joining us this week.
If James Fox has inspired you in general, or better yet,
to take action by exploring becoming a facilitator with them,
sharing this episode with someone who might love that opportunity,
(48:47):
trying yoga yourself, donating to a prison yoga project, or
something else entirely. Please let me know I want to
hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill
at normal folks dot us. If you enjoyed this episode,
please share it with friends and on social subscribe to
the podcast, rate it, review it, Join the army at
(49:09):
normal folks dot us, any and all of these things
that will help us grow an army of normal folks.
I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
We continue now with part two of our conversation with
James Fox right after these brief messages from our general sponsors.
(00:29):
Even in a prison population like this, with really bowed up,
big bad guys behind that shell of toughness, there has
to be an enormous amount of vulnerability. So the ability
to feel safe must be an oasis in the middle
of a miserable metaphorical emotional desert that is prison.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Yeah, and really, the average the average incarcerated male is not,
you know, all buffed and everything like that. That there's
a segment of it, but the average average incarcerated male
is like the average average person in the United States, Well.
Speaker 3 (01:07):
Then they would probably feel very vulnerable.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
And on top of that, though, however, I will say
that because of their backgrounds, they're very often they're in
poor health, and the mental health issues of incarcerated people
is severe. There's a study that came out It was
(01:30):
projected that forty three percent of incarcerated people in state
prisons have been diagnosed with a mental health issue.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
The interesting part to me, I've read that and this
is a little off, but I think it's important. The
interesting part to me is I don't think the research
goes deep enough because I want to know how many
of those mental health issues developed before going to prison
or after getting in prison, because I think prison could
(02:00):
be as stressful and as much trauma as what got
them into prison in the first place. But the fact
is those mental problems remain. I am curious as to
where they started, Yeah, but they do remain well. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
And part of the issue is, you know that what
about the mental health facilities in this country. I was
pretty well known that the three largest mental health facilities
in this country are Riker's Jail, Cook County Jail, in
La County Jail that came out in sixty minutes a
few years ago.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
And that's yeah, so wrong.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, yes, So you're going down this path, like I said,
scroll up a tree. So you're going down this path.
At what point did you say I want to write
a book.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well that was kind of early on because I had
guys who were getting parolled and they were saying, how
do I continue my yoga practice once.
Speaker 3 (03:00):
Now that makes sense? Uh huh, okay, how do.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I continue my yoga practice once I get out? Because
very rare. Are they going to show up at a
yoga studio to do yoga?
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Yeah, especially right out of prison.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
So I decided, Okay, I started writing like a little
pamphlet or something like that, and then I realized and
I should write a book. And then when I started
writing the book, I then thought, I should make this
book available to any incarcerated person who wants a copy
of it, and I can send it to him free
of charge. So that was I wrote the book in
(03:35):
two thousand and nine, started sending it out in twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yoga A Path for Healing and Recovery by James Fox,
the Prison Yoga Project. Interestingly, the book has lots of
different yoga positions and how to do it because you
just heard James wanted any prisoner to be able to
do it, or those who parolled to have a guide
so they could do it on their own. And I
(03:59):
believe the artwork was actually done by a prisoner.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
In San Quentin, by several actually seven.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That's actually really really cool, Yes, that that's it.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
And so the idea was my par old people can
use this so they can do practice in their homes
or wherever. And if actual everything in the prison populations
is distributed by word of mouth. Clearly, word would get
a mouth would get around into other prison populations.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You want to provide this thing, but you want to
do it free of charge.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
That ain't cheap, right, Yeah, So we've sent up forty
three thousand copies of that.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Three thousand copies. Yeah, forty three thousand copies of this
thing have gone.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
To prisons all over the country, all over and lots
of letters back from somebody who receives it and says, hey,
I'm in solitary. You can't believe what this book is
meant to me. Or I received your book. We got
permission from the lieutenant or the captain on our unit
(05:08):
to allow us to start a yoga program, and I'm
leading a yoga class using your book. This is common, now,
this is common. The other thing that this is something
I started doing a few years ago when I was
in the class, and I would do a particularly impactful
sequence and stop for a moment and ask everybody, so,
(05:31):
how'd that go for you? How'd you feel? And the
guys would say, oh, that felt really good. Boy, I
haven't felt that good. And I'd say, how many of
you guys have children? And guys would and most of
them would raise their hand and think, what about when
you get out of here being able to share this
sort of thing with your children, wouldn't that be amazing?
