An Army of Normal Folks - James Fox: The Dude Who Brought Yoga To Prisons (Pt 1)

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

James is the founder of Prison Yoga Project, which brings trauma-informed yoga to prisoners to help them heal and rehabilitate. And last year 57,000 prisoners attended their programming! This life-changing work is led by their own Army of Normal Folks who are facilitators.Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I say the first five guys who showed up for my first yoga class at San Quentin were the five bravest guys in the prison because they had to walk across the yard and, you know, everybody on the yard saw the yoga man walk in with it, which is what they used to call me when I say, hey, yoga man, what's that under your arm? And maybe a few cat calls and whistles, too. Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney. I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband.

I'm a father. I'm an entrepreneur. And I'm a football coach in inner city Memphis. And that last part somehow, well, it led to an Oscar for a film about one of my teams. It's called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems are never going to be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits talking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. Guys, that's us. Just you and me deciding, hey, maybe I can help. That's what

James Fox, the voice you just heard, has done. James is the founder of Prison Yoga Project, which brings trauma-informed yoga to prisoners to help them heal, and most importantly, actually rehabilitate. And last year, 57,000 prisoners attended their programming, which is led by their own army of normal folks who are facilitators. I cannot wait for you to meet James

right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. Being a parent is basically a juggling act, dinner, hockey practice, homework, a last-minute science project, and someone's always, always shouting for you from another room. So yeah, I'll take any shortcuts that actually works. And that's why I'm all in on Hello Fresh. Fresh ingredients, super easy recipes, and over 80 options every week so everyone eats. No one complains, and I get to feel like I've got it all together, at least for dinner. And the best part, your entire. total control. Skip a week. Pause any time. Pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. They even have 15-minute recipes. Perfect for those nights when everyone's hungry and patience is officially off the menu. And with so many options, even my pickiest eater found something they loved, which means no more backup mac and cheese. Try HelloFresh today and get 50%

off the first box with free shipping. Go to Hellofresh.ca and use promo code Rescue 50. That's Hellofresh.ca promo code Rescue 50. Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? I just fell and started screaming. If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way. I said through shot 22 times. The police, right? But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help

is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake. He'll hurt you. I got you. I got you. Richardson, and this is The Girlfriends, Untouchable. Detective Roger Golubski spent decades intimidating and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City, using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take

him down. I told Roger Galoopsky, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the Girlfriends Untouchable on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older.

Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman'scutburbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience.

But his brother Larry, he stayed behind. and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do. You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind

and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like, my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. James Fox, welcome to Memphis. Oh, thanks very much, Bill.

I mean, all the way from Belinas, California, where in the world is Belinas? Belinus is about an hour north of San Francisco. You go over the Golden Gate Bridge and you follow Highway 1 along the coast. And first you get to Stinson Beach, which is a beautiful beach, probably the closest beach to San Francisco, outside of San Francisco, that is. And then just a little farther north is the town of Belinas, 1600 people. So everybody, James. Fox, get ready for this, is the founder of the Prison Yoga Project. And I got to admit, when I first just saw your name and your title, I thought about calling Alex and saying, all right, prison

yoga. I mean, what in the world are we getting ourselves into? And then as I found out more about you, I gained a lot of excitement to meet you. And I cannot wait to dive into prison yoga. But first, I think it is germane to your story to briefly just tell us about, even though you're a Bay Area guy now and doing prison yoga in California, you're a Midwest guy by roots. I am. And I think how you grew up in Chicago. especially inner city of Chicago, is germane or sheds a little light on maybe who you are and why you do the work you do now.

So why don't you just give us a little background to you growing up in Chicago so that we have that as a set point for the rest of your story. Yeah. So I grew up privileged, and I grew up in a suburb of Chicago, but right on the edge of the Chicago City Limits. I played a lot of sports growing up, played mom,

mostly baseball and basketball, and so played a lot of teams in the inner city. And also, one of the things that I came to know as soon as I started doing this work with incarcerated people was the common denominators are violence and addiction. When I thought about that, I thought, hmm, okay, well, I've brushed up against both of those. and when you grow up in an urban environment and you're exposed to an urban environment you come in contact with that sort of thing all the time and I became trained as a violence prevention facilitator also

and I ran groups at San Quentin basically violence prevention groups and part of the training of that becoming a facilitator for that was understanding what's called the male role belief system and how you grow up and how you're influenced by the male role belief system, meaning how you think like a man, or at least the influences in your life, how you think like a man, and how you act like a man.

