Yoga outreach

I was at Rain City last Friday when I noticed a little brochure on volunteering to teach yoga in the prison system. I couldn't remember the URL on the brochure and went home and googled a few days later and arrived here, when actually, I was looking for the local incarnation of a prison-based program. I am really floored by this - poetry has been doing outreach work for many years thru organizations like PEN, but this was the first I had read or heard of yoga going inside the prisons. It seems like a wonderful idea - focusing on the body and the spirit and the mind. The idea of freedom wherever you are. The Samaraya Center where I am looking into doing teacher training this year has a required volunteer practicum - it can be completed at the center, but it can also be done elsewhere. The yoga in prison program seems like a great challenge on so many levels and in line with the idea of bringing yoga to the masses and people who could really benefit from the practice - i.e. not middle-aged, privileged ladies undergoing a mid-life crisis as witnessed at the Seattle Center, but individuals engaged with much more serious exploration.