An unusual physical fitness regime at a jail in the Philippines has attracted worldwide attention on the video sharing website, YouTube.

A clip of hundreds of prisoners in orange uniforms dancing to Michael Jackson’s song Thriller has been watched more than 1.3 million times.

The routine is the brainchild of Byron Garcia, a security consultant for the Cebu provincial government.

He said it had helped “drastically” improve inmate behaviour.

And two former inmates have since become dancers.

‘Discipline in action’

The dancing is compulsory for all 1,600 inmates at the prison in the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Centre, except the elderly and infirm.

Prisoners have also performed to songs by local artists, Queen and from the film Sister Act, clips of which have been watched on YouTube tens of thousands of times.

“Using music, you can involve the body and the mind. The inmates have to count, memorise steps and follow the music,” Mr Garcia told the BBC news website.

“Inmates say to me: ‘You have put my mind off revenge, foolishness, or thinking how to escape from jail, or joining a gang’,” he said.

The routines developed last year after Mr Garcia started making inmates march to music, such as Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall, in a bid to increase participation in exercise.

Other early choices included In the Navy and YMCA by the Village People, which were chosen so that macho inmates “wouldn’t be offended by being asked to dance”.

Mr Garcia has been taken back by the worldwide popularity of the clips, which he originally posted in order to share his work with other members of the penal community.

“I wanted to show them that I am doing something here that has been a success, to show discipline in action,” he said.

But the videos have now become a source of great pride for the prisoners.

“The inmates are very happy at the interest, they are always talking about it, and they ask how many people have watched it on YouTube,” Mr Garcia.

And fans of his work can look forward to another three routines in the pipeline, including one set to the Vanilla Ice classic, Ice Ice Baby.

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How did they get a hot chick into a men’s prison? I’m surprised she wasn’t raped after take a few steps.

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YouTube - New Halo 3 Multiplayer Footage

You gotta hand it to these guys. Could this been the deathnel to other mutliplyer successes like Quake Wars and the Battlefield series from EA? Do the guys at Micrsoft have what it takes to meld the console and the PC worlds? This video has answers some of those questions. Have a look see here:

Saw this video on YouTube about Islam and it was a fresh perspective. We’ve all heard that Islam is the religion of Peace. Why? Well this video explains the moderate, Christian-like, qualities of Islam that moderate followers of Islam practice and expouse.

If the radical elements of Islam did not hijack this religion, then perhaps there really could be Peace on Earth?

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Joost™
“The new way of watching TV

All the things you love about TV, fused with the interactive power of the internet – just the way you want it. Enjoy the ride!”

The one thing YouTube has a problem is that it gets sued alot for all these content providers who have their content put on YouTube without proper compensation/permission. Well it looks like Joost figured it out - they stream content from the providers and interlace ads. Paid for channels, the equivalent of say HBO or Showtime on cable, don’t have the ads.

Being able to pick and choose exactly what you want seems to me to be a dream come true. No longer do you have to buy an entire channel or a package of channels to only get the couple of shows that you actually watch.

The only thing I’m worried about is that because we are able to choose specific content, alot of this ‘filler’ material will not be produced.