at the Corbas prison, yoga to “escape”

“A moment of humanity”. This was what the director of the Fresnes prison (Val-de-Marne) wanted to offer to prisoners with the “Kohlanness” competition at the end of July. If the images provoked indignation, other sports activities are punctually set up in penitentiary establishments. Since the creation of the project entitled “Sport Prison” in 2012, awareness cycles have taken place in several establishments in partnership with the Regional Olympic Committees. This is the case at the Corbas remand center (Rhône), where a yoga instructor went for two months. Franceinfo:sport was able to attend a session in mid-May.

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The initiation takes place in a standard gymnasium: a rubber floor streaked with lines to delimit the fields, two handball cages, collective changing rooms. From the inside, it looks like a classic gym. Except that to get there, you have to go through a multitude of security gates and cross a narrow corridor, surrounded by barbed wire. A room “outlet” for many defendants, breathes Olivier *, supervisor and sports instructor of the penitentiary establishment. On this very hot spring afternoon, no ball or chasuble came out. For two months, every Wednesday, a dozen defendants and detainees for short sentences take part in a yoga session with Christelle Roybin, an instructor from Villeurbanne.

The excitement is palpable, the smiles are there. The installation of the mats to form two lines gives place to a small time of exchange. The participants of the workshop are curious, questions arise about the effects of yoga, but also their bodies: “Yoga is like sophrology, isn’t it?”, “What exactly do we work on during exercises?”.

“With the girls here, we talk a lot about anatomy: from the functioning of the digestive tract to the perineum, the whole body goes through it. It helps them focus on their yoga practice and get to know each other better. Everything is linked in the human body”explains Christelle Roybin. “Last time I learned what organ descent was, so now I’m careful”slips Yasmine, the youngest of the group, who seems barely out of adolescence.

This weekly workshop is organized thanks to a partnership launched in 2012 between the inter-regional directorate of penitentiary services (DISP) and the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes branch of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF). While all penitentiary establishments in France are supposed to have an offer of physical and sporting practices, the regional branches of the Committee introduce prisoners to additional activities, with specialized speakers from outside.

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In all, nearly a hundred disciplines have already been offered in France for ten years. Among them, several raising awareness of new practices such as fencing, climbing or even baseball, “things you wouldn’t imagine in a prison environment”, emphasizes Justin Huste, project manager at the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes branch of the CNOSF. These activities are subsidized by the DISP and through external sponsors within ten establishments per year and allow nearly 200 prisoners in the region to treat themselves to a parenthesis. And sports federations to swell their ranks. “They find new practitioners. This is particularly the case among minors, who tend to take a license for the activity they have tested in prison”says Justin Huste.

At the Corbas remand center, yoga has gained followers. So much so that Christelle Roybin has planned to print cards so that the most assiduous participants try to succeed alone and outside the sessions in the Sirsasana posture, the one on the head. “They are real yogis!“, describes the instructor, regularly impressed by the abilities of her students. “You all have your knees on the ground, it’s superb, and super rare!she enthuses as her students perform the Jathara Parivartanasana posture, known as the “twisting belly”. “You are very flexible”, she continues.

A flexible audience but “not ordinary”however, underlines the teacher, who began her first workshops in prison this year.“It’s not like a classic course that I can do the rest of the week. They are a little more dissipated, sometimes you have to discipline. But they are very determined and diligentsays the Rhodanienne. At the end of the session, I am often their doctor. Some tell me ‘Christelle, my back hurts, it hurts there, what can I do to make it better?’.”

Standing, sitting, lying down: for nearly two hours, the eight participants of the day follow the postures. The last quarter of an hour of the session arrives, a moment dedicated to relaxation. The volume of the instructor’s voice drops, only the chirping of birds outside breaks the silence.

In their heads, the inmates are miles away from the gymnasium at the arrest center. “We forget that we are there during the session”, summarizes one of them. This calm is also what they come for. “It changes us and it does us good, because here, it’s really very noisy all the time, confides Aurélie* at the end of the session. For the past few weeks, I have had to sleep with earplugs, otherwise I can’t sleep because of the noise.. But it’s true that on Wednesday evenings, we have a better night.”

“During the session, we are in our bubble”

Clarisse, participant of the yoga workshop

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A general serenity takes hold of the defendants, as confirmed by Yasmine, the youngest: “The first time I took part in the workshop, I was very surprised to come out relaxed, when I tend to run on fuel, right Olivier?” Beside her, Clarisse* adds: “During the session, we evacuate stress, tensions. We’re in our bubble, it feels good. And we rediscover our bodies, we learn things we didn’t know about ourselves.”

Tightening her red bandana, Vanessa*, who was attending her second session, was won over: “You know, in the middle of detention, we need to escape. This is exactly what the session with Christelle brings us.” “She just summed up yoga in one sentence, smiled the instructor. It’s a mental liberation, we use the science of breathing to detach ourselves from external pollution.”

Once the last stretches are done and the mats are put away, the hubbub of the beginning of the session returns. As the yoga program comes to an end at Corbas, the group would like to repeat the experience. “It would be a shame to stop, for once we are all really excited”, argue some participants. While waiting to perform the postures again on the mats on the gray-green floor of the gymnasium, there is no doubt that the new yogis will continue to train on their side. To escape, from time to time, by thought.

*Names have been changed.