The protective services have stated that they will keep the children until they
are 18, and the parents are allowed to see them twice per year, for one hour
at each visit.

I spoke about this situation with Sheetal Shah, the Senior Director of the Hindu
American Foundation, and she quickly mobilized her organization. They have
hand delivered a letter to the Norwegian Ambassador in Washington, DC, and
just this afternoon put up a petition at change.org.

This story is harrowing. We have no reason to believe that the parents have
done anything harmful to their children. Eating with one’s hands and having a
family bed are not just cultural – they are norms for many countries – this is not
a crime. Norway, in fact, has previously been criticized for these excesses: in
2005 a UN report criticized them for taking 12,500 children into protective custody.
A big number for a small country.

The Indian Government is engaged in the situation with their embassy in Norway,
but please consider signing the petition that we have put up. Let’s put some pressure
on the Norwegian ambassador to return these two, young children to their parents
(before their visa expires in March) and end this nightmare of a story.

Thank you very much.

Yours,
Eddie

According to the yoga shastra, peace is an energetic effect of the transformation of our body, breath and mind; it is a transformation of character that arises from repeated, continuous self-examination and practice. The transformation that occurs by doing these two things will lead us to behave in the world in such a way that we do not create conflict. In the Yoga Sutras, when Patanjali describes ahimsa, or, non-violence, he does not say precisely what we should do to practice non-violence, he only says what will happen if we become established in it: those who come in our presence will relinquish enmity. That is the test of our ahimsa – do people who are hostile become peaceful in our presence? Can we turn an angry situation to a peaceful resolution based on the strength of our inner calm, that has been cultivated through mindful behavior, through years of breathing in a smooth and even manner? We have opportunities to do this almost every day in our own lives, in our practice, and in our interpersonal relationships. If we each work on ourselves, and our small circles of relations, it will be enough to have a larger, collective impact.

In light of that, and as I look back on my successes and failures of the past year, I feel that I am measuring my past year not from the Gregorian calendar’s marking of January 1st, but by the birthday of Dr. King, and by the conviction that he brought to his life.

About two weeks ago I finished reading a book by Freeman Dyson, one of the great quantum physicists of our time. He is a controversial figure. He was present for the development of quantum physics as we know it today with Richard Feynman at Cornell, and was with Oppenheimer at Princeton. He was active in the nuclear programs of America during the development of the hydrogen and neutron bombs, and also active in the development of the test ban treaties. But for all of this, he had a deep spirituality and sense of awe of the universe, and also a conviction that what he saw happen in Europe under Hitler should never happen again, and that we should not be naive about non-violence.

In August of 1963, Dyson was in Washington, DC, testifying at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the nuclear test ban treaty, and why it was vital that the treaty should be signed and upheld – to avoid our assured mutual mass destruction should America and Russia ever declare nuclear war. The day after his testimony, he took a stroll down to Constitution Avenue, where he came upon, and took part, in the following:

“Black people from all over the United States were marching. A quarter of a million people were marching. It was quiet. No music and no stamping of feet. I walked to the end of the avenue where the marchers were assembling and marched with them to the Lincoln Memorial. Each group of people carried a banner saying where they came from. Occasionally there would be cheering and shouting from the crowd when a group came by from one of the really tough places – Birmingham, Alabama, or Albany, Georgia, or Prince Edward County, Virginia, the battle grounds of the early freedom fighters. The people from the Deep South were very young, hardly more than children. The Northerners were older, many of them husbands with their wives, or union members brought to Washington by their unions. In those days, in the Southern towns where the battles for civil rights were raging, black people with family responsibilities could not afford to take chances. From the toughest places only the young people came. 

Most of these children from the Southern battle grounds had never been away from their homes before. They had been fighting lonely battles. They had never before had anyone to cheer for them. They had never known that they had so many friends. They sang their freedom songs while the Northerners listened, and they looked like the hope of the future as they danced and sang with bright faces and sparkling eyes. 

