Back in the Ring  – Strength, clarity and transformation through helping others  

Feature length documentary and project empowering people struggling with drug addictions to get their life back through the practice of yoga. It features fifteen people who are struggling with heroin addiction trying transform their lives, building a community and working together as they journey to India to build shelters for the homeless and inquiry deeper into the meaning of yoga. After India they will return to their native place and re-integrate back into society with a willingness to take a constructive part of it rather than standing on the outside. 

This project attempts to highlight the many challenges people struggling with drug addictions face when they want to come back to a drug-free life. The main characters of the film are people who have struggled with drug addiction for several years and are keen to clean up their act and live a sober life. Many of them have tried numerous times before, but failed due to various factors. Our main characters will share their genuine experiences of living the life of an addict and attempt to articulate the missing factors that could turn the negative trend of relapse. 

Our primary aim is to provide opportunities for our participants to feel appreciated and challenged. For the first two months, the participants are committing to a rigorous Ashtanga Yoga practice where they meet five times a week and practice together for a few hours a day.  A daily meal is served and basic introduction to Yoga Philosophy is also given. Our purpose is to build a community where our characters learn to do things together and work as a team. Every weekend we will travel to different places in Norway and go on hikes, climb mountains, work on farms, sleep out in the open, in tents and cabins and sail, swim and dive in the ocean. 

At present we are already six weeks into the project and for the last fifty days more than twenty people suffering from drug addiction have been coming to do regular yoga classes at our studio www.puroyoga.no in Oslo. We have now selected twelve of the most dedicated students, who can all work well in a group, to travel with us to India. Here they will continue to deepen their yoga practice for 3-4 hours a day, but in addition to this, they will also work 6 hours a day in building some shelters for the homeless and help out with different challenges in order to help poor children, the outcasts and the underprivileged. 

While in India, the participants will live in the yoga- school of Vijaya Kumar www.yogagurukula.in, which is located ten minutes away from Kundapur, in Karnataka State. Vijaya Kumar is an advisor to Field Services and Inter cultural learning (FSL) www.fsl-india.org, one of India’s most prominent NGO´s. They specialize in education for the poor in India and to provide opportunities for social development. 

The main task of the Norwegian characters is to collaborate with Vijaya Kumar and help him in his many activities in providing better livelihoods for the outcasts and underprivileged children living on the fringes of society. The area around Kundapur is one of the poorest in southern India and the need for help is urgent. 

After the homecoming to Norway we will travel to Romsdalen, one of the most spectacular places in Norway and stay for ten days. Here the participants will reflect upon predictions and possibilities for the future and challenges they are bound to meet on the way back to a normal life. After this, the daily yoga practice will continue at Puro Yoga for a month and we will then follow the main characters endeavours in re-integrating back into society. Here our primary focus and investigation is to examine the results and particular effects of the last four months dedicated yoga practice, journey to India and different work responsibilities the participants have gone through. 

For further details regarding our proposed plan of action topics included in the film, please see the sections below: 

Part 1: Introduction of the participants and their situation

T

he film starts with brief clips from a boxing gym. Here we can see close ups of our main characters sparring and hammering away at a boxing bag. Sweat is steaming from their bodies and we get the idea that this requires a lot of effort. Then we see some people bungee jumping and falling off a high bridge with a scream. Then it shifts into a quiet meditative mode, where our main characters are practicing yoga with voice-overs explaining their background and situation. Eventually we see some of the characters that went bungee jumping being pulled up again in a string and how they laugh and feel awe-smacked from the experience. 

Then scenes of the growing drug –community in Oslo is shown, where people are hanging out at different locations, struggling to stand upright. We then give a short description and overview of the drug related problems in Oslo, Norway, the city with the highest lethality-rate of drug overdoses per capita in the western world. During the last ten years – in a city of only 500, 000 people – more than 3500 inhabitants have died from a Heroine overdose, and although statistics now finally are improving, the root of addictive behaviors are still as prevalent as ever. 

Our main characters in the film have all been drug addicts for several years, and most of them are receiving “treatment” with medical support like Methadone, Subutex or Subuxone. All of our participants have been recruited from various places in Oslo and they all have a strong desire to become completely drug-free, and eventually get off all prescribed medical drugs. 