And you can see the look on their face, but.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Goes off a little bit, light goes off. I guess
it just for here.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
This is for when I reintegrate this society. Yeah, which,
by the way, serves public safety. We're serving public safety
by providing these practices on the inside.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
What is today's socidivism? Right?
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Sixty eight seventy.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
After after five years, Yes, sixty eight percent after five
years rearrest, seventy rearrest.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
And on that point, is it ninety percent of people
will eventually go back home.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
To ninety three percent. Six hundred and fifty thousand people
are released from jails and prisons every year. Two thirds
of them are rearrested within three years. When you when
you expand that out to five years, it goes up
to seventy percent.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
That alone tells us what we're doing ain't work.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
It's a broken system. And the and the and the
issue is, let me see if I can grab something
from I want to show this to you, because this
has been our.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
What if prison helped people heal?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
What if to help people heal? That's exactly what I
was getting to is if seven out of ten reoffend
and end up back in jail, and we're talking about
seven six hundred and fifty seven hundred thousand people annually,
what if we actually teach the very folks that are
(07:22):
eighty percent of him And it's not all we don't
you can't paint with the broad brush, and you have
to be honest about the numbers. Eighty percent of the
people that are in prison suffered some type of pretty
extreme childhood trauma that was layered and or were under
the influence of alcohol or drugs when they offended. But
(07:45):
oftentimes the alcohol and drugs come as a result of
the trauma they suffered as a child. So it all
goes hand to hand. And that's eighty percent of the population.
So what if that eighty percent that is let out
of jail to the tune of six hundred and fifty
thousand people, seventy percent of which will go back into jail,
(08:05):
which is about a half million people annually. What if
they were taught how to breathe, how to be centered,
how to control their toxic masculinity i e. Their impulse
control how to instead of learning how to fight when
(08:27):
they're faced with an issue, to breathe and be able
to walk away and still retain their ego and their manhood.
What if they were taught that. The answer is that
recidivism rate plumbts.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Would plummet, would plummet, and you are addressing the core
issues of rehabilitation, the willpower of our prison system to
balance punishment with rehabilitation.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
Which is ultimately what you're doing now through yoga.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
That's well or you're attempting, yes, And we're doing it
with other program providers who are addressing origins of violence.
For instance, you don't start a yoga class and say, well,
let's talk about your origins of violence.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Now, hey, roll out or Matt and tell me every
traumatic experience since you're a three year old. It's just
not going to happen there to look at you like
you're crazy.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Now, we're providing the embodiment component that lines up with
that mental, emotional, and physical. The frustrating thing for us
who are involved in prisoner rehabilitation is that we know
it works. We know that if you're a violent offender,
you should be not anger management. You should be doing
(09:46):
a really effective violence intervention violence prevention class that you
invest if you're a violent offender, you're going to be
in for a while, you invest at least a year,
or you are really diving into understanding how did I
become a violent person. Part of that also should be
(10:08):
a component of emotional literacy. Most men aren't very emotionally literate.
I certainly wasn't, and being able to understand that there
are lots of emotions. Emotions come, you have no control
over them. But if sadness or fear comes your way,
(10:29):
do you push it away or do you really explore it?
Do you even know how to explore exactly?
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Exactly?
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So the program providers. The original nonprofit that I was
involved in was called the Inside Prison Project and it
was based on these four pillars of violence prevention, Victim
of fender education, which is basically working with offenders on
taking personal responsibility for the harm that they cause. And
(11:01):
it also has to do with addressing the survivors or
the victims of crimes and the harm that's caused them.
This is restorative justice. The third component is emotional and intelligence,
emotional literacy and the fourth component is the mind body integration.
So what I'm saying is that will yoga alone do that.
(11:21):
I don't know if yoga alone will do it. Yoga
alone will have an impact on lowering recidivism, but when
you combine these other programs, you've got a winning curriculum.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
It is so interesting we're talking about this and at
the top of our conversation we're talking about yoga, But
the truth is it's so much deeper than stretching on
a map, absolutely, which is really what I want our
listeners to fully understand. Prison Yoga Project has developed this
(11:57):
holistic approach to rehabilitation and transform transformation with the criminal
justice system.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
The four programs.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
I want you to go into a little deeper force
trauma informed yoga in prisons, Trauma informed training publications and materials,
and then advocacy and consulting. And that fourth one is
really interesting to me. Would you care to talk about
those four issues that are specific to Prison Yoga Project itself.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
So the first one is direct services, direct services and
direct service direct services of bringing prison Yoga programs into
correctional facilities and providing.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
To warton say when you show up and say, hey,
I want to do this.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
I mean, I got to think.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
You know, I'm trying to make sure my guards make
it home every night safely. Keep some pretty at this
point traumatized, but yes, antisocial people from killing each other
every day, Feed them, get them bathed, try to get
them into some classes and get them housed, and do
(13:07):
this every day without having a riot. And this dude
wants to come in and do yoga, I just do.
