I have long flirted with the idea of attending a Yoga class. I have heard that once you approach your 30s you should stop lifting weights as often, and concentrate instead on maintaining your flexibility and cardiovascular health. Plus, everyone says that Yoga is supposed to be relaxing. Well…not everyone. Norwegian prison officials have another take. The BBC reported earlier this week:
A prison in Norway has stopped holding yoga classes after it found that instead of calming inmates, they were actually making some more aggressive.
High-security Ringerike jail near Oslo offered the classes to eight inmates on a trial basis earlier this year.
Prison warden Sigbjoern Hagen said some of the inmates became more irritable and agitated and had trouble sleeping.
He said the prison did not have the resources to treat emotions unleashed by the deep breathing exercises.
Yeah, I don’t know. Call me a prude but I am not sure it is wise to practice something like a Dog Pose, Spread Leg Forward Fold, or a Bridge Pose in a prison anyways. I would definitely not want to be on the receiving end of “emotions unleashed.” I kid, I kid. 
A sample of eight prisoners is pretty unscientific to say the least. Maybe they just had an incredibly annoying instructor. I have long believed that both Andy Dufresne and the Count of Monte Cristo probably had to perform Yoga in order to remain sane and escape. Determination to both stay sane and escape will more than likely be my ultimate motivation for dropping in on a Yoga class as well.
A cousin of Yoga which I’ve tried my hand (leg) at, Mallakhamb, may prove quite useful in prison.
How to escape…
Ha! I just came home from my yoga class to read this. Where was this prison? I bet they had my obnoxious instructor. She could unleash the inner bitch in anyone.
I just started going to yoga class, copupled with a detox program/massages, for a month. Well will give you an update.
Hi from Norway. It is amazing how this article has spread out! If the correct facts had been written, nobody would probably paid any attention to it…
Anyway, the course in this prison was completed by 7 of 8 participants, all 7 very happy about the course. Some of them were interviewed on national TV, and this was sent on the news Saturday May 21, right after the course. How I know this? The conductors of the course are friends of mine, – and I saw the interviews on TV.
Why this prison warden is giving inncorrect information, we can only wonder – I most certenly do!
Marita
I am doing research on yoga in prisons and addiction recovery so I was interested in this article that appeared in most world news papers. I was interested in Marita’s comments. Does anyone know the yoga group who conducted the course? What was actually provided and what the real results were?
i have been practising yoga regularly for a few months. while yoga is sometimes calming and relaxing, it also brings you more in tune with what is going on inside your body and sould… sometimes bringing up emotions that have been surpressed. some poses are very vulnerable, such as the camel, and there have been some practices (for example when i am experiencing PMS) where i come out of the camel and feel like crying. this is normal – because you get deep into yourself and get in touch with things that most of us try and shut off.
while i don’t believe that yoga ‘made the inmates more agressive,’ chances are if they had feelings of agression inside themselves already (very likely – it IS prison), the yoga simply magnified these feelings or brought them to the surface.
another thing that yoga is very good at doing is releasing toxins from the body, and if someone has many toxins to release (for example, drug users, smokers, drinkers), this process will be more intense until they work through everything that is inside them. in yoga most toxins are sweated out through the skin, and the liver is massaged to stimulate removal as well.
There are reports of people getting worse with yoga because they cannot manage their demons. As my Guru said: “dont destroy what you cannot heal” or ” if you cannot do any good, at least dont do evil (the translations seems bad!)”. Any feedback and info on the subject welcome.