Within this section, we will also be introduced to the living situation of many our participants and how they struggles with the boredom of a lonely life, with little activities to engage in, compared to the race they used to live while driven by various addictions. We meet some of these characters, which attempt to live a clean life, but are still living in council flats crowded with active drug users. Some of our characters will narrate their personal stories and give us an insight into the complexity of the problems they are facing with their future outlook, dreams and worries. 

Part 2: Personal motivation and establishing the group

Here we will show scenes from some of our weekend activities. During these two months, prior to our India departure, various activities will be done in order to build a good team that can work together and solve problems as a unit. As mentioned in the introduction, we have done various activities every weekend like hiking, camping, climbing, sailing with work-related task that has improved the skills as well as the team spirit. 

During this period our participants have also practiced yoga regularly two hours a day, five days a week and we have selected the most dedicated who show strong disciplinary skills, a willingness to learn and commitment for working together as a team. Unfortunately, many long time drug-users are suffering from a lack of empathy due to imbalanced lifestyles fuelled by addiction so the challenges many people are facing are humongous.  

Here we have also prepared some of the participants for the concrete assignments that are waiting in India. 

Part 3: A journey to Kundapur, India, to build self-respect through helping others

When the group arrives in India they will be met by Vijaya Kumar, in his home Pandeswar (close to Kundapur) and accommodated in his Yoga School http://www.yogagurukula.in  

During their four weeks stay, our main characters will be undergoing a rigorous discipline, where they will engage in physical yoga practices 3 hours a day and various Karma Yoga activities 6 hours a day. Their major work assignment is to construct some shelters for the poor and outcasts in the area. All of this will happen under the supervision of local contractors and engineers. The FSL team will administer other assignments in the evening and our main characters are expected to offer a helping hand with the tent schools, like teaching basic English to the children, cooking, cleaning and providing sports activities for the kids. 

In addition to the various assignments, the participants will also be given the opportunity to contribute with their genuine talents and skills. 

The need for help, aid and support in some of the rural villages in India is urgent. Many of the underprivileged are extremely poor and with only limited access to education.  Often they are forced to work at an early age in order to contribute to the income of the family. Among the 60 % of the population in India that lives in villages, 50 % of them are illiterate. Life expectancy in many places is below 50 years. Many of the children who attend the tent-schools in the area around Kundapur, would normally be forced to beg by their parents or lured into induced child labor. Unfortunately, many children in the area are also victims of trafficking, a widespread problem in India, normally neglected in India. 

Helping to improve the lives of these people will provide them with hopes and allow them to dream of improving their life-situation for the future. As some of the basic requirements of these people are met, with improved shelters and education, they are given new opportunities to climb up in society and raise themselves above the many stigmas they’ve been suffering. 

Our main characters from Norway will be given many responsibilities and challenges. How they find solutions, how they can work as a team and how they come to realize the numerous ways they can help and contribute will be the main focus of this section. This is what drives this documentary forward and together with our characters challenges of disciplining themselves through yoga and an enforced six hour work schedule, there will be plenty of tension, friction and release to depict their journey of transformation, and how they gain numerous insight through learning to help others. 

After a completion of the four weeks, we will have a celebration party in the new shelters that has been built. Here all people that we have come into contact with will be invited and that will happen on the last day prior to our departure back to Norway. 

Part 4: The return to Norway. Hiking in the mountains while reflecting on the future

After their arrival back to Norway, the group will debrief together in two cabins up in the mountains of Romsdalen in Norway. Here the participants will first go through a detox and fasting period for four days in order to experience an internal cleanse, improve the internal harmony of the organs and experience a greater purity of being. Within this process there will also be a highlighted focus on the internal patterns that drives an individual into addictive behaviours and a further investigation of the root causes of this.  

Once the fasting cure is over, we will embark upon a journey into the mountains of Norway. Here, with a stunning picturesque background, the participants will contemplate the journey ahead and attempt to articulate to themselves and others, what exactly is required to make it back into the circle of life, with social responsibilities and embracing constructive patterns.  