Some of them look at you like you're half out
of your brain when you ask them about doing yoga
in the prison. They used to, They used to, They
had to, Yeah, they were.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
It was a harder sell. It was a harder cell
twenty years ago. Eighteen years ago, it was a harder sell.
It's not that hard of a cell anymore. I mean,
part of it is because we've developed a reputation. You've
got programs in twenty states, over two hundred facilities. Tell
me some of the facilities. Oh, I know that particular facility,
(13:41):
and maybe I'll reach out to that particular person. Or
they go and they look at our website and they
really look. Most wardens today understand trauma and the impact
that traumas had years ago.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
They probably and they didn't know.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
It wasn't even a word in the lexicon, right, I mean,
combat veterans really brought the awareness of trauma to the
to the culture. I mean that was the original and
particularly post Vietnam. I mean Vanderkok, doctor vander Kok started
working with Vietnam veterans.
Speaker 1 (14:15):
They were the first ones that it used to be, Oh,
they're just shell shocked over Yeah, PTS. It was a
little different than that, right, So trauma informed is that's
called one.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Direct program direct programming, so direct services, direct program programming,
direct services. The training part of it is training certified
yoga teachers who are interested in doing this work.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Oh, that's training the teachers.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
However, however, more and more we're training people who are
part of the criminal justice system who are like, what
do you exactly what you just said?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
What do you get? What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
What is it that you're doing that's having an impact
on incusert people. I'm interested in that. So some of
those people, there's staff people, they might be social workers,
they might be, but some of them could be a
facility captain or something like that in a more progressive
jailer or a prison that's really interested in what it is
that we're doing defense attorneys. We've worked with a lot
(15:19):
of defense attorneys. They may never teach a yoga class,
but they.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Want to know what is it that you're doing? What
is it?
Speaker 2 (15:25):
And so part of that training is about some judges. Actually,
we have a judge on our board, a former judge
on our board who actually goes into the Max Federal
facility in Florence, Colorado and teaches that the supermax prison,
you aren't telling.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
Judgment rup So you got to inform training for all
of these people.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
For all those people, yes, yeah, And part of it
is for the teachers. There's the truma informed part of it.
And then it's like, how do you deal with this environment.
You've never been in a prison before, how do you
how do you how do you create safe boundaries and
things like that because many of our facilitators are women,
Oh many of our facilitators, and we've never had an issue,
(16:13):
never had an issue with women going into male prisons
and teaching yoga. Never.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
That's interesting.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
And then the books, then the publishing, and we have
three books. We have my my original book, Yoga Path
for Healing and Recovery. We have Freedom from the Inside,
which is a book for incarcerated women. We have this
new graphic novel for youth because we're doing more programming
for youth and detention now. And then advocacy starts. That's
(16:42):
where it starts. And if we can, like our our facilitator,
our facilitator here in Tennessee is she's been dedicated to this.
Chawandra Ford has been dedicated to working with youth. And
she sees the results of being able not only to
the youth, not only to the young people, but to
their families so that they understand, oh, there's some value here.
(17:07):
And then the advocacy part is really advocating for rehabilitation,
for true rehabilitation. So let me give you an example.
California is the largest department of correct state prisons in
the country. There's thirty two state prisons. There's little less
than one hundred thousand incarcerated people in California. The annual
(17:32):
budget for the prison system in California is about twelve
billion dollars. It's called the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
That's what they call themselves. Four percent of their budget
is spent on rehabilitation. The rest is spent on corrections.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Is which is also be called penalty.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
We have a retributive justice system, and I mean there's
basically a retributive justice system in most of the world,
which is justice is equated with punishment. The whole purpose
of the criminal justice system is to establish guilt and
then meet out punishment, versus restorative justice, which focuses on
(18:24):
Wait a minute, a harm has been cost here.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
So our first responsibility.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Is to address the harm that's been cost And our
first responsibility is the harm that's been cost the victim
and the survivor. And our second responsibility is to work
with those who cause the harm to not cause harm again.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
But we don't do that. We are good at the
first part.