From two till four, the leaders of the black people spoke at the memorial, with the huge figure of Lincoln towering over their heads. Only James Farmer did not speak, but instead sent a message from his cell in a Louisiana jail. Martin Luther King spoke like an Old Testament prophet. I was quite close to him and was not the only one listening who was in tears. “I have a dream,” he said, over and over again, as he described his visions of peace and justice. In my letter to my family I wrote, “I would be ready to go to jail for him any time.” I did not know then that I had heard one of the greatest speeches in the history of mankind. I only knew that I had heard one of the greatest.”

- Freeman Dyson, Disturbing the Universe, p. 141

(Video below)

The New York Times Magazine published an article this week entitled “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body“, adapted from William Broad’s new book.

Broad is a ‘senior science writer at The Times’, and though his article is heavy on anecdote and slim on science, I agree that the increasing occurrences of injuries in yoga should not be discounted or taken lightly. Still, the temptation to argue Broad’s article paragraph by paragraph is hard to resist: for example, yoga teacher Glenn Black’s repeated, incorrect use of the word ‘ego‘, or the need to go back to the 1970′s to find examples of strokes caused by yoga. The case of the college student who kneeled on his toes for hours ‘praying for world peace’, causing nerve damage, begs the questions: what was he more influenced by; yoga, or Christian penitence?  And does one need to inflict suffering on oneself in order to bring about peace?  The teachings of Yoga would claim just the opposite.

There are a couple of obvious reasons why there are so many injuries in yoga (which we must acknowledge do on occasion occur, as they do in every physical activity). The nature of the injuries and the way that one responds to an injury also varies greatly. However, Broad did not address this issue, he addressed the most sensationalistic aspects of injury, and this is what I wish to respond to.

One reason that injury can occur in yoga is due to overzealousness, or even just plain enthusiasm, on the part of the student – I have of course experienced this myself – it is a natural response for a particular type of person when it comes to any activity that has physicality associated with it – no matter what a teacher may caution. Of course, injuries can happen anytime we do physical activity, whether or not we are taking risks.

A more troublesome underlying cause that leads to injuries while doing yoga, I believe, is the value system that forms the basis of the yoga ‘industry’ in America, which is built largely on economic incentive. Sound cynical of me?  As a five-billion-dollar a year industry, it would be hard to argue that the values traditionally associated with yoga, such as simplicity, humility, and one-pointed focus could somehow coexist un-problematically in the midst of a product-oriented industry. America is good at jumping at opportunities – and when it comes to making the holy dollar, no cow is too sacred to be sacrificed in the West.

When there is a great potential for making money, quality is usually the first thing to be sacrificed. Fast food, anyone? It is unfortunate that this is exactly what we are facing now – yoga has been McDona-fied. It has been reduced from a practice that traditionally demanded dedication, discipline, sacrifice, humility, surrender, love, devotion, and self-investigation – and yes, suffering through rigorous practice – to something that one can now learn to teach in a weekend. Or, more popularly, in a mere 200 hours you can become a bonafide, registered yoga instructor. 200 hours is spit. It is a joke. And it is a joke that is leading a tradition – one which, granted, has even in India been subject to ridicule – to an even greater harm.  We have an opportunity, in the West, to bring these transformative teachings to places where they will result in the greatest good. It is true that this is already happening – in schools, prisons, hospitals, with veterans, and as well with people who simply walk into a class off of the street – but it is also true that a rotten apple can spoil the barrel, and the yoga industry apple is a mighty big apple.

I miss the early days when I was first doing yoga in NYC, in the mid to late 1980′s. The feeling of freshness, of being clean and free, of feeling that a whole, new world was opening in me. There were no products for sale, no fifty types of yoga mats, just a towel and some cut-off sweatpants to practice in, or a pair of white, cotton ‘yoga’ pants that I could buy on Bleecker St. for $5. I still feel that freshness when I practice, and I love that – but when I look around at what is happening with yoga in America, I can’t help but feel sad.

