The Prison Yoga Project, a self-help program at San Quentin, offers physicaland character-changing reforms.
James Fox, founder of the program, has been practicing yoga for 38 years and teaching for the last 24. One of the guiding principles is service to all.
Fox has had personal benefits from yoga and, wanting to give back, he began volunteering with the Insight Prison Project in 2002.
He says that when yoga is mentioned most people think of the physical practice of poses, but there is so much more. A regular practice promotes self-awareness of both body and mind, assisting a practitioner to develop impulse management and behavior control.
The founder says that the most important thing yoga offers to the incarcerated is that it is “rehabilitative and character changing…..”
According to Fox, the Raja yoga tradition taught by PYP was created in India by a man named Patanjali roughly 2,500 years ago. He advocated its practice for living an “ethical, self-disciplined and meaningful life.” Raja yoga is the original form from which all other yoga traditions originated.
The word yoga literally means “union.” The practice was created with the intention of integrating the mind and body to support one’s “mental, emotional, and physical well-being.”
Performing the physical movements and poses of yoga brings union to the body’s response systems.
Controlling one’s breath is used as a tool for self-control. Mindful awareness aids in being present in the moment, and the combination aids the release of tension to achieve deep relaxation.
There are also codes of ethical behavior toward others, as well as toward one’s self, contained within the Raja Yoga Sutra text.
In 2009, Fox authored and published the book “Yoga: a Path for Healing and Recovery,” with the intention that any incarcerated individual could receive it at no charge.
To date, over 40,000 copies of Fox’s book have been sent to those confined in prisons and jails around the country and across the world.
After completing the book, Fox left the Insight Prison Project and established the Prison Yoga Project here at San Quentin. In 2011, he began personally educating PYP teachers to instruct Raja yoga with a trauma-informed approach.
PYP has since expanded to include seven other California prisons, along with prisons in 20 other states, as well as the countries of Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, Portugal, and France.
The motivation that sets one on the path to practicing yoga may vary, but the proven benefits have been assisting humans for centuries.
James Sanders, a certified yoga instructor who assists Fox with his class, is waiting for security clearance so he can teach a class at SQ.
“As a youngster in 1985, I shoplifted a book on yoga and tried it. I’ve been with it ever since,” he said.
At San Quentin, using the same curriculum, there are four yoga classes available to the prison population. Two are for the general population, one for the LBGTQ+ community, and the other is held in H Unit’s dormitory. The incarcerated veterans H-Unit their class has already began.
Students who complete the classes receive Rehabilitation Activity Credits. They also earn a certificate for completing the Yoga Project workbook.
Anyone interested can sign up to be placed on the waiting list through the Education Department. For further information about the Prison Yoga Project, or to request the book “Yoga a Path for Healing and Recovery,” write to Prison Yoga Project at P.O. Box 415, Bolinas, CA 94924.