Speaker 1 (18:50):
Well, we're good at let's get justice for the offended,
the victim or whatever. And honestly, you know, I don't
want to be a fan of here, but that's what
it should be. If you, if you, if you offend
or harmed one of my family members of loved ones,
I want justice for them.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
But and there is punishment.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
I think I think I think it was Kennedy who said,
I can't remember what president was, but it was always
forgive your enemies, but never forget their names, and he said,
there is a difference in forgiveness and a pardon. I
can forgive you, but you still have to pay for
(19:32):
what you've done. We'll be right back the first part
(19:55):
of that whole justice thing.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
I love.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
The second part on loath because there's still a human being.
And if you unpack that, eighty percent of the people
that have done the offense are themselves from childbirth victims.
Let's punish them. We're not saying they get a pardon
because we feel bad for them. But if they're going
(20:23):
to pay their debt to society, and if society is
going to hold them accountable to their offense, and if
we have gotten justice for the victims or survivors, then
what and then what should be Why can't we do
something to try to help force society's sake the recidivism right?
Speaker 2 (20:45):
So, why wouldn't every prison in this country that has
a violent offender, Why wouldn't they have a program that
focuses with the violent offender on their taking personal responsibility
for the harm that they caused.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
Why would it first stop before they can do anything.
Why wouldn't we do that?
Speaker 2 (21:06):
There was a warden that I worked with at San
Quentin many years ago, who used to say, what exactly
why a violent offender? The very first thing is it's
mandatory that while you're doing your time, you have to
go through these programs. They're not easy, because most defenders are.
The last thing I want to do is go back
(21:27):
into understanding how I became a violent person. I don't
want to go back into my childhood trauma. It's too
painful for me.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And I sure as hell don't want to discuss it
from everybody ELSEO. I'll show my weakness.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
But that is so beautiful when you do groups, because
it starts out that way. These are voluntary programs, by
the way, all these programs that I'm talking about, and
maybe for the first few weeks when you introduce topics
like the father wound or the mother wound or things
like that, or people are really quiet and you're the
(22:00):
facilitator and you're the only one talking, and you're hoping, okay, well,
I hope this breaks open at some point in time,
and finally one person in the group goes, you know
what we talked about last week. I gotta tell you
that's my life story, and that person starts to talk
about their story and what they went through, and then
all of a sudden, another guy goes, you're talking about me,
(22:24):
And there's a relational aspect to healing also, when you know,
because oftentimes people who've been harmed like that and people
who've gone through that, they feel completely like I'm the
only one who ever went through this. I feel isolated
and they find out no, it's not just.
Speaker 3 (22:44):
Me, people in this damn jail.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
But again, why wouldn't we insist if you're a violent
offender and you're going to be doing time for a
violent offense, that you go through a program for taking
personal responsibility for the harm that you cost. And no,
it's it's not you want to talk about punishment. It's
not intended to be easy, but it's constructive punishment. It's
(23:13):
constructive punishment.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
So I get that.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
I'm just saying that if the correction part of the
equation is ninety percent and the rehabilitative part is ten
percent or less, which is the fact, because why would
the recidivism rate be that high. Let's bring it up
to fifty to fifty. Yeah, you have to pay for
the harm that you cost, you know, in terms of punishment. Well,
(23:39):
while you're.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Here, it's incumbent upon.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Us to provide you with programs so that when you're
released you're not going to reoffend, that you're not going
to be violent again.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
And that way society gets better public safety.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
It's a no brainer. It's to me, it's an absolute
no brainer.
Speaker 3 (23:58):
So where does yoga fit?
Speaker 2 (24:04):
Yoga provides the embodiment component that the trauma therapists, and
the research is indicated that one of the things that
Vanderkoke has talked about in is research doctor Bessel vander
Koch is you can do all the cognitive behavioral therapy,
you can talk about the trauma that you experienced, but
(24:29):
if you don't involve the body, it's an incomplete job.
And you've got that's interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, when I read that, and your you've said that before,
and when I read that, I read that two or
three times and really thought about what that meant. I mean,
I think that's really interesting, and I don't think many
people think very deeply about that.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
A lot of people just do cognitive behavioral therapy and
stop there.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
Yeah, that's that's that's yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And vanderkok has done lots of research on this, and
as have other trauma therapist Peter Levine, Stephen Porges gobblor Mate,
this has now really risen to the four of the
approaches to healing trauma.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So a t a YTT participant, he said this, if
you want to truly learn and know yourself while healing
from trauma, as well as help others find their way
to self knowledge while redefining what a typical yoga practice
looks like, this is the way to go. Don't tell
me his name, but tell me about who at is.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Well, that was a yoga teacher training that he did,
so and and we so we have a to become
a certified yoga teacher, you have to do two hundred
hours of a of a certified a certified certified program.