It is not that the ‘olden days’ were better – every age has its challenges. But spirituality in America has become ‘easy’, and we are becoming dumbed down. It is not wrong to work hard and strive to understand something difficult and subtle, and then achieve an inner satisfaction that is the result of hard work, persistence and dedication – let’s not sweep that under the table. To live a life of self-examination is not always an easy thing. But that does not mean that it is not joyous, or have its own rewards, for it can be both of those things.

When I saw the title of Broad’s article, the first thing that came to mind was Ice Cube’s old hip-hop song ‘Check Yo’ Self’ (‘You better check yo’self before you wreck yo’self’) – pretty good advice for the over-enthusiastic in yoga or any physical endeavor. I was going to post it, but it is so inappropriate, and the issue of injuries is too serious of an issue; I will not make light of anyone’s pain. But, searching out Ice Cube did lead me down the dark path of youtube, where I trolled through videos that filled me with a happy nostalgia for the rawness of youth – of early punk rock, and the passion and energy that was being expressed through so many amazing songs.

Sanskrit means refined, and many of the yogis of India were extremely elegant, in a simplicity-filled way. The rishis, who became the world’s first yogis, purposely left society to meditate in the forests, turning their backs on the mundanity and suffering of the world. They discovered something that ultimately can be of great benefit to us all, if we use it wisely.  This is quite the opposite of the rawness of music that I grew up with, like the Clash or Sex Pistols – but, still, hearing White Man (in Hammersmith Palais) now still fills me with the same feeling of freedom I felt when I first heard it when I was probably 14.  And who can argue with this lyric: “The new groups/ are not concerned/ with what there is to be learned/ they put on suits/ they think it’s funny/ turning rebellion into money”. I always loved that line, and now it just makes me think of Lululemon.

Then I came across this below – I have no idea if anyone will think it is as awesome as I do – but this girl is killing it. I love how every once in a while she cracks just a little smile – punk rock, a little bit humorous, as it was meant to be – you know, if we didn’t take ourselves all too seriously, maybe we would cause a lot less harm. To ourselves, and to each other.

From Marshall Hagins, PT, Professor, Department of Physical Therapy, Long Island University:

Apparently the Times believes that it needs to make yoga look “funny” to sell what is ostensibly a serious work of scientific reporting [“How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” by William Broad in the NY Times Magazine on Jan 8th ].   But it is not the attempt by the Times to sell more papers that really concerns me, it is the lack of balance in a report of genuine importance—risk of injury while practicing yoga.

First, anecdotal reports, no matter how impressive the journal they appear in, does not a convincing argument make. Second, the issue is not whether some people get hurt doing yoga (no serious yogi thinks that yoga has zero risk) but injury rate. In other words, how many people are getting hurt doing yoga (numerator) compared to how many people are actually practicing yoga (denominator).  Many common activities are inherently risky. Have you seen the statistics for playing basketball?—over 600,000 injuries per year in America (15% of basketball players get injured in the sport). Yet we continue to play basketball and other even more risky sports (football anyone?).  Why? Because there are perceived benefits and we make the choice of risk versus reward.

Well…you may ask, then why can’t this piece be viewed as helping increase awareness of the risk of yoga so people can make informed choices? Because this piece fails to accurately describe the risk of yoga—it merely cherry picks a few extreme events and implicates the entire practice.  (Is it really surprising that if you sit on your heels for “hours a day” that nerves will go to sleep in your legs?) A balanced, serious, and accurate scientific report on the risks of yoga would have, at a minimum, explicitly stated that no one actually knows the injury rates for yoga, as is actually the case.  What is provided beyond anecdote to demonstrate the “growing body of medical evidence” is two numbers: 1) Emergency room injuries related to yoga increased from 13 to 46 in a two year period; 2) Yoga practitioners grew in number by 15 million in the last 10 years.  While acknowledging that comparing risk between activities is ultimately much more complex than what I suggest here, it is still roughly reasonable to note that if you multiply the number of reported yoga injuries by 100(!) to account for under-reporting, the injury rate using the authors numbers is still exceedingly small and far less than what is known about most common sports activities.