And I think particularly now, in these days, people talk a lot about toxic masculinity, and I think toxic masculinity comes from that male role belief system, such as if you need to get your needs met, if you have to revert to violence, you revert to violence. There's assertiveness, which is saying what it is that you need, and then going past assertiveness is aggressiveness. And I think that a lot of people in the culture can basically relate to that is that particularly men grow up with, hey, if you have to be aggressive, you've got to be aggressive. Certainly if you're ever called out, be a,

playing sports or any other way, you're not going to back down. So I would say having grown up being influenced by some of those things, paid a price with me. And I found that I had poor impulse control. Like many people have poor impulse control. I was a hot head. I was easily triggered. And that brought a certain amount of suffering to myself. and to other people.

And so having been an athlete, and when somebody first started to talk to me, I was a runner, a middle-distance runner when I was living in San Francisco. I used to run through Golden Gate Park down to the beach and back. It was about eight or nine miles. And I developed a problem. I developed some kind of a pinch nerve in my back. And like most runners, you know, you take a week off and you go, yeah, but I got to get back to running.

and I'd run and I would come back. So I had friends saying, you ought to try yoga. Yoga. You've got to be kidding. Yoga. Yoga. Come on. Even the word itself is goofy.

When you've heard yoga, I'm sure everybody does, you know, representations, but I think a yogi bear. I'm like, yogi, yoga. Yeah, you're this dude for the Midwest, somebody out there says you need to try yoga. You've got to be like, yoga's weird. Well, I felt, you know, why would I want to do yoga? I'm an athlete, so on and so forth. So I like to say I had to suffer enough to finally go, all right, all right, I'll go to a yoga class. And I went to a yoga class, and I went, oh, this is very different than what I thought.

And I had already been exposed to meditation before I started practicing yoga. And I pretty quickly got, oh, this is meditation. in motion. So this is combining the athletic part of myself with the introspective part of myself. And the other thing that happened to me as I continued to go to classes, my injury got better, and I was actually able to overcommit. But I found that it was really giving me deeper insight into myself. And then I really dedicated myself. And I started taking retreats. I started going on retreats where you practiced yoga, you know, first thing in the morning, six o'clock in the morning before you had breakfast. And basically the weekend was held in silence

until the final night on Sunday night. And it really gave me an opportunity to drop deeply into myself and have a better understanding of myself and some of these issues that I was dealing with, interpersonal issues. And so after practicing for about 13 years, I felt, so I can do the physical part of the practice, the greatest benefit I'm getting from this practice is the emotional benefit. And I had this feeling, I think I could work with young men. young men who are athletic, but also young men who are coming from urban environments and dealing with different kinds of issues and introducing them to certain practices, to certain skills, that could really help them.

So that's a great setup. But I think we need to unpack a few things for our listeners before we go any further. one is when those who don't know much about yoga yours truly included here's yoga i think the vast majority of us think about a far eastern practice if we've read anything many assume that it's part of a far eastern religion a hindoo or something like that The second thing is, when people think about yoga, if you haven't seen it in a park or at a studio or on some TV show or movie with a bunch of ladies and workout gear in a park and a bunch of mats stretching, if you don't know much about it, you think of yoga as a 30 to one hour kind of stretching exercise. It's almost what's vogue now, what was once the 80s, what were those people that were those scrunchy things, and they jog, what was that stuff called, jazzercise? What was that stuff called?

Yeah, jazzercise. Jazzercise. And then there was another one that my mom did, I remember. Aerobics? Aerobics. Aerobics. Yeah, it's kind of like yoga's now the new aerobics for these ladies in parks. And what I've learned is both of those two things are really inaccurate misconceptions.