That organization called Yoga Alliance is the one that controls
(25:56):
that and says, you know, you have to do two
hundred hours and it has to in these components in
order to get your certification. We started a Yoga teacher
certification training. We actually have trained people while they're incarcerated
to become certified yoga teachers. But our yoga teacher certification
on the outside is a virtual training that involves meetups
(26:20):
in person meetups and it's focused on changing the face
of yoga. Not the pretty white woman in the yoga
outfit and everything like that, not the aerobics as teacher,
but somebody who looks like the person that somebody who's incarcerated,
(26:45):
the community that somebody incarcerated comes from. So and we
focused heavily on people who've been system impacted. So they've
had somebody in their life who's been incarcerated, they've had
a family member, which is huge. It's very high percentage.
I can't tell you the exact percentage, but very high
percentage of people in this country. I've had a family
(27:07):
member or they know somebody who's incarcerated. And then the
real bullseye is training people who were incarcerated who come
out and they want to teach yoga. They become certified
as a teacher, and then they bring yoga to their community,
not to a yoga studio, but they start a community program.
And this is a lot of the kind of work
(27:28):
that Chawandra is doing here in Memphis that I talk
about community yoga. It's spreading out, which is what got
me started. I don't want to teach yoga in a
yoga studio. I want to bring yoga to people aren't
being exposed to yoga, why shouldn't they get the benefits
of yoga. So I don't know who that person is,
(27:49):
but that's the training that they took.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Bureau a Justice Statistics twenty twenty two data. At the
end of twenty twenty two, there were one million, eight
hundred twenty seven thousand, six hundred people incarcerated in state
or federal prisons or in custody of local jails.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Yeah, we're closer to two million again, now, is that
what it is? Yeah, so it's going up. It's gone
up after COVID. COVID went down for a while and
it's gone back up again.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
But the thing is, if six hundred thousand, I mean,
it's the cycle, right, it's it's six hundred thousand coming out,
eighty percent are reoffended. It dawns on me that there's
two million people in jail. Aren't two million new people
every year? It's the same people just rolling in and
(28:41):
out over and over and over again.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Well, certainly in county jails, you know, and there's about
a half a million people in county jails who are incarcerated.
Of the half a million, about four hundred thousand have
not been convicted. You're kidding, They're wait, kidding, they're waiting.
State prisons have the majority, over a million, over a
million people incarcerated, and then federal prisons have about a
(29:06):
half million. So that's that's how you divide up the
and then when you get into the racial inequities of
those who are incarcerated. For instance, African Americans comprise the
thirteen percent of.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
The US population's fourteen now.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Thirty eight percent of the prison population.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
Yeah, I think there's other data that goes along with that.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
That's said. I want to be careful with this, but
because there's also a much and I'm not saying this
is right. I'm saying it's just the facts that I've read.
Because there's also a greater higher percentage of African Americans
who grow up at a low income or poverty level,
(29:55):
they are more susceptible to dramatic and things in their childhood,
which leads them to a higher percentage of criminal activity
and thus incarceration. So while there is a disproportionate amount
(30:16):
of African Americans in prison according to their population of
the country, the real scourge to me is that there's
a just appropriate percentage of African American people in poverty.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
In the first chase, it's an economic thing, and it
is and it's directly related to also legal representation. Yes,
they of the quality of legal representation, right access and representation. Correct.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Given all of that, when we talk about needing to
fix the proverbial it as it pertains to our prisoness
systems are over populations in jails, the enormous costs to
our society of incarcerating people and crime in certain areas
of our world that is absolutely out of control. But
(31:11):
we also should understand the data that there's two men
and people in jail as there's seventy percent recidivism rate,
meaning those two me and people, large percent of them
are just rotating in and out and in and out.
If we could break the cycle of that rotation, we
could bring this prison population down by probably half.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Yeah, would I would think. So there's a fairly large
population of people who are life sentence with the possibility
of parole or life sentence without so they're doing longer
periods of incarceration. But that recidivism rate has to do
with those who are actually getting out.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, So if we could teach them while in prison, absolutely,
how to control impulses, how to deal with the trauma
that got them there in the first place, how to breathe,
how to be centered, how to take care of oneself.
Speaker 3 (32:08):
Doesn't the recidivis in them draw?