And by the way, it is not true that the cervical spine can only rotate 50 degrees as suggested by the author.  If you doubt this, turn your head as far as you can to the right or left.  Is your nose almost pointing over your shoulder? Voila…80 degrees of rotation.  Now you have the mobility of an “intermediate” yogi!

While reading the article “How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body” in last week’s NYT Magazine, I found several medical errors in William J. Broad’s writing and took issue with his contention that yoga could cause vertebral basilar artery injury (VBAI) in the course of an average practice.  I am a chiropractor with 16 years in practice and a student of Ashtanga Yoga and Iyengar Yoga for the past 25 years.

From Rick Bartz, D.C.

Mr. Broad makes a glaring error in reporting the extent of side to side rotation in a normal cervical spine.  In stating range of motion for the neck, or cervical  spine, the author gives 75˚ extension, 40˚ flexion, 45˚ left lateral flexion (LLF), 45˚ right lateral flexion (RLF), and 50˚ in both right rotation and left rotation.  The normal range of motion for the cervical spine, according to most major references, including the AMA Guide to Impairment, is 70˚ ext, 50˚ flex, 45˚ LLF and RLF, and 80˚ L rotation and R rotation.  So the author is a bit generous in neck extension, a little short on normal flexion, correct in lateral flexion, but seriously erroneous in rotation.  Since most of his arguments linking yoga to cerebrovascular incidents are based on an assumption of hyper rotation, he is seriously at odds with the medical literature.  For an “Intermediate student” to have  90˚ active rotation is only a small increase above normal, and no more than the passive rotation normally expected in a routine physical exam.

He then goes on to misidentify hyperflexion of the neck as encouraged by Iyengar in the cobra pose.  In fact, in cobra pose the neck is in extension!  This is a sloppy error that one hopes the author would have caught before going to print.  As far as shoulder stand, where the neck is truly hyperflexed, some sources indicate that motion of the chin to the sternum is, in fact, the maximum accepted ROM of 80-90 degrees.

The primary focus of the article is, of course, stroke.  As a chiropractor, my profession has been under relentless attack for years with the false accusation that chiropractic manipulation is a causative factor for VBAI.  In fact, the most definitive paper on the subject published in 2008 by J. David Cassidy, was a meta-analysis of vertebrobasilar artery (VBA) stroke cases admitted to hospitals in Ontario over a 10 year period.  The conclusion that Cassidy’s prestigious team reached was that “VBA stroke is a very rare event in the population.  The increased risks of VBA stroke associated with chiropractic and primary care physician (PCP) visits is likely due to patients with headache and neck pain from VBA dissection seeking care before their stroke.  They found no evidence of excess risk of VBA stroke associated with chiropractic care compared to primary care.” In other words, patients with acute headache and neck pain were already suffering symptoms of a stroke when they came into their doctor’s office with those complaints.  The astute doctor would then refer the patient to the emergency room upon recognizing these and other related neurological symptoms during physical exam.

