The moves are good, but is the lesson? I say YES!

1,500 men incarcerated in a maxium security prison on the Island of Cubu.

Two third's of which have been either convicted or accused of murder, rape or violent drug crimes; and are considered to be amongst the most dangerous offenders in the Phillipines. But.......

Every day these inmates put on a heart pumping display of synchronized dancing.

Who came up with this idea? Byron Garcia is who.

Pure genius.

I was momentarily confused about seeing Albert Einstein as a hero of peace, because of that whole letter to Roosevelt where he said "Hey you should harness nuclear fission for military purposes". Then 8 years later, after the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki he 'felt really bad' and wrote another letter, discouraging an atomic monopoly, but that maybe it'd be a good idea to equip the United Nations with nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of maintaining deterrence. Yeah... Peace Hero... Anyway, he did do a lot of other humanitarian stuff, so... I guess he's allowed to change his mind about one or two little atom bombs.

I digress.

Back to the ones in orange.

OK, now you have admit that was pretty darn good!

Byron Garcia is a tough hearted prison warden who is more like a dance director.

He was given the task of cleaning up the central prison system of Cubu. Byron had no more experience in prison management, then I've got in steam engine building. Needless to say, he had no clue where to begin.

His first decision was to fire all the corrupt guards and replace them with a new

4-tiered security system. Sounds smart.

He then isolated the gang leaders from the rest of the inmates

and then just watched the general population.

OK, that sounds like something worth while. Weed out the bad ones...

One day, as he was watching the prisioners march, he thought of adding music and dance...

Uh, What?

That is where I start to wonder about the sanity of the dude, but you know what?

Since the introduction of dancing the incidents of violence between prisoners has dropped to zero.

I don't know what your experience is with dancing, but mine is pretty limited. I can do the hokey pokey and the funky chicken, and the clap and head bob. (that's an original Heidi move - and NO I won't show you)

I can even shuffle my feet so that if you're drunk enough, you think I'm really skilled... Dancing is hard enough, but to get this many guys timing down and perfected like this? Geesh.

They're getting exercise, they're feeling great about themselves.

They're responding well to Byron's dancing therapy.

However, many will soon leave Cubu and travel to the capiltal of Manilla to attend their trial.

Anxious that they don't return to their old ways in the central prison system, Byron is planning to build a special complex for Cubu's dancing inmates inside the Manilla's central jail.

He would like to construct a facility there just for the dancing inmates.

A jail within the jail.

The prisoners of PDRC are proud. Proud of how far they've come.

Happy that what they've done is so popular. A group of 24 of the prisoners were taken to the annual celebrations to perform for the general public, and it was such a success that now, they're being told the president may come to the prison later this month to watch them perform.

Byron Garcia thinks he has the happiest prisoners in the world. I am inclined to agree.

Yes, at the end of the day they're still prisoners, inmates, criminals - whatever you want to call them - that hasn't changed. What has changed is their attitude.

If you're interested in knowing more about Byron Garcia, the prisoners of PDRC or why this program works, please visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAjItY7X0Yc&feature=related

Rock on with your bad self,

H