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, And it's not that everybody's going to embrace that too.
I mean they could go through a program and go
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I mean, I mean,
if you do involve the other things that I talked about,
which is, you know, really really diving into issues of
violence and things like that, it's pretty hard to avoid,
(32:32):
you know, really feeling those issues.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Did you ever think when you started yoga to fix
your aching back and then thought, you know, these kids
they could benefit from this because I remember them from
my days in Chicago, And then no, I want to
give some time to the prison population see if this
can Did you ever think that you would be putting
(32:59):
out cards to say the Prison Yoga Project and diving
into what if prison actually helped people heal? Could you
imagine the evolution of this very simple fault you had
that is now what it is global?
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Yeah? No, I didn't. From the time I walked into
San quentin as yoga man with a yoga man, yoga
man under my arm. I had no idea. I had
no idea. Even when I wrote the book, I had
no idea.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
So you're in how many prisons?
Speaker 2 (33:33):
We're in twenty states and we don't break out you know,
the number of facilities that were in in the United
States and the ones that were in in the country.
But we're in over two hundred and twenty correctional facilities,
and probably at least eighty percent of those are in
the United States.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
So what other countries?
Speaker 2 (33:56):
We're in? The UK? We actually trained staff in the
UK Okay Physical Education Department, staff that runs their PE programs,
but they are they're full on correctional officers. We're in France,
We're in Portugal. We're in Sweden, and people go, oh, Sweden.
Sweden is very gnarly these days. Oh, Sweden has got major,
(34:18):
major problems, and a lot of it has to do
with problems that they've had with immigrants who they allowed
into the country and they weren't able to assimilate.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
And turn they allowed too many too quickly and at.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
Exactly and then we have.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
We do business in Sweden, and there are towns in
Sweden the Swedish police will not go into exactly.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Yeah, the gang violence in Sweden is off the charts.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Mexico, we have.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
A big program in Mexico and we're in the federal prisons.
We are in some of the state prisons in Mexico,
but mostly mostly the federal prisons.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
We'll be right back. Tell us about how this white.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Dude from Chicago living in San Francisco gets invited.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
To the genesis of yoga.
Speaker 1 (35:25):
And how that even happened and what that ended up
being to you.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
You know, in reality, I have a very very strong
feeling of giving back. I take literally, treat your neighbor
as yourself as you treat yourself, treat your brother and
sister as you treat yourself. And I had a driving
(35:53):
voice inside of me that was saying, when are you
going to align your work with that? And I had
no idea how it was going to turn out, But
to be really honest with you, very honest answer to that,
it was prayer. It was prayer, and my prayer was
how can I be of service? How can I take
(36:16):
the benefits that I've had in my life? How could
I take the benefits of yoga and bring benefits to
other people and get out of the way. It wasn't like, oh,
I'm going to make a lot of money doing this.
It really changed my life when I really focused on it,
and it really became And I don't talk about this
(36:38):
very much. I don't because it's sort of a personal thing,
but it has been my driving force and it's one
of the things that really appealed to me about coming
on this podcast. An army of normal folks. What is
an army of normal folks doing to better society? What
are they doing to take things into their own hands,
to improve things in their community, to improve things with
(37:02):
their neighbors. That's what it means to me, an army
of normal folks. And it's not waiting for the government
to do it for me. It's not it's like I
don't want to sit around and talk about all the
problems in this country.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
It's like, get off your do something.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
That's how I felt about it, and I thought I've
received all these benefits in my life. There's a practice
of yoga called karma yoga, which is being of service.
And you know, you could say Mahama Gandhi was a
karma yogi. Mother Theresa was a karma yogi. A lot
(37:40):
of Americans have been karma yogi's. You know, you don't
have to call yourself a karma yogi, but you basically
your life was about serving other people. Does that make
me a special person?
Speaker 1 (37:51):
No?
Speaker 2 (37:52):
No, makes me somebody who's doing what I'm supposed to
be doing.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
We often talk about that the magic happens when somebody's
passion and abilities intersected opportunity.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
That's this.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
You became passionate about yoga because of what did for you.
You became trained in it, and you started to become
interested and passionate and able in what rehabilitation meant, and
it intersected it opportunity that you created by trying to
put it into where you thought the most need you were.
And now look how many do you have any sense
(38:30):
of how many prisoners have taken yoga classes through Prison
Yoga Project thousands? Do you have any sense of how
many have been released and are continuing to use yoga
to keep themselves free.