The human body provides a marvel of redundancy in it’s blood supply to the brain.  there are two internal carotid arteries and two vertebral arteries providing circulation to the basilar artery, also known as the Circle of Willis, so that in the event that either the left or right is compromised or entirely occluded, the other side will provide the needed oxygen-rich blood supply, via the Circle, to the side that is deficient.  Mr. Broad correctly identifies the anatomical problem area for the vertebral artery as C1-C2 in an earlier part of his article when he references the 1973 study of a 28 y.o. woman, but then goes on to describe a 25 y.o. man rushed to Northwestern Hospital in Chicago with “blockages of the left vertebral artery between the C2 and C3 vertebrae.”  Incidentally, the C2-C3 section of the VBA is statistically less likely to be damaged by neck rotation.  Even If he had suffered “total or nearly complete occlusion” in that artery, it is false to say that “no blood could get through to the brain.”  There would certainly be at least three other arteries providing circulation, via the Circle of Willis, to his brain.  Not to deny that the young man did indeed have a stroke, but that the causes are suspect. There are many cases of spontaneous dissection of the vertebral artery.  There are cases of people with only one vertebral artery who had no neurological symptoms in their lives.

This is not to say that yoga practice is without risk of injury and that yoga teachers should be alert to signs of potential medical issues, such as acute, intense headache and unusual neck stiffness, that would affect a student’s ability to do practice safely.

Rick Bartz, D.C.

Speaking of my daughter – Lili, age 11 – here are two things that she has said in the past week that I think are particularly excellent. The first is ad-copy worthy, the second, maybe the title of a book?

1. On Saturday, Lili and I were walking to Candle Cafe with her cousin Maisie.

Maise said to Lili: Do you know how far we have to walk? (it was cold out).

Lili: I have no idea. Then about 30 seconds, Oh! We’re almost there!

Maisie: How do you know, you just said you didn’t know where we were going.

Lili: Because there’s Duane Reade, and Duane Reade is close to everything!

2. A couple of days before that, Lili and I were walking back from Candle Cafe (we eat there a lot), discussing karma, and how if you throw an action out into the world it will eventually come back to you. “I get it”, she exclaimed, “karma is action gravity!” Dig it. Perfect definition. Well said, Lili.

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The second is a story about two women, Emily Holick and Heather Mason, who have created a yoga class for Medical students at Boston University. The class has a very interesting set-up (from the course description):

*One-hour of yoga/mindfulness practice with a specific theme
*15-minute discussion between lecturer and students
*15-minute lecture on the neurophysiological and psychological mechanisms underlying the practice of the day, tracing relevant and up-to-date research on the theme of the evening, and its potential relevance for doctors and their patients.

All the students enrolled in the course will become part of a study on yogas effect on their psychological and physical well-being.

The class sounds like it is a very balanced mix of yoga science and modern science – Holick credits yoga with transforming her life as a stressed out Med student – and Mason, a yoga therapist, has an abiding interest in the neuroscience of yoga. She understands that yogic principles of practice, like slowing down ones breathing rate, cannot help but have both physical, mental and emotional benefits:

Mason asks them to count their breaths per minute. She knows that the ideal count of five or six has been shown to increase heart rate variability, which can ameliorate problems like depression, epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorder, and cardiac disease.

Also, as she embarked on her project, she saw the greater implications of teaching yoga to Med students:

… the first goal of MED Yoga was to let doctors know how yoga could help their patients, but then she realized how it could help the doctors themselves.

This is something that Donna Karan’s Urban Zen Initiative is working towards, too. The strength of these programs are in sync with the Medical maxim: physician, heal thyself. Why? Because after one has understood their own nature, and worked to bring oneself into a state of health and balance, the ability to help others heal comes with a much greater efficacy, level of compassion, and understanding.

It is clear from these two examples that there are indeed yogis who have embedded themselves in the world of science and education, and are making a difference from the inside out. The mind-body connection is not lost on them. Sometimes we need to know what it is that we are studying before we can make an honest appraisal of its benefits, or lack thereof.

In regards to the letter from Bryan Shull that Robbie sent to me, I completely neglected to link to Robbie’s website site: I apologize, Robbie! You can find him, and the work he does in the Richmond City Prison, here.

