If you are deeply connected with yourself, with your energy, staying awake to yourself in the moment, other prisoners tend to leave you alone.

Sensitivity is equated with weakness. Feelings are for women. It's OK to express happiness or anger, but it's not OK to feel fear or sadness. This gets exaggerated in prison.

When you're on the yard, prisoner politics dictate that you only socialize with your own race. If you fraternize with other races, you can get taught a painful lesson. And there are inmates with a level of consciousness who feel it's their duty to enforce this segregation.

The code that most prisoners live by is an extension of the masculine roles they were taught growing up, how they were conditioned about what it means to be a man: you've got to be strong, you've got to be tough, you've got to be in charge.

When I teach a new group of students, I introduce some yoga philosophy, but I don't overload them with information. Just enough so they understand the real tradition behind this ancient practice and that it's not a stretching class. Guys come in and they're a little nervous. I tell them that when they cross the threshold of the door, they're crossing to a different dimension. They're moving from an externally-oriented reality to an internally-oriented one.

If you are deeply connected with yourself, with your energy, staying awake to yourself in the moment, other prisoners tend to leave you alone.

You will surely smile with me when I say, 'Thank God one can still recognise self-pity as such and not give it any greater dignity than just that.