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Bhakti Mathur

While imprisoned in Bali, Indonesia, for a year, Lyn Savage managed to step out of the shadows of despair and realise her life calling – as a yoga teacher.
She had visited the tourist hotspot to learn new skills to enable her to leave a career in TV production to work in health and wellness.
Singapore-born Savage has suffered from anxiety and mild depression since her late teens. She moved to Hong Kong in 2006 to produce commercials and documentaries.
During an intensely stressful period at work in 2012, she suffered an anxiety attack and her father rushed her to hospital, where she was placed in a psychiatric ward for two months, “pumped with antidepressants, and hated it”, says the now 52-year-old.

After that experience, she was determined to take charge of her mental health and dreamed of starting a holistic wellness business.
She took time off work in 2017 to study massage therapy in Bali. The decision proved to be life-changing, but not in the ways she expected.
Since her early twenties, to help calm her anxiety Savage had occasionally smoked marijuana. While it is commonly used and decriminalised in countries including Thailand, Canada and many parts of the United States, it is illegal in Hong Kong – and in Indonesia, where the penalties are especially harsh.
While about to fly back to Hong Kong from Bali, her bag was checked and she was found to have 1 gram (0.03 oz) of marijuana in her luggage.
“After 24 hours of negotiating and giving all the cash I had on hand, I was told everything would be fine. Instead, I was sent to the police station,” Savage says. In a state of shock and barely able to breathe, she was admitted to a hospital for the night.
“The next morning, the police informed me that I could be imprisoned for anywhere from four to seven years. My journey to hell had begun,” she says.
“All I could hear were shouts of ‘baru baru’, meaning ‘newbie’. I panicked as I saw women and men clinging to the bars. I cried, saying ‘Please give me a chance, don’t take me in’,” she says.
“The women wore heavy make-up and sleazy outfits. I felt as though I was in a strip bar,” recalls Savage, who was wearing trousers that had been cut into shorts.
“No long sleeves or long pants were allowed because someone had hanged themselves before using long sleeves.”
After two months in the police station she was sentenced and transferred to Kerobokan Penitentiary Institution, better known as Kerobokan Prison, where she spent the next 11 months.
The 4-hectare (10-acre) centre near Bali’s capital, Denpasar, opened in 1979 and was built to hold 300 inmates. As of 2017, it had nearly 1,400 prisoners, male and female, of various nationalities, 90 per cent of them Indonesian and 78 per cent of them convicted of drug-related offences.

Initially Savage was put in a hall with 200 women – most of them curious, some friendly, she says. Soon afterwards, she was moved to a cell 6 metres by 4 metres (19.6ft by 13ft) that housed eight inmates.
It took just 12 steps to walk from one end of the cell to the other; Savage would walk for an hour in the cell each day and use the grille that enclosed it to do push-ups.
The daily routine was monotonous, with morning roll-call at 6am followed by aerobics and laundry duties, and breakfast at 9am. After that she worked in the kitchen, helping with chopping and cooking.
A key benefit of this was that she could cook her own food – chicken, fish and vegetables – instead of the bread and bananas that were the staple diet.
Visiting charities organised activities in which Savage took part, such as knitting and macramé, Bible reading and singing.
Her father, sister and brother visited every couple of weeks – bringing cash for her to use as bribes.

When her money was stolen, she began giving massages to staff and inmates for money – or favours.
“After giving massages to the head warden, I began getting better treatment. I was given soap, shampoo and some clothes. I could go outdoors and get some fresh air while massaging them,” she says.
At the end of the day, some inmates helped sneak a mobile phone into her cell so she could go online.
Savage, who had always been physically fit and grew up playing tennis, skating, surfing and swimming, had given up sport in 2009 when she had a herniated disc and tore the anterior cruciate ligament in her knee.
When she came across the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel, however, she was keen to try yoga again “to keep myself sane”. She had been introduced to it as an eight-year-old when her mother took lessons, and had taken a few classes herself in Hong Kong.
“I loved that Adriene’s sessions were short, anywhere from six to 35 minutes, and each episode had a different focus, such as yoga to relax, yoga for beginners [or] yoga to strengthen the lower back.”

