Ex-lifers, mothers who lost children to gun violence heal through stretching in SF

We know why health experts say stretching is important. They say it keeps muscles flexible and healthy, and helps us maintain that range of motion.

But what happens when you bring a unique group of people together to stretch? We’re talking about ex-lifers and mothers who lost someone to gun violence.

Mattie Scott is laying on her stomach at the Stretch Lab in the SoMA neighborhood.

“I’ve never been stretched before,” Scott said.

She’s taking a break from the heavy work she does daily: helping others who have lost someone to gun violence just as she has.

Scott’s 24-year-old son was shot and killed in the city’s Western Addition neighborhood in 1996.

On another table laying horizontal was Randy Nichols.

“It’s nice that when you learn to listen to your body and your body is going to let you know when it’s carrying extra garbage,” Nichols said.

It’s garbage he’s been working on tossing out for decades.

“I did 31 years in prison for second degree murder,” he said.

Nichols now works with United Playaz, a violence prevention and youth development organization. It’s founded by Rudy Corpuz.

“We got five ex-lifers who were imprisoned, who had a life sentence, and we have mothers, five mothers who lost their kids to gun violence to senseless gun violence, so we all come together and we do some healing,” Corpuz said. “We all need healing and so all the mothers and these guys now are on the other side of the gun helping people out.”

The group has a slogan that goes “healers need healing too.”

Nichols understands that.

“There’s a lot of internal guilt and trauma and suffering from doing that and so being able to work with mothers who lost children to guys like me and try to bridge that gap a little bit, it’s impactful, it’s powerful,” he said.

A gap that’s filled with hardened pain in their bodies over years.

“A lot of times people don’t want to speak so it’s better just like they’re able to relax their bodies are really, really damaged just from everything that’s happened,” Alazan Flores with Stretch Lab said. “So this is just a really good way for people to kind of deal with stress without having to talk about it.”

For Scott, it’s exactly what she needed.

“It feels fabulous,” she said.