So before we go any further, I would like you to take the time to explain to our listeners that while it is far eastern, I think, in its basis, it really doesn't have any attachment to one particular religion or another. and it is not jaser size. Right. Because it actually has three components and only one is the physical. And I think before we go any further, it would be good for our listeners to understand what in the world yoga really is as we understand how it had a connection with you and then how you saw to employ it in a very different way. And apparently men from Chicago can do it too. What's that? Speaking of stereotypes, apparently a man from Chicago.

can do it too. Yeah, and a big rest of dude from Chicago, you know, you're supposed to be drinking beer and eating brots, not doing yoga. So, but I think it's important to set the stage. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'll begin with, it did originate. Yoga originated in India, but what they have discovered is that, for instance, in Egypt, you know, many, many, many centuries ago,

they were doing a very similar kind of a practice. They didn't call it yoga. They called it what they called it. They did something similar in China also. There are a lot of similarities between like yoga and Tai Chi and Qigong and things like that. However, yoga is a Sanskrit word, and yoga means union. It means union? Union.

Now, see, that's really interesting. I did not know that either. And when you really dive into the origins of yoga and the purpose of yoga, what they're talking about in terms of union is it's the union of the mental, emotional, and physical aspects of ourselves. Of ourselves. Of ourselves. So it's a practice to bring in to balance those three aspects of ourselves,

whichever human being has, a mental, emotional, and a physical aspect of themselves. Most people are out of balance mentally. They're basically living their life from their neck, to the top of their head. And basically, whatever their mind chatter is telling them is what they're following, particularly as it relates to men, not a real clear emotional connection and a physical connection with themselves. So the whole intention of yoga was to bring about that balance or that union.

That's very secular. There's no faith-based component specific to that. Right. And really what's happened particularly, in the 20th century is that yoga has developed many different paths from the origins to now a secular path of yoga therapy. There are distinct practices of yoga that are being used with military veterans. There's something called Yoga Nidra. Nidra is another Sanskrit word that means sleep, where they've had a lot of success in working with combat veterans to deal with PTSD by working

with them at Yoga Nidra. And there's other therapeutic approaches to yoga. And particularly, I would say this is probably more in the last 15 or 20 years, of the understanding of the value of yoga to address symptoms of unresolved trauma. And probably the greatest contributor to that is Dr. Bessel van der Kalk, a psychiatrist who wrote, The Body Keeps the Score. And now a few messages from our generous sponsors. But first, I hope you'll follow us on your favorite social media channels where we share more powerful content, including reels from our video studio and testimonials from Army members.

We're at Army of Normal folks on every channel. Give us a follow. We'll be right back. It's 5.23 p.m. One of your kids is asking for a snack. Another is building a fort out of your clean laundry. And you're staring at a half-empty fridge and thinking, what are we even going to eat tonight?

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But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake. He'll hurt you. I got you, I got you, I got you. I'm Nikki Richardson, and this is The Girlfriends, Untouchable. Detective Roger Gloopsky spent decades intimidating

and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City, using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down. I told Roger Galoopsky, I said you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the girlfriends, untouchable, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product.

with every sip you get a little something different. Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentleman's cuthuburn.com. Please enjoy responsibly.

Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the high, ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience. But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do.

You're going to push that line for the calls. Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew. knew about. Like, my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family, and how two lives can drift

so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again, when we knuckle down to do it. our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more.

So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think what happens when you start to practice yoga is it's almost like, wait a minute, time out here. Time out. That first of all, you're slowing everything down. And it's not just working out. You know, it's like working out is great. You know, you're working out. You're basically working your muscles and bones.

And from a physical standpoint, one of the great values of yoga is you're not just working muscles and bones, but you're working joints and connective tissues and internal organs. From a physical standpoint, from an emotional standpoint, you're learning or you're being able to develop impulse control. You're strengthening impulse control. You're being able to take those moments where you pause before you react, which is one of the big things. Does that have to do with the breathing? Has a lot to do with the breathing. It has a lot to do with the breathing, but the breathing connected with the prefrontal cortex. Because I guarantee my North Mississippi-born Southern grandmother never knew a dagum thing about yoga

and probably never knew the word, but I can always remember her. She always said, if you get really angry before you act, take a deep breath. Yeah, it's a natural yogi, yeah. Yeah, but that's, I mean, that's interesting that that's the idea behind the breathing part of yoga, is it not? And yes, and interestingly enough, this is something that it's not only take a deep breath, but if you really want the value, take a long exhale. Because your exhale is your body's built-in release valve. Not the inhale, right?