She practised sequences she had viewed on the phone the night before in the common outdoor area the following morning. Her fellow inmates began watching her, became curious, and wanted to practise too.
When a charity donated yoga mats to the prison, Savage got the idea to start teaching yoga, and won the warden’s approval. She soon developed a regular following of about 15 inmates who joined her hour-long classes three times a week.
“Initially, for most of them, it was a way to kill time. Some were determined to follow the practice, others were lazy. Over time they got into it, began coming regularly and said that ‘yoga feels good’,” she says, adding some were keen to continue learning even after their release.
“There was something deeply satisfying in seeing how yoga impacted the women, both physically and mentally,” says Savage, who vowed she would train to become a yoga teacher.
She made good on that vow upon her release, travelling to Rishikesh, India – known as the yoga capital of the world – for four months in 2018 to study and complete a teacher training course from the Association of Yoga and Meditation.

In 2019 she met George Dovas, head of the Iyengar Yoga Centre of Hong Kong, and began training under him.
“Yoga has been shown to modify brain chemistry in ways that help to reduce feelings of anxiety and depression. It can change the manic mind into a calm mind,” Dovas says.
One study found that an hour of yoga could boost levels of Gaba – gamma-aminobutyric acid – a chemical messenger in the brain. Increased levels of Gaba are correlated with a reduction in overthinking and hyper arousal states associated with anxiety or depressive thinking.
Yoga has healed her, Savage says, allowing her to see life from a different perspective. Passionate about dogs, she fosters those in need of homes from Hong Kong shelters and does pet sitting.
She continues to teach and train in healing arts, and has more than 900 hours of training in hatha yoga, kundalini yoga, trauma therapy and sound healing.
This has “taught me to adapt, be grateful and to face challenges with fortitude”, she says.
“There is more to yoga than just the asanas [poses]. I try to practise yoga every day, on and off the mat. I have become a kinder person, more committed, focused and patient,” she adds.

The yoga breathing techniques known as pranayama saved her in prison, she says.
“It reduced my stress. It taught me to stay in the present moment, no matter how difficult the moment seemed at the time.”
She shares a favourite quote from BKS Iyengar, the founder of Iyengar yoga: “Breath is the king of the mind. When the breath is regulated, the mind becomes calm and focused.
“By mastering the breath, we bring stability to our thoughts, emotions, and ultimately our entire being.”
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How a prison sentence in Bali led to a Hong Kong TV producer becoming a yoga teacher

A TV producer in Hong Kong, Lyn Savage was arrested for trying to take marijuana out of Bali and spent 11 months in prison. She learned yoga from YouTube videos, began teaching fellow inmates, and since her release has trained to become a yoga teacher. Photo: Dickson Lee

Lyn Savage, pictured in Sai Kung, Hong Kong. Photo: Dickson Lee

The chaotic temporary holding area for new arrivals at Kerobokan Prison, Bali. Photo: Lyn Savage

The cramped outdoor area for doing laundry or hanging out with fellow inmates at Kerobokan Prison. Photo: Lyn Savage 

A small courtyard for drying laundry and doing exercise such as yoga at Kerobokan Prison. Photo: Lyn Savage

Savage has taken multiple teacher training courses in yoga and has studied in Rishikesh, India. Photo: Dickson Lee

Lyn Savage now teaches yoga, fosters dogs and acts as a pet sitter. Photo: Dickson Lee

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Dr Judith Blaine, a researcher and consultant on mental well-being, recently delved into the relationship between surfing and mental health. Photo: Antony Dickson

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Lifestyle

Health & Wellness

Health

Caught with marijuana leaving Bali, Lyn Savage spent 11 months in prison, where she took up yoga, which she now teaches in Hong Kong


Caught with marijuana leaving Bali, Lyn Savage spent 11 months in prison, where she took up yoga, which she now teaches in Hong Kong.
