Training set to bring yoga into Western NC prisons

ASHEVILLE – James Fox has been in prison every week for the last five years. He’s never served time there, and he has rarely been behind bars without a yoga mat in hand.

Fox, founder of the Prison Yoga Project, will bring his unconventional brand of incarceration therapy to Asheville next month in hopes of getting more yoga mats into area prisons for a greater cause.

The Asheville Yoga Center is collaborating with the Prison Yoga Project, which Fox founded 13 years ago, to offer an in-depth training on teaching yoga to people, including prison inmates, whose lives have been impacted by trauma.

“Most prisoners suffer from complex trauma, chronic interpersonal trauma experienced early in life such as abandonment, hunger, homelessness, domestic violence, sexual abuse, bullying, discrimination, drug and alcohol abuse and witnessing crime, including murder. Carrying unresolved trauma into their lives impacts everything they do, often landing them in prison, where they experience even more trauma.”

The concept is fairly simple: Inmates are better inmates, and ultimately better functioning members of society, if they have ways of coping with the stresses and traumas that lead them to criminal behavior in the first place.

From wine sales to prison

The last time Fox visited Asheville, he was here for a very different reason and leading a very different life.

Fox was a marketing executive for more than 20 years, working in the California wine business for most of it. He visited Asheville in 1999 on wine business in what felt like a “past life,” he said.

“I always knew I wanted to do something more, to contribute something that aligned with my heart more than a commercial endeavor.

“So, I left,” he said. “I never looked back. I’m 60 years old now, and I’ve never been this happy in my life.”

Fox has trained more than 500 yoga teachers to leave behind their studios and go behind bars, offering a specialized set of yoga practices geared toward calming and reflection. Most who attend are certified yoga teachers, Fox said, but many are also social workers or others who work with prisoners.

Fox started teaching yoga and meditation to male prisoners at California’s San Quentin Prison in 2002. His book, “Yoga A Path for Healing and Recovery,” published in 2010, has been requested and sent to more than 8,000 prisoners.

Fighting violence

Fox said his interest in working with “men’s issues” stemmed from his upbringing in urban Chicago, a city that has historically had one of the highest per capita murder rates in the country.

“I hear on almost every new visit, ‘What do you know about us? What do you know about this life,’ and that’s valid,” Fox said. “But I do know about male violence, I grew up around it and watching that violent, reactive behavior and the difficulties of overcoming that and overcoming addiction.

“When I found something that helped me with my own reactive behavior, I just wanted to share it.”

Research on the effects of yoga on prisoners is relatively scarce, though the health benefits of regular yoga practice are well documented.

One study that followed incarcerated women who completed 12 weeks of yoga classes showed “a significant decrease” over time in anxiety and depression, according to a 2010 paper in the journal Nursing Research.

More than 20 institutions offer practices through the project now. Typically, programs are started informally, with a few teachers volunteering their time and organizing the donations of mats.

Part of the training will focus on how to work with prison administrators and ways to organize community support.

“In America, the typical yoga practice is focused on asanas,” Fox said. “That’s only one of eight limbs that are the foundation of yoga.” The rest have more to do with introspection, contemplation and breathing deeply, he said.

“The approach is to focus on developing a calm mind and body that really gets at that reactive behavior that so many inmates have.”

JOIN THE CAUSE

What: Training weekend with Prison Yoga Project founder James Fox.

When: June 6 -8.

Where: Asheville Yoga Center, 211 S. Liberty St., Asheville.

Cost: $295 for the weekend.

More: Call 254-0380 or visit youryoga.com for more on the training. Visit prisonyoga.com for more on the Prison Yoga Project.