Speaker 2 (38:46):
You know what's interesting about that and I was talking
to Alex about that too, and that is you get
out of jail or prison and your main focus is
how am I going to make a living that's number one.
Number two is where am I going to live? Number
three is am I going to reunite with my family?
What's that going to look like?
Speaker 1 (39:05):
That makes so much sense. I need a job, I
need someone to live, and I need people who love me.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Exactly, exactly, And so are you gonna Are you gonna
roll out a yoga mat? But if you get a
job and you get into a beef with your boss,
what are you gonna do? Break out into a yoga post? No?
And I gotta break out into a.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Yoga post that's a layer.
Speaker 3 (39:29):
Yes, No, you're not going to break out do a
yoga post.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
You're going to remember that breathing practice to calm your
nervous system. You're gonna remember James always saying your ex
sale is your body's built in release fialve. Don't forget that.
Or another one of ours is take five mindful breaths.
It can make a difference between a blind reaction and
a cultivated response. And that's the reports that I get
(39:57):
back over and over and over again.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Hey, James, ten years ago, I would have beat this
guy's ass. This time I took five deep breasts and
I'm still out of jail.
Speaker 2 (40:08):
Even somebody who was in class last week will come
to class early and go, James, I got to talk
to you, gotta talk to you. The other day, I
got into it with this guy and in the past
we would have gone for it. And I took a
couple of breaths and I remembered hearing you say, just
see if you can back off for a few seconds.
(40:30):
And I didn't do it. I didn't do it. And
they're all excited about the fact that they found impulse control.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
What a payoff.
Speaker 2 (40:38):
Yeah, that's a beautiful I love that when I hear that.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
I mean, that's got to be like worth it to you.
But I'm sure all of these trained yoga facilitators you
have all over these prisons, all over the place, they
all have to have those same stories.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, they have their own stories for sure.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
So what's next.
Speaker 4 (41:00):
You told me about a cool program in the car
that you're working on.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
So one of the programs that we developed last year
that we're going to roll or this year, that we're
going to roll out in January is a wellness program
for correctional staff. Prorectional staff staff recognizing that you know,
the average life expectancy of a correctional officer in this
country is sixty one years, is that right? Versus seventy
(41:26):
three from the rest of.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
That's ten twelve years less than normal. That's right. And
they were not not because they're getting killed at work,
just stress.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
Probably vicarious trauma, the trauma that they experience basically working
with a traumatized population, and the uncertainty where there's a
lack of safety, predictability and control. They're in the same boat,
there's no safety predictability. Well, they supposed to have control,
but do they really have control?
Speaker 1 (41:54):
And then the issues of you know, how many people
did you say, we're at San Quentin.
Speaker 2 (41:59):
Right now, there's about thirty about thirty five hundred?
Speaker 3 (42:04):
How many guards on shift?
Speaker 2 (42:07):
I wish I knew that. I wish I knew that.
I'd say a thousand, you know, and that's three different
that's three different probably, Yeah, about three hundred a shift you.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Have out numbered eleven twelve to one.
Speaker 2 (42:19):
Yeah, about that, I would say, that's about right.
Speaker 3 (42:21):
That's stressful. Yeah, it has to be.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Yeah. And then you know they work and it's like this, Okay,
we're done with work. We've experienced, you know, the stress
of work. Let's go have a few, you know, then
they have a few and all of these issues. There's
a there's a professor at the University of South Carolina
named Hayden Smith who's done all this research on officer wellness.
(42:44):
The substance abuse issues are off the charts.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
Among the prisons.
Speaker 2 (42:50):
Around, among guards, Suicide off the charts, off the charts,
all of this because of the issues that they're dealing with.
It's vicarious trauma, chronic stress, they call it. Toxic stress
is what it's called.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
So project, the Prison Yoga Project, not only for the prisoners,
but for those who keep a person that's right, that's right?
Not that makes so much sense? Your roll that out
next year.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
We're rolling that out in January. Yeah, and it'll be
a virtual so they can have their you know, they
don't have to get into a group with each other
and have to talk about it. They can they can
have tools to deal with these things. We have developed
what we call micropractices that are practices that you can
do within one or three minutes to interrupt some kind
(43:37):
of emotional response that you're having. And then a lot
of other things, you know, they have to do with
simple kind of things for self care.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
Are you still doing it everything?
