" Prisons are like a network, but inside it there are people who emerge,

like the lotus flower. There are people who have the preparation to go

forward after the blows of life, to overcome the stones found along the way "

Master Fredy

Mexico City - Fredy Alan Díaz Arista is one of the masters of the Parinaama Yoga Foundation, which since 2003 has been practicing yoga in Mexican, Argentine and Venezuelan prisons.

I met him for the first time in May 2015, on the occasion of an event dedicated to yoga in the La Arbolada public garden, delegation Benito Juárez in Mexico City. During the lesson, I know his peculiar way of teaching yoga and motivating students through the use of sharp metaphors, derived from the prison experience.

Former prisoner of the penitentiary of Atlacholoaya (Morelos), he knows what fire is just like someone who burned himself. At the age of 26 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison and it was precisely there that Fredy embarked on a path that, through yoga, led him not only to go out 3 and a half years before the end of the sentence, but also to transform his life, from drug addict in prison to yoga teacher and leader of hundreds of young people.

In fact, Fredy has been transmitting his love for yoga to the recluses in the Comunidad de Diagnóstico Integral para Adolescentes (CDIA) in Mexico City and other prisons in the country with passion and charisma for several years.

Doing yoga with Fredy is synonymous with freedom and hope. Freedom from internal and external chains, drugs and abuses of power . Hope in oneself, in the neighbor, in the community. Hope in the human being.

Fredy is an example to follow, so we met and interviewed him for you.

When did you start doing yoga, how did you realize that you could change your life?

For me yoga was like a woman. It attracts you, you realize that there is always something new and, without realizing it, it changes you. Improve your appearance, start to be interested in other things.

Maybe you don't perceive the change because it is gradual, but the people around you are benefited or damaged by your actions.

In my case, I became a leader of 350 inmates by doing yoga. They gave me this leadership to have the ability to make people smile, not to make money or sell drugs.

You simply have a normal life, but there are people who put their trust in you and make you their voice. It is very nice because you realize that there is a freedom that you must not flaunt with words .

What are the difficulties of doing yoga classes with boys who are in conflict with the law?

I usually have no difficulty because only those who have been burned know what fire is, so with them I create a kind of empathy .

It is intuition that leads me to know what kind of substance a person consumes, like psychologists who can already understand what the boy has through a movement, what to tell him and what not. There are minefields, things that harass you. This intuition wakes up gradually and through new techniques you can open up and involve them more.

I am open to everything, to include jokes, dance, body expression in my lessons. I have no problem with these people.

I have problems with the system that keeps them there, because when you go to share they ask you many requirements and sometimes they do a really extreme revision.

I want to tell him: " Wait! I don't come to find a family member, I come to make something positive and voluntary ”. And that's where authority is lost, because what I'm carrying is palpable and precious, it's something I need. My message is: " Laugh, play, make love. Don't you have anyone to do it with? Then meditate, meditate, meditate . "

I do not profess the idea "Do yoga and you will be happy". You can brighten up by driving, sweeping, reading a book, working. You can illuminate yourself like this, because this is freedom. I try to give young people freedom .

In the yoga interview with photographer Robert Sturman, read about his experience in prisons

I imagine that there is a contrast between daily life in the penitentiary and the moment of yoga class. Is that so?

In freedom there are sectors: lawyers with lawyers, psychologists with psychologists. While yoga is like the cellar [ nda . traditional Mexican bar]. In the cellar go the policemen, the graduate, the lady. Yoga is this meeting point where extravagant mentalities, murderers, people who have lost big, with serious sentences meet.

However, when one enters the moment of yoga, everyone cultivates his own spirituality, creates a force, strengthens a friendship, a community.

Your way of doing and teaching yoga as a metaphor for life is very original. Can you tell us about it?

I do yoga because for me it is freedom and I want to be free because it allows me to be creative and authentic . It is a true freedom. This is why I continue this search for originality.

I am aware of classical yoga, but also of contemporary yoga. Yoga works in cities because they are the places where there is more stress and greater dependence on services, comforts and "pieces of paper" that define who you are. This is why my lessons are classical yoga so as not to forget the roots, but they are also contemporary yoga for the present times.

For example, I was imprisoned, but a large part of society is imprisoned, even more so with the type of system that the rulers have created, it is easy for a family member to go to jail despite being innocent. My reality is that I come from prison and if someone doesn't like it, the problem is not mine. I try to be true in my freedom.

You say that a large part of society is imprisoned. Can people who do not have freedom be the ones who find themselves locked in a form of life or thought?

They sell us trash through the media. They sell us that we must have the best car, use branded clothes, be the boss, impose rules on the people of the family. These are also prisons because they shouldn't be like this. The internal and external prisons are on top of the skin.

The people I see on the street who have a wrinkled brow have a prison there: a stress, a problem, a concern. As one who has a lump in his throat, he cannot express himself. Like the gay son who does not want to tell his father, who does a course of studies to please his mother and father, or the younger daughter who stays with his parents and has never had a partner. And when do parents leave where is his life? These are prisons.

In the prisons of walls and barbed wire there is an impotence because you have no say in the matter, like at home when you are a minor. Is similar.

However in the same prison you can express yourself bodily, people do theater and are already free in an artistic, conscious and intelligent way. I have many inmate friends who have written scripts and books and only when they try to give them a prize do they learn that they are in prison.

Has the prison yoga project received government funding?

No. The project has existed for 13 years in Morelos, but it's people like you who say, "I'm not a teacher, but I want to help you with a thousand pesos". They serve because there are no mats and other things you need. But nothing from the government.

In yoga there are mantras to heal and nurture people, but in the government and in the penitentiary system there is a mantra that says: "I am not there". There is no money for some fruit for the master, there is no money for the mats. It is a debated issue because prisons are places where a lot of money is generated ...

What is the message you want to convey to the readers?

That every state, every country, every society must make itself responsible for its own prisoners, because if this happened we would find ourselves one step away from freedom. Creating more prisons is not the solution. The solution is to create alternatives, options. Create a real reintegration not only through typical means, but by opening new expectations . One of these is yoga, then there are the theater and many more.

Whenever I can, I take the opportunity to say it because now you only see me, but behind me there is a battalion of masters, friends and people who, with or without help, are already doing it. And there is nothing better than others to know. There are many good foundations, but they don't know each other. Instead if they are combined their effect is faster and more effective.

So my message is: Volunteers, teachers or practitioners of yoga, if you want to share your time, your lesson, you are welcome to the Parinaama Yoga project .

To learn more about the story of Fredy and his companions, watch the documentary "Interno", made in 2010 by Andrea Borbolla .