Ex-convict teaches yoga to help calm violence in Mexico's prisons
| Mexico City
Teenage boys shuffle into a cramped room. Wearing the same navy blue sweatpants and white undershirts, they sit cross-legged on yoga mats laid out on the floor. Thick scars on forearms and biceps are apparent as they stretch their hands to their knees and shut their eyes.
Yoga instructor 鈥� and ex-convict 鈥� Fredy D铆az Arista begins guiding a meditation aimed at relaxing the group of 10 young offenders. Among them and their peers, about 300 youth in this Mexico City jail, the crimes range from drug abuse to robbery, assault, and murder.
鈥淗ow long can you stand yourselves with your eyes closed?鈥� Mr. D铆az asks, and then he reminds the boys to breathe. 鈥淚nhale. Exhale.鈥�
D铆az spent six years and seven months in a prison known as Atlacholoaya in the state of Morelos, just south of Mexico鈥檚 capital city. He was picked up for trafficking marijuana and sentenced to 10 years.
In jail, he discovered yoga, and his life changed radically. He was released in 2009.
鈥淚 feel compelled to give back what was given to me,鈥� D铆az says. 鈥淵oga was the key that opened my heart.鈥�
The yoga program in Atlacholoaya was founded in 2003 by Ann Moxey, a yoga instructor and psychologist specializing in addictions. Mexican prisons are rife with drugs, making rehabilitation especially hard. Ms. Moxey鈥檚 yoga classes helped D铆az break the cycle.
Today yoga is taught in two juvenile jails and one adult prison in Mexico City, and in adult prisons in the cities of San Miguel de Allende, Guadalajara, and Puebla. In the adult prison in Morelos, and inspired in part by the success of D铆az, Moxey has created a program to train inmates to become yoga instructors. About 20 men have joined.
鈥淚f you train them, and if you give them the tools,鈥� she says, 鈥渁nd you give them jobs in which they can give back to society, you actually close the energetic circle and what used to be the problem is now the solution.鈥�
D铆az in particular 鈥渞eally has the ability to make a class become a poem,鈥� Moxey says.
The boys at the youth detention center where D铆az teaches have lived life faster than most. Some are fathers; some have fired weapons; some have faced down crippling addictions.
D铆az says he has seen his classes deliver positive results. In the past year, four boys have left jail and kept in contact with him; one is practicing yoga on scholarship at a local studio and says he wants to teach.
D铆az says he tells his students that it鈥檚 not just about yoga 鈥� that whatever they do, if they embrace their ideals and do it with heart, they can protect themselves against life鈥檚 hardest knocks.
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