When you inhale, you're drawing energy in. When you exhale, you're letting go. And you're actually letting go of toxins in your body, too, when you exhale. All right. And then the third part of yoga is the... It's the meditative part of yoga. The meditative. Now, see, a lot of people will hear that and think,

oh, that's where it gets weird. Explain the meditative. Yeah, I'm glad you ask me that, because I don't use that word when I teach incarcerated people. I don't use that term in prison. I call it centering practice. Why don't you use meditative? Because some people are, for what you said, it was like some people say, oh, now you're going to take me into some kind of a religion.

Or, yeah, or, yeah, I tried that once, and I can't do that. So you call it centering? Centering. And the way that I approach that is. how do you deal with all the emotional storms that come into your life emotional storm that we can't avoid right we emotions come emotions come and the world is a tough place and you're going to be hit with things so how do you stay centered how do you stay grounded when you're hit with these emotional storms what is it

that you do working out is great because you're discharging a lot of that stuff But being able to quiet your mind, being able to learn skills to quiet your mind, so then your mind, here we go back to mental, emotional, and physical. Your mind and your body are connected in a place where you can actually stop and be still for a moment. And what comes as a result of that is some emotional benefit. And it doesn't take a lot. It's not like you don't have to sit down for 40 minutes or half an hour.

meditate, you can learn these different skills where you can do something in three minutes that's going to serve you in terms of this, what's now called self-regulation. How do you self-regulate, right? Self-control, self-regulate. And every human being has an issue with self-regulation and self-control. Again, that kind of went back to my time, you know, growing up in Chicago where I realized, hey, I got a self-control problem. I got a self-control problem. I got a self-control issue. If I'm in my early 20s and I'm still getting into fights because that's what you did growing up in Chicago, I got a self-control issue. So I found that that was something that I could carry over in working with young men initially and then it transitioned into

adult men. With all this understanding and with this practice that you've been doing now 13 years, starting for yourself and as you're evolving, you think kids that are in stressful, tough situations would benefit from this. And then you're like, well, if the data says that 80% or so of the incarcerated people did it because of some substance abuse or trauma issue or combination, what could we actually do for people in the prison population? So I just kind of teed that up for you, take it from that point forward now that we have a real basis behind why you think the way you think and then what has evolved and what you do now. Well, in the beginning, I was working on intuition. You know, my intuition was telling me, I think, I think this might be able to, providing some tools from yoga that people could incorporate into their lives.

and I found out pretty quickly in working with the boys. So I first started out in a residential treatment facility for boys have been court ordered into this program, ages 13 to 18. And yes, they were receiving therapy, and many of them were medicated, but there wasn't anything involving their bodies. And I pretty quickly realized, oh, my intuition is I'm not going to sit down and talk to them about their issues.

I'm going to move with them. I'm going to work. And this was all intuitive. This was before I really understood trauma. And then when I started out working with men at San Quentin, I'm working with men who are a life sentence with the possibility of parole. Probably manslaughter. Yeah.

Murders. Tell people about, for people who don't know, tell them a little bit about San Quentin. San Quentin had California's condemned row until last year when it was disbanded. And it houses, right now it houses about 3,800 men. When I first started going in there, it was 5,500. They were at 130% capacity. And the general population at San Quentin were mostly life sentence with the possibility of parole. So violent offenders, many of whom came from backgrounds were,

whatever they knew about yoga was something they saw in a magazine or television ad or something like that. And probably thought it was stupid. Yes, so I'm often asked, well, who showed up for your first yoga class? I was actually going to ask what dude, what bad dude showed up for his first yoga class, but first I want to just set the stage. Same Quentin is the toughest of the tough, right? I mean? Not so much anymore, but it does have a reputation like that because they're like different security levels within the prison.

but it's not so much anymore. It's actually a very progressive rehabilitative. But it's still the people that are going there are still lifers. I mean, when I say stuff, the people in it are folks who've committed some serious crimes. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And the guys that I've worked with over the 23 years, almost most of the men that I've really worked seriously with because they've got very committed to the practice, lifers. Okay.