On the path down from the mountains, we will once again show scenes from the drug scenes in Oslo and let the participants reflect upon and articulate what they believe is needed in order to gain greater success with rehabilitation.

Part 5: The road ahead

During the stay in the mountains, the participants will have made plans for the exact measures necessary in their lives to ensure the positive development they are seeking. Two weeks after this period, we will go and visit each participant in their respective homes in Oslo and inquire into their present situation and examine how the rehabilitation plan is working. In conclusion, we hope to illustrate some of the challenges and joys people go through in order to master the simple things in life. We also want to investigate how, and in what ways our participants can contribute to society as a whole and take a more genuine active part in it. 

All of the above we believe it is possible to achieve with an increased level of awareness. As the level of responsibility in each of our participants grow in a playful manner, we firmly believe it is possible they can improve their own situation, their social awareness and their compassion towards others. 

The Team

R. Alexander Medin.

R. Alexander Medin has taught yoga for fifteen years and has a versatile background within sports, arts and culture. He’s educated at the Ballet academy in Sweden (1990) and has an MA in Sanskrit and Indian Religions (SOAS, London 2004). He was certified by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois in 2002 and has continued his higher studies of Sanskrit at the Sanskrit College in Mysore, India. 

He has taught yoga all over the world, helped to set up successful yoga centers in Europe and Asia and published numerous articles on yoga in leading yoga magazines. 

Since 2009 he’s a resident of his native Norway and is co-founder of Puro Yoga in Oslo. In Norway he has helped to integrate yoga in many of the prisons and is the founder of www.gangsteryoga.no and “Yoga for Life”, a non-profit organization bringing yoga to the underprivileged and those that struggle to find integration and a meaning in life.  Alexander has made four documentary films, “Yoga for Gangsters” (2011), Mysore Magic” (2012), “The Healers” (2012) and “Kumbhamela” (to be released 2014).

Vijaya Kumar

Vijaya holds a PhD. from Mysore University in Yoga therapy. He also has a traditional Vidvan degree from the Sanskrit College in Mysore in Tarka (logic) and Vedanta. Five years ago he started a traditional Gurukulam in his own village offering classes in Sanskrit and Yoga www.yogagurukula.in His place is now visited by people from all over the world. Apart from being a traditional Sanskrit scholar and Yoga teacher, Vijaya is also a keen social activist who continually works for the improvement of the underprivileged in society.

Carlos Fernandez de Castro 

Carlos is a film editor and photographer currently working on Back in the Ring. Himself a yoga student devoted to traditional ashtanga yoga as learned from his guru Sharath Jois in Mysore, India, believes profoundly on yoga's ability to transform lives. He worked on the editing of Pujya Swamiji's 60th Birthday film "A Divine Life" in Rishikesh India and has done freelance work in Brazil and Argentina. Carlos continuously reflects on his travel experiences, yoga and art on his website www.mandalashala.com 

 

Gine N. Farnell

Gina has a law degree from the University of Oslo and has worked as a lawyer for 8 years. She started practicing yoga during her university years, but the last three years yoga has become a daily practice and a life transforming tool. She is now a certified pilates and yoga teacher and has a background from Norway´s sports college, Pilates Room and Puro Yoga’s teacher training course. She is a member of the board of the “Yoga for life” foundation and teaches yoga in Oslo, in Ila prison and other institutions helping people in a difficult stage of life.

Magnus Roervik

Magnus is a freelance film-maker from Oslo, and works on Back in the Ring as a photographer and editor. He holds a degree of independent film-making from Australia, and has since worked in film & TV in Canada and Norway. To better grasp the concept of yoga, he has also committed to a consistent practice at Puro Yoga and vouches for it positive, transformative effects on the mind and body.

Rosalinda A Di Stefano

Rosalinda got her Bachelor of nursing degree in 2009, at the University of Stavanger. She is currently working as a nurse in Stavanger but during her last semester, and as a graduate, she was working in the Safe Injection Site for heroin addicts in Oslo. Her first introduction to yoga was as a physical practice, through her many years as a fitness instructor in ELIXIA. The recent years though, as the physical practice has become more and more stable, she has become increasingly interested in yoga as a way of life. Rosalinda just started her one year teacher training at Puro Yoga.