Yoga Behind Bars

Laura Sygrove, co-founder of New Leaf Yoga, teaches in unusual circumstances. As the executive director of an organization dedicated to teaching at-risk youth the fundamentals of yoga and meditation, her work frequently takes to her beyond the cheerful, sunlit, incense-scented enclave of a typical yoga studio, and into the concrete and routine of a youth detention facility.
Founded in 2007, New Leaf is dedicated to bringing peace and mindfulness to young people who might not otherwise receive the benefits of yoga’s teachings, including incarcerated youth. New Leaf teachers work with at-risk youth in high needs communities and youth detention centres.

Although incarceration officials were originally wary of New Leaf’s meditation mandate, the results spoke for themselves, and New Leaf now maintains a waiting list for organizations wishing to benefit from their teachings. Sygrove explains that officials were originally reticent because of the novelty of the program: they were familiar with exercise programs for youth, but a mindfulness meditation program was a relatively new idea.

It’s hard to measure inner peace, but comments from guards, social workers, New Leaf teachers at various projects and the participants themselves let Sygrove know the program is working and that many of the youth participating are doing better in school, getting into fewer conflicts and generally demonstrating a greater level of calm. For some kids, it’s the simple emotional safety they feel spending 1.5 hours in a non-judgmental space. For others, yoga is a way to feel happy. To practitioners familiar with the benefits of yoga, this might not seem like much, but to social workers on the front line of youth facilities, hearing words like “happy” from their wards is a rare phenomenon.

Other benefits may not be as tangible. Sygrove cites the story of one young man she’d been working with for several months. When she asked him what he was getting out of the program, he told her “my hamstrings are better when I’m working out”. A benefit, no doubt, but Sygrove was curious about a deeper personal transformation. Then at the end of class while rolling his mat, he mentioned as an aside that he’d noticed he was “watching himself” more lately, and Sygrove got her aha moment. She realized that some of the kids she works with might not recognize or articulate the benefits of the practice the way she would, but that they still experienced the positive effects of mindful awareness.

Working with at-risk kids is fulfilling work for Laura Sygrove, although it comes with challenges. When she started teaching, her biggest learning curve in working with youth was to allow each to have their own experience of yoga rather than trying to make something happen. She knows that internal changes are often subtle and difficult to describe, especially for young people, and that she can provide them with a safe place to explore what the practice brings for them.

To learn more about how you can get involved with New Leaf Yoga, please visit www.newleafyoga.org.

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