So you show them San Quentin. So I go there and I go, I figure, okay, these guys, I'm working with these guys. Well, first of all, I say the first five guys who showed up for my first yoga class at San Quentin were the five bravest guys in the prison. Because they had to walk across the yard and, you know, everybody on the yard saw the yoga man walk in with it, which is what they used to call me when I first. Hey, yoga man, what's that under your arm? And maybe a few cat calls and whistles, too. But everything in prison spreads by word of mouth. And when these five guys left and went back to their homes

and their cell blocks and everything like that and started saying, hey, man, I had the best night's sleep I've had in memory from that yoga class. Or this chronic pain that I've had in my, you know, my right hip that I haven't been able to get rid of, it's actually less after that class. So the words started to spread, not right away, but after a few weeks, five turned into seven,

and then after a few more weeks, seven turned into ten. That was when I taught one class. Today we teach five separate classes a week at San Quentin, and we have waiting lists of up to 100 guys trying to get into the class. so what started out and I basically was feeling okay well these guys they want to they want to work out so I'm going to give them a workout and they're going to discover how really strong they are and I imagine it's like anything when I show up to coach football to a new team that I've never coached I'm not yucking it up and slapping backs because I don't have the relationship it develops over time and it develops with a consistent approach

where the people start to size you up and then remove their barriers and then you can really start having some meaningful relationships. And so I got to imagine at first, they're sizing you up and just thinking of you as the yoga workout guy. Yeah.

Which is not really what you're there for, but you had to spend the consistent time engaged to start to reach the two most beneficial parts of yoga. in my opinion, which are the two that fall behind the fiscal? Yes. I mean, is that right? That's true.

I always saved at least a few minutes at the end of the class to start to introduce the drop into that. We'll be right back. Being a parent is basically a juggling act. Dinner, hockey practice, homework, a last-minute science project, and someone's always, always shouting for you from another room. So, yeah, I'll take any shortcuts that actually works. And that's why I'm all in on Hello Fresh.

Fresh ingredients, super easy recipes, and over 80 options every week so everyone eats. No one complains, and I get to feel like I've got it all together, at least for dinner. And the best part, you're in total control. Skip a week, pause any time, pick what works for you. It's dinner on your turn. They even have 15-minute recipes. Perfect for those nights when everyone's hungry and patience is officially off the menu. And with so many options, even my pickiest eater found something they loved,

which means no more backup mac and cheese. Try HelloFresh today and get 50% off the first box with free shipping. Go to HelloFresh.com.combe rescue 50. That's Hellofresh.ca promo code Rescue 50. Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? I just fail. and started screaming. If you lost someone you loved in the most horrific way.

I said through you y'all 22 times. The police, right? But what if the person you're supposed to go to for help is the one you're the most afraid of? This dude is the devil. He's a snake. He'll hurt you. I'm Nikki Richardson,

and this is The Girlfriends, Untouchable. Detective Roger Goloopsky spent decades intimidating and sexually abusing black women across Kansas City, using his police badge to scare them into silence. This is the story of a detective who seemed above the law until we came together to take him down. I told Roger Galoopsky, I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die.

Listen to the girlfriends, untouchable, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different. Visit Gentleman'scutbuburn.com or your nearest Total Wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky.

For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit Gentleman's Cut Bourbon. Please enjoy responsibly. Dad had the strong belief that the devil was attacking us. Two brothers, one devout household, two radically different paths. Gabe Ortiz became one of the highest-ranking law enforcement officers in Texas. 32 years, total law enforcement experience. But his brother Larry, he stayed behind and built an entirely different legacy. He was the head of this gang, and nobody was going to tell him what to do.

You're going to push that line for the cause. Took us under his wing. and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry is murdered, Gabe is forced to confront the past he tried to leave behind and uncover secrets he never saw coming. My dad had a whole other life that we never knew about. Like, my mom started screaming my dad's name, and I just heard one gunshot. The Brothers Ortiz is a gripping true story about faith, family,

and how two lives can drift so far apart and collide in the most devastating way. Listen to the Brothers Ortiz on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, it's Chuck and Josh from the Stuff You Should Know podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 days of Christmas toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or, you know, yo-yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

One of the most impactful moments was after I've been running this lifers class for a couple of months, several weeks, one of the guys who was a super athlete came in. And before class he came up to me, say, hey, James, you're going to kick our ass tonight? You're going to work us to death? And I went, wait a minute. But he meant that in a positive way. He meant it in a positive way, but it also made me reflect on, am I buying into the typical male thing of,

I'm going to challenge you and see who can really hang in here? And show these lifers how tough I am. And yeah, I know it was part of it like, you know, you guys are, you know, you guys are muscular and everything like that. But are you really strong. I want to take you through a yoga practice where you're really going to find out how strong you really are. And then I realized, you know what? I don't want to do that.

