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Feb 6

Inmates take to yoga as exercise, diversion

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DEL VALLE, TX -- Most of the 2,500 inmates at the Travis County Correctional Complex are awaiting trial. They've been charged with anything from a misdemeanor to capital murder, and moving through the court system can take months.

In the meantime, inmates at the expansive gray campus east of the airport can enroll in a variety of programs, from theater arts to anger management classes.

Sometimes they practice yoga.

For more than a year, Community Yoga instructors have volunteered to lead four classes at the complex each week. The program is free, but inmates must submit a request to participate in them or any of the other programs offered at the facility. Yoga classes are limited to 25 people. Three of the classes are for men, with one for women. A waiting list of 60 to 70 inmates is common, officials said.

The walls of the health services building where the programs take place are decorated with inmates' artwork that reinforces lessons Travis County is trying to teach.

"Let yourself cry, it won't last forever," one reads. Another says, "Taking drugs is dumb."

Incarceration is a consequence, but Beverly Gentle, the facility's health services building volunteer coordinator of 10 years, said it's also an opportunity for the county to instill positive lifestyle changes in the inmates.

"Sometimes it seems like this is the forgotten population," Gentle said. "If we do nothing, we've made no change. To me, that would be a disservice to them. Everyone deserves a chance to change."

Daniel Smith, the facility's counseling and education manager, said the jail's programming is designed to address factors thought to produce criminal behavior, including low levels of involvement in leisurely noncriminal pursuits.

Addressing those and other issues lessens the likelihood that an inmate will return to jail, Smith said. The yoga classes are in part meant to introduce inmates to a new activity that won't land them in jail.

"We want them, when they leave here, to go back into the community better than they came in," he said.

But day to day, it's hard to tell whether the classes change the men and women participating in them. Inmate programs are voluntary, with only a quarter of the population participating, and volunteers often are working to counter a lifetime of bad habits, Smith said. "We're trying to make baby steps."

By volunteering at the correctional complex, Community Yoga is fulfilling its mission to make the discipline available to people in the community who might not otherwise have access to classes.

Geoff O'Meara, one of the yoga instructors, also volunteers at Austin Recovery, teaching poses to men in the drug rehabilitation and alcoholic treatment center's long-term residential program.

O'Meara said he hopes jail inmates can live a happier life as a result of his class.

"By giving the inmates a tool that will help them to break cycles of addiction, violence and negative thinking, by supporting them in their efforts to improve their lives, they will inevitably improve the community as a whole," O'Meara said.

Some people stay in the class for months. O'Meara said a handful of inmates have taken the class for more than a year.

At the end of each class, O'Meara gives the inmates a sheet with instructions on how to perform the poses they practice in class that day. A handout earlier this month included an Oprah Winfrey quote: "Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher."

During the first weeks of class, O'Meara said some of the men are leery of what they signed up for -- they think it's for girls.

O'Meara said it doesn't take long before they learn that yoga is nothing to sniff at, that it's strenuous. A semicircle of about 10 inmates seemed to think so at a recent class in which they balanced on one foot and leaned forward with the other leg extended behind them. Some gripped a chair to help them balance. Many groaned with relief when O'Meara finally told them to lower their legs, laughing as they shook their muscles.

Brows in furrowed concentration while learning each new pose, group members sat quietly in their gray stripes and Crocs during exercises that called for stretching their arms in the air, first to the left, then the right. Soft puffs of air carried around the room as they concentrated on their breathing.

Marcus Lang, 33, said the class made him feel energized.

"I hate to say it, but I feel high a little bit," he said. Lang, who has been charged with multiple drug-related offenses, said he had used hallucinogenics to achieve such a feeling.

Jacob Vasquez, 32, said it helped him deal with the stress of being incarcerated.

He said his fiancee practices yoga, and the class helps him feel closer to her while he's behind bars. Charged with burglary, among other things, Vasquez said he had to postpone his wedding.

"It helps me every week, to come in here," he said. "It helps me just to not think about being here."

(Copyright ©2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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Inmates take to yoga as exercise, diversion

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