So, before I move away from this article and write about other things I find interesting, I wanted to mention two pieces written by my friends. One is from my fall-back blogger, Sheetal Shah, the Senior Director of the Hindu American Foundation. Apparently I blew all the political clout I built up with her on my NYT response by posting the Coldplay video (“Poor Ganesh!”, she said). But she does work out at, like, Equinox or something, so whatever – there is probably some great contradiction between posting a Coldplay video and pondering the presentation of Yoga in the West, but what can I say, it made me laugh.

Here is her response to the article. You can also see the HAF yoga stance here.

The second is from my friend Blake, who sent me a lengthy and highly thoughtful letter, of which I will quote just a little:

I think that a problem remains for those of us who have put this method into practice, and who have begun to experience its beneficial effects -clarity of mind, healthy body, strength of spirit; our work cannot be ‘finished’ with just ourselves, and not only for the reason that this method of practice opens into a continual process of refinement…  The problem that confronts us once our own personal relationships with this practice are ‘underway’ is the problem of our culture itself.  We simply cannot afford to sit back on our Zafus and watch as this whole shithouse of a society goes up in flames!  If what is at stake in Yoga is the non-apparent possibility of making intelligent decisions on a personal level, then what is at stake in contemporary culture is the apparent impossibility of making intelligent decisions collectively.  Beneath this veneer all manner of personal-scale pathologies are able to proliferate freely at the ‘highest’ levels of social responsibility, including government, civil service, ‘the media’ (apparatuses of mass communication), the family, schools (cruelty to children), the private sector (executive malfeasance), etc.  It seems to me that the delusional nature of power (power as a delusion!) that’s implicated in all of this is an extremely dangerous adversary.  It very clearly threatens to extinguish legitimate cultural, spiritual, and practical traditions not only among human beings worldwide, but among many, if not all, forms of biological life on this planet (through resource liquidation, global warming, pollution, nuclear catastrophe, chemical weaponry, etc.); yoga very much included.  

I feel that these problems do need to be addressed explicitly, and that doing so will necessitate the taking of strong positions vis a vis yoga’s (and our personal) identities in the pseudo-commons of a largely corporate-engineered and dominated ‘popular culture’.  It is certainly safer and simpler to avoid the Eye of Mordor that is the ‘media spotlight’; our work as Yoga teachers and practitioners remains rooted in the local, specific, personal conditions of our ‘actual’ (as opposed to virtual) lives and communities.  But the capacities for intelligent discernment (siddhis) that our methods deliver unto us confer with them the responsibility to take up strong public positions on and in what remains of our culture, safeguarding thereby what small chance remains of our survival past this ‘massively-globalizing’ phase in our species’ very peculiar evolution.  

Clearly, we have work to do…

“Ganesh – for shizzle!”

As well, I love the song. I don’t understand it, but I love it.

My friend Margaret Loeb, who is working on a longer response based on her training as a psychologist, sent some thoughts to me as well. I particularly liked her response to Ms Schoeneman’s quip that “It [Ashtanga Yoga] is widely believed to have been created for adolescent boys and tends to attract former drug addicts and Type A personalities…”:

In a world with ADD and sensory dis-integration as not only discreet pathologies but symptoms of an over stimulating culture, Ashtanga yoga offers brilliant tools to gain mastery, focus and mental stability.  The fact that the achievement would suit young boys, former addicts and type A personalities is not testimony to its failure but rather to its success.   There is in fact abundant evidence that yoga reduces anxiety, improves cardiac functioning, posture and mental focus. For many people who do yoga, without it they would be more likely to use drugs, more likely to need therapy, more likely to have difficulty managing their emotions.  The physical benefits of yoga are a bonus. 

Steve Cahn has several posts regarding the article on his very enjoyable Confluence Countdown blog, and Jason at Leaping Lanka has some good points to make too.

Me, I don’t have much to say. The article will be forgotten by, oh, today. I do feel though that these types of articles are indicative of a larger problem in American yoga.  Although it has been wonderful to see the amount of coverage given to Yoga by mainstream publications like the Times, these attentions have tended to be distracted by a perennial problem: the incommensurability between insider and outsider perspectives -subjective and objective views.