Speaker 2 (43:47):
I'm still doing it well, I actually i'm I'm I
gave up the class that I taught every single week
and now I'm the substitute, and I launched another program
I'm working with. San Quentin has what they call pure
support Specialists, and these are mostly lifers, incarcerated lifers with
(44:09):
the possibility of prob most of them who have life
experience that they can share with their brothers in terms
of being there for their brothers in different ways. And
so they're under the medical staff. The chief medical Officer
of San Quentin, a physician, is basically training them and
all these things. And she asked me, would you do
(44:30):
a training with these guys on trauma and introduce some
tools for them? Said absolutely, so I'm doing that. Last
year I provided a twelve week training for the mental
health staff at San Quentin. The clinicians. Oh, oh my gosh.
It's like and there may be a book, another book
in the offing, but this book is going to be different.
(44:52):
It's going to be told through me, but it's going
to involve the voices of a lot of people that
I've met along the way, incarcerated people, chaplains. I mean,
San Quentin's got a Muslim chaplain, a Jewish chaplain, a
Protestant chaplain, a Native American chaplain, and a Catholic chaplain.
I've known them all over the years. And then a
lot of the other characters.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
They're probably stressed. You need to have a chaplain yoga class.
Probably they probably need it too.
Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, they're they're they're in better shape. They're they're in
better shape.
Speaker 1 (45:22):
So it's started, all of us started in two thousand,
two thousand and two, two two, twenty three, twenty years ago. Yeah,
twenty states later. Yeah, thousands and tens of thousands, and
it's still growing.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
It's still growing.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
I think you're on your website it says that fifty
four thousand participated in your program last year.
Speaker 1 (45:42):
That's right, Yeah, fifty four thousand, Yeah, in our prom
and you imagine.
Speaker 2 (45:49):
And that's the data that we're getting from attendance. Yeah,
so that's not an estimate. That's from attendance.
Speaker 1 (45:56):
But that's because you had a sore back after you
ran eight miles one day. It's just phenomenal that it
is so true and a passionate ability intersected opportunity. Amazing
things can happen, and this is morphed into an entire
focus on rehabilitation for those who need it the most.
(46:20):
What an amazing story, dude. Thanks mean it's awesome. It
really is awesome. So when you hear Prison Yoga Project,
don't think we're giving match to a bunch of prisoners
and letting them stretch out on the ground. It's so
far deeper than all. Yeah, it's a deep dive anything else, Alex.
Speaker 4 (46:43):
I just think for people listening, if you know people
who are in yoga or yoga instructors and might be
interested in receiving this training, make sure to share the episode.
Speaker 1 (46:52):
Of helping their own. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (46:54):
Yeah, if you know people who work at the prisons,
you could share this with them to consider the program.
Speaker 2 (46:59):
How do they get into so they can get in
touch they get If they want to email, they can
email info at prison yoga dot org. Our website is
prison yoga dot org.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Got it. So, if any of you are listening, and
you yoga instructors out there, if you want to serve,
here is a really cool opportunity. And I bet if
there's a prison you're not in and it's close to
someone who thinks I would like to do something there,
especially maybe even a women's facility. All they got to
do is email you and you'll tell them to how
(47:31):
to get it done right.
Speaker 2 (47:32):
We'll help them. We'll definitely help them.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
I can't wait to get your next book. I'm not
in prison, but will you send me one?
Speaker 2 (47:38):
Oh yeah, for sure?
Speaker 1 (47:40):
All right. James Fox, everybody, founder of the Prison Yoga
Project based in Bolinas, California, San Francisco BA area, who
is making a difference for our society and those in
it who need rehabilitation the most through yearning, using the
basics of what yoga teaches or rehabilitation and trying to
(48:04):
better our saidy and James. The twenty three years of
this this trip is I mean, what a gas. But
I wish you the best and I just got to
believe it's just going to keep on, to keep it
on making a difference in our community.
Speaker 3 (48:18):
And I thank you for all your hard work.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
Thanks so much for this opportunity to have the conversation
with you. Bill really appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
That's awesome.
Speaker 1 (48:26):
Thanks for bending, and thank you for joining us this week.
If James Fox has inspired you in general, or better yet,
to take action by exploring becoming a facilitator with them,
sharing this episode with someone who might love that opportunity,
(48:47):
trying yoga yourself, donating to a prison yoga project, or
something else entirely. Please let me know I want to
hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill
at normal folks dot us. If you enjoyed this episode,
please share it with friends and on social subscribe to
the podcast, rate it, review it, Join the army at
(49:09):
normal folks dot us, any and all of these things
that will help us grow an army of normal folks.
I'm Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can
Host
Bill Courtney
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