May 2010

Friends and Fellow Yogis,

As some of you may know, I am in my final year of graduate school working toward my masters degree in criminal justice with a focus on re-entry programs. I am currently interning at the Indiana Department of Correction, and as luck might have it, I was recently asked to assist in the instruction of the yoga program and the Indianapolis Re-Entry Education Facility (IREF).

Perhaps the most unique thing about the IREF yoga program is that it is headed by a resident of the facility. The gentleman who created the program, leads the classes, and facilitates instruction has been incarcerated for fourteen years and has taught himself yoga from books during his time behind bars. I often hear teachers of all varieties say that they are inspired by their students. Never has this been more true for me than when I met this gentleman, who is completely self-taught, and has learned under the most adverse of circumstances.

I am humbled to have stumbled across this opportunity to be able to teach a group of people who are monumentally grateful to learn more, and who enter class with no expectations. Expectations are difficult to erase from most public classes. With the exception of complete beginners, the vast majority of students enter class with preconceived notions of what will come. Eliminating expectations and judgements of both ourselves and others is one of many things yoga can teach us.

Accepting life as it happens, without expectation or judement, is a concept I try to practice both on and off the yoga mat. There is no right or wrong, no good or bad, only what happens next. I like to think that the yoga students at IREF have much to teach me about acceptance of myself and events and circumatances I cannot change. Ultimately, acceptance of what is to come.