Swami Sivananda said, “Be good, do good” (not necessarily “Look good”). That summed up yoga for him, and very nicely at that. Plus, easier said than done. Some social service can go a long way in getting us over ourselves. Adding additional fitness routines alongside yoga can be useful, but fitness alone should not be the barometer by which we measure our success in yoga. If it is, then we are missing the inner aspects of what a deliberate, focused practice can bring us. Everyone comes to yoga for a different reason, and we have to accept those reasons as being equally valid, whether it is for fitness or as a quest for liberation. Yoga as well has a life span – for some its usefulness persists for decades; others feel that they have done enough after a few months. What we should not do, however, is forget the highly philosophical and time-tested tradition that yoga has come from – by white-washing its power of transformation and purification in the Fashion & Style section.

So, when Robbie Norris, who has been teaching yoga for free in the Richmond City Jail for three and a half years, sent me this letter from Bryan Shull, one of his students serving time, I thought, man, this guy has landed himself in prison, but now he is working on himself, and has tapped into what yoga is truly about. In LA and in NY, we are in a different type of prison – of glamour, of beauty, of overwork, of struggling to succeed. We don’t need to do yoga to help us reach those ephemeral goals, we need it to help us see that they are ephemeral.

There is no exercise allowed inside of the prison, only out in the yard. Bryan has no yoga mat, so he is making do on the bare ground, whatever the weather may be, going through the primary series on his own, the best he can.

Here is Bryan’s envelope:

And here is his letter:

Dear Robbie,

First as usual please let me apologize for having taken so long to write.

This may sound crazy but with work picking up and me having to start spending some time on my reentry stuff, I’ve been busy and my time is pretty much cramped. But that’s a good thing!

For so many reasons, I simply can’t list them all, obviously its [Ashtanga Yoga] put me in a better state of mind. Which in turn has even though I might not get to practice everyday made them [my practice] way more appreciated.

And more deliberate – like if they let me outside I’m doing a full practice, period. Whether it be in the cold or damp, I’m doing it somehow. And enjoying it so very much. After loading pellets and cleaning toilets it’s such a release and feels so good after work.

I have to be a little more patient with myself but I don’t seem to be losing ground surprisingly. Maybe just a touch if I have to take two days in a row like I did last weekend as I had to work Saturday during rec and Sunday I had a visit. But not much and this may sound funny but I enjoy gaining it back. And it’s neat how much respect I’ve earned from people, certain guards will let me out or whatever and try and help. It’s not much spoken but its even from a lot of the inmates, I hear little things and its cool stuff.

Something new is lately people from the [AA] meetings in here working on their step work or guys I go to church with or just folks wanting to chill or stretch out in their own way, will show up at what’s become ‘yoga corner.’

Long story short I’m really enjoying my practice every time I get to. And each one for its own merits. A particularly good one a week or so ago, two big birds were tumbling together way up in the sky. I never stopped but at the end I always walk a couple of laps and this guy we call the bird man asked me if I saw them and I said I did and how cool it was being outside and being a part of nature.

Another cool practice I had not too far back – a younger guy I talk to a lot at meetings came over and sat down a ways away and just sat there awhile. After I was finished he moved around a little and said man I prayed a little, meditated and then took a small nap. I was like, well that’s cool. He said, I’d of said hello to you but figured it would be more of a gesture not to bother you and just peacefully do my own thing. And I said thank you, you didn’t bother me a bit. We made a couple of laps and talked. I’m just thankful I get to practice when I do and for the positive feed back or none at all.

And [thankful] for my health being good enough to continue. But most of all for the all time you’ve shared with me to help me get this far. I feel like I’m rounding a corner in more ways than one.

Thank you and Happy Holidays,

Bryan

Letters to Bryan can be sent to:

Bryan C Shull

1416874

HCC PO – 129

Haynesville VA 22472