In Support of the Prison Yoga Project

On Sunday evening, inside the Sacred Yoga Studios on Clifton Place in Bedford-Stuyvesant, nearly a dozen participants sat clockwise on yoga mats, sharing why they were there:

One works in the prison system; one has family in prison; and one participant was a former inmate endeavoring to become an instructor who “looks like them.”

The participants were attending a workshop at Sacred focused on the Prison Yoga Project, an effort that has been underway in California for ten years and is currently being organized in New York.

The program brings yoga classes into prisons and is proven to be safe for those suffering from trauma, depression or addiction. Leading the class was Lilly Bechtel who is licensed in trauma-sensitive yoga.

“The goal of yoga is to witness what we’re experiencing instead of reacting,” Bechtel said. Bechtel lead participants through an hour of trauma yoga practice, which included meditation, swaying of the body, focus on breath, and balancing and strengthening movements.

One of the most noticeable differences in trauma yoga is that the instructor does not say the name of the positions.

Working with trauma patients is a “mine for triggers,” Bechtel said. The word pose can be a trigger for rape or sex trafficking. Posture can trigger the idea that the practice should be done a certain way and that it should be done perfectly. Sanskrit is a trigger because it’s a language they don’t know; it’s inaccessible, Bechtel explained.

“We’re trying to teach, ‘Here’s everything you need. You’re here. You’re doing yoga,’” Bechtel said.

Trauma patients tend to believe they have an extreme lack of choice and they respond differently in moments of stress. The purpose of yoga practice is to help them become more aware of their choices, increase their flexibility and help them respond to stress more effectively.

“We want the students to be able to trust themselves, especially in times of stress or pressure-- to trust their inner voice,” Bechtel said.

Yoga is powerful in overcoming trauma, because it is both a mind and body approach. It might be silly to stand on one foot when we’re sad, Bechtel said. But in our implicit memories, we experience things we don’t have [conscious] reasons for.

Yoga unlocks or takes students through a feeling, without analyzing or talking. There’s no separation between the breath and state of mind, Bechtel said. And by laying on the mats, witnessing all the breaths in the room, it helps yoga students realize they are moving through the world in their own way and on their own pace.

In its most basic form, yoga practice will help students pay attention to their feet on the ground and the temperature in the room, Bechtel said. “Rather than shaving away, trauma sensitive yoga boils down to the fundamental principals of yoga that are so profound,” she said.

With the Prison Yoga Project making headway in New York, Annake Lucas, who is organizing the campaign, is working with studios to allow former inmates to take classes free for six months.

Sacred Yoga is one of the studios available for practice, as well as for teacher trainings for the program. Founder of the studio, Dara Cole, said when she created her studio, she knew it was for a bigger purpose.

“Yoga accesses the best parts of ourselves,” Cole said. “Some may have found that in prison, ‘I want to do good. I want to be right.'

"Yoga is a tool to support that.”