I want to start balancing this out. Because honestly, that fringes on the very toxic masculinity that you're trying to break down. Absolutely. That's interesting. I didn't understand that when I read your prep, but hearing you say it, now I understand what you're saying. Yeah. There's something in it in almost all yoga practices. Hata yoga, Hata meaning physical yoga practices,

where you do sun salutations, which is kind of the calisthenics part of a yoga practice. Right in the middle, there's one part where you're what they call mountain pose where you start, and then after you do one sun salutation, you end up in mountain pose, and then you go again, I would stop and say, wait a minute, wait a minute, let's not rush through this. Let's take a moment. I invite you guys and things are invitational.

You learn invitational rather than barking out orders, right, coach? Yeah, especially to those guys. Yes, yeah. Maybe you want to put a hand on your belly and maybe you want to put one hand over your sternum. And just for a moment, take a few breaths and feel what's going on in your body. Now I'm starting to, okay, there's this physical aspect. There's this, you know, but then there's this other aspect of learning how to back off. And again, intuitively, what I was touching on was impulse control, learning out of back off.

All right, I know you guys can do the sun salutations and, you know, we've been doing them, but can you back off? Well, here's the bigger question. Everybody in this prison knows you can fight. Here's the real question. Can you walk away? Absolutely. Yep. So that was a turning point. And some of that came out in my book that I wrote. But it was when I was introduced to understanding trauma that I realized, once again, I was on the right track. Intuitively, I was on the right track as it applies to trauma healing. And how do you overcome the unresolved symptoms of trauma that you're left with as a result of childhood trauma, which is called developmental trauma, and then all the trauma on top of that, which is called complex trauma. And now, you're in an environment, which is trauma on simmer.

When there's a lack of safety, predictability, and control, when there's a lack of safety, predictability, and control, for anybody who has unresolved symptoms of trauma, the situation is ripe to restimulate those symptoms. We interviewed somebody from Chicago. who started a inner city row team, and he had kids from his high school that had never seen Lake Michigan and grew up on the south side

because they were afraid to cross the blocks. Sure. One of the things he said that I will never forget, this may be one of the more impactful metaphors that I don't think I'll ever forget, is that in their project apartment, they had a fan because air conditioner didn't work real well. Just a room fan should plug in the wall

and one of the blades was out of balance. And so as it spun around, that fourth blade hit the shroud and it clicked. It just click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. As the fan was moving, he said, if you'd never been in our apartment, you walked in, that clicking might drive you absolutely insane. Yep.

But he said, you know, we had that fan for years, and after a while we didn't even notice it anymore. You would have noticed it. We wouldn't. And he said, that's exactly what it was like walking to school every day. Murders, rapes, prostitution, drugs, stepping over people who'd overdosed in the hallway to go down the steps to get to school. And he said it became so commonplace that it was like the click of that fan. We didn't even notice the trauma and dysfunction surrounding us anymore.

Yeah. And he said, I just got to ask you, do you think is a 40%? gradeer, I gave two. It's what 50 divided by two was when I was just trying to get back and forth to school and home again without being one of those victims. And he said, and the click of that fan is what layers and layers and layers of trauma and dysfunction feels like onto a five-year-old that ends up a 14-year-old that doesn't even notice the dysfunction anymore because it's so commonplace, like to click on a fan. Is that not amazingly?

Absolutely. Okay, well, those are the people that end up saying quitting. That's right. There's a lifer that I worked with for many years who was in Cabrini Green's projects in Chicago and used to tell me stories about growing up at Cabrini Green. Told a story about, you know, when he was really young, people were going to kidnap him. As a, like a four-year-old kid, had to run away from people who were trying to kidnap him. I look at it from the standpoint bill of, you know, you could look at society,

and I look at it in terms of look at society as a funnel. And at the top of the funnel, where everything comes in, you've got all these inequalities, all these inequities in American society that are bouncing back and forth, bouncing back and forth, bouncing back and forth. And then there's the funnel part of it, and at the very bottom of the funnel, it's the prison population in this country. people who basically couldn't manage. They couldn't assimilate into a law-abiding American society.

