“This would be a very easy gig to abandon”. That’s been a frequent thought in my mind since I started teaching weekly yoga classes at the Circleville Juvenile Correctional Facility (CJCF). I drive 45 minutes from my home to the facility. When I arrive, I enter the main building. The first set of doors is open but the second set is locked. I wait a few seconds. There’s a buzz and a “thwock” as the doors are unlocked by someone sitting in “Control”. Mr Todd is behind the counter in the lobby. We greet each other as I sign-in, surrendering my car keys and ID. I clip on my Volunteer badge and walk through the metal detector. Mr. Todd makes a phone call and after 5-10 minutes a guard comes by to pick me up. The guard escorts me out of the main building via three locked doors and we emerge into the main yard. There are 4 dorm-style buildings on the West side of the yard, each houses 2 units. On the East side of the yard is the school. The entire yard is surrounded by a chain link fence about 12′ high and topped with coiled razor wire. Two locked doors get us into the school building and one final locked door leads into the library. Between my car and my classroom, I count 7 locked reinforced steel doors with shock-proof glass. No matter where you go here, you are on-camera.
No one in this place is here because they cut school or stole a phone. Most of the youths have been adjudicated on assault, robbery or drug charges. The majority of them committed their special crime while in possession of a firearm. The average stint in this place is about one year. They are typically sentenced to shorter time but once they get in, well… If you take 130 testosterone-filled young men with attitudes & problems, troubles with addiction, histories of abuse, damaged self-esteem, poor parenting, mental illness and medication, shit’s gonna happen. And when it does, they get invited to stay a bit longer.
I move tables and chairs to create space for the class. There are 12 mats, so that’s the max number of students I can have, but there are typically a few open mats. With a population of around 130, a full class equals almost 10% of the kids incarcerated here.
Sometimes a youth will lose his temper and start a fight or argue with staff, resulting in a sort of “time-out” in their cell. Occasionally a kid will be on medical and have to miss class. Sometimes they’re just having a bad day and don’t want to practice. After another 5-10 minutes, a guard shows up with my class; about 8-10 young men, mainly between the ages of 14 and 18. The class is about 2/3 African-American and 1/3 Caucasion. I have yet to see any Asian or Hispanic youth here.
As they enter, some of the students are happy to see me. “Hey Mr. Reed! How was your week?”. Other youths, especially the ones that are new, tend to be cool and aloof. They’re very self-conscious and guarded of their maleness so this girly yoga stuff is kind of uncomfortable for them. An interesting phenomenon is that young males don’t want to practice bare-footed. They’d rather practice in socks. Part of it seems to be a self-consciousness about foot odor. I teach the new guys where the Top of the Mat is and we get started. I begin each class with Surya Namaskar A and B, straight out of the Ashtanga playbook. After 4 or 5 of each version, their pre-conceptions of yoga are already beginning to dissolve. And what a bunch of babies some of them can be. “This is hard.” “My knees can’t take that.” “I’m slipping on the mat.” Well, take your socks off ya goofball.
These are teenage boys that are all in this place together because they couldn’t control their actions in the first place. They’re confined and controlled 24/7 and all trying to be tough, cool and funny. It’s a recipe that makes for interesting yoga classes. Firstly, my classes at CJCF are very loud. There’s an almost constant banter going on between the guys and I’ve yet to be able to get them to all shutup at the same time for more than a minute. Therefore, my teaching voice tends to stay up near the “outside voice” range. Volume is the only thing I’ve found that consistently helps them to focus. One exception to this is when someone passes gas. Waves of glee and gross-out pass through the class, and for much longer than is comfortable for me to wait out. “Everyone farts in yoga class!” I bellow in vain attempts to restore order.
The thought comes to me again, “This would be a very easy gig to abandon.” At our first class, Mr. B. setup on a mat right in front of me and proceeded to glare death at me the entire class. Blatant “up yours” attitudes throughout class were new to this teacher. But at our second class, Mr. B. smiled a few times, asked questions and put forth some effort. It was awesome to see him warm to the practice. Nowadays, I sometimes ask him to take a front spot so others can see a model for practice other than me. Someone in their own peer group. (I recently learned from a CJCF staff member that Mr. B now practices in his cell.) And he isn’t the only one who’s changed. Other guys, in between farts jokes and fake punching their mat neighbors, find their breath for a few seconds and drop a little more deeply into the posture. It’s a precious few seconds, a time-flicker when understanding and change can occur. And a short opportunity for transformation is sometimes all they need to pick it up and let part of their life change.
My most recent class was very hard. About half the guys were new and they were a rowdy bunch. It was difficult to keep the class focused and on track. It takes a lot of energy and drains an old man like me of vital essence. After class, while waiting for guards to come and escort the guys back to their units and me out of the facility, I again thought “This would be a very easy gig to abandon. These guys aren’t getting it and don’t seem to want to.” On our way out, Mr J. (one of my students since class #1 and a consistent hard-worker) asked if he could give me something. I went to his cell with him, a tiny room with a tiny “bed” in the middle of it and books on the floor. Mr J. explained that he’d written an article about our yoga class for the CJCF newsletter and he handed me a copy. I took it and thanked him and then made my way out of the unit, across the yard and out of the main building, through numerous locked doors and the metal detector. I traded my badge for my keys and ID and headed out. While my car warmed-up, I turned on the dome light and read his article. He got it. At least one guy was picking up on the message about how they can find greater freedom in body and mind, and that’s a huge, massive win. I admitted to myself, “This would be a very hard gig to abandon.“
-Tyler