And they had to revert from survival to revert to criminality. Now, even the guys who truly understand this, who get to the point of truly understanding this, will not make excuses for the crimes that they caused, which is, by the way, a really important part of restorative justice, taking personal responsibility for the harm that you cost. That's the beginning of a healing for somebody. That's a major part of actual rehabilitation.

Because most people who committed violent crimes go into prison in denial of the harm that they've cost. That's a whole other road we could go down. Well, but the interesting part is, if yoga, the two steps below yoga from the physical, teaches you to palm yourself and then think about who you are as a person and really not meditate but gets centered, that feels like that's a step toward restoration. Personal accountability. Yeah, personal responsibility.

So this was your inclination, but you hadn't proven it yet. And you're working on it, right? At this point. Yes. Yeah. So take us more. So I just continued on and then really going to school on understanding trauma and being trained by Dr. Vandercoq and his people. Bessel van der Koke is the psychiatrist who wrote The Body Keeps the score. Right. And he has the trauma research center in Boston. And he's trained.

That's the part. That's it. I don't know that people know that that author actually has a trauma research. Trauma research foundation. He and his wife, Leisha. and we're a therapeutic alliance partner, if there's now Prison Yoga Project, and we're asked to present at their annual conference,

which is every May in Boston. But that was when we really went to school on trauma and really got trained on trauma, and it really supported my intuitive approach, but took it much deeper, so that we were able to apply different kinds of movement practices, different kinds of breathing practices, being more informed about how we language to class,

how important it is to use invitational language. Everybody who's incarcerated is told what to do 24-7, from the time they get up until the time they go to sleep. It's like, do this, do that, do this, do that, do this, do that. Nobody ever said, if you're ready, or if it feels right, to you. So one of the things that we're doing, and this is also trauma-related, is we're establishing agency for them. You have a choice here. I'm leading you through a practice. It's not military commanding. You've got to do this. You've got to do that. I'm providing you with an opportunity

to do this. In that, you develop trust, right? Because I'm not kicking anybody's... No. I'm basically taking them along. I'm bringing them along in a way where they feel safe in an environment where it's very rare to feel safe. And I'm establishing a relationship of trust. And that concludes part one of our conversation with James Fox. Guys, you don't want to miss part two. It's now available to listen to.

Together, guys, we can change this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in part two. Who would you call if the unthinkable happened? My sister was y'all 22 times. A police officer, right? But what do you do when the monster is the man in blue? This dude is the devil. He'll hurt you.

This is the story of a detective who thought he was above the law until we came together to take him down. I said, you're going to see my face till the day that you die. Listen to the girlfriends, untouchable, on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Stefan Curry, and this is Gentleman's Cut. I think what makes Gentleman's Cut different is me being a part of developing the profile of this beautiful finished product. With every sip, you get a little something different.

Visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com or your nearest total wines or Bevmo. This message is intended for audiences 21 and older. Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, Boone County, Kentucky. For more on Gentleman's Cut Bourbon, please visit gentlemen's cut bourbon.com. Please enjoy responsibly. I know he has a reputation, but it's going to catch up to him. Gabe Ortiz is a cop. His brother Larry, a mystery Gabe didn't want to solve until it was too late.

He was the head of this gang. You're going to push that line for the cause? Took us under his wing and showed us the game, as they call it. When Larry's killed, Gabe must untangle the dangerous past, one that could destroy everything he thought he knew. Listen to the brothers Ortiz on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody.

It's Chuck and Josh from the stuff. You Should Know Podcast, and it's that time of year again when we knuckle down to do our annual holiday episodes. We collected our best past classic holiday episodes and compiled them into a 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist that the whole family can enjoy. That's right. Maybe you missed it the first time we detailed the history of Beanie Babies, Monopoly, or Yo-Yo's, and a whole lot more. So listen to the 12 Days of Christmas Toys playlist on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc, and send me the link. Thanks.

Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one-page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age. Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the IHeart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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