This Friday marks a very, very special occasion: Emily Easton, owner of Six Degrees Uptown, and her yoga teacher training class at the Yoga Center of Minneapolis are going to prison.

They’ll be entering the Oak Park Heights maximum security prison as part of their “karma yoga” project for training. They’ll also be ushering in the first such program in the state of Minnesota. 

The Prison Yoga Project, through which these yogis will go to Oak Park to teach prisoners mindful movement, believes that “all humans share a deep, inexpressible yearning for connection.” And through their work, the PYP writes, “prisoners and prisons are stumbling onto the realization that what we do is remarkable, verging on amazing.” Their latest video is below.

For more information on transformative prison projects like the PYP, we encourage you to check out Jail Guitar Doors (which brings instruments into prisons to allow for musical expression), the Prison University Project (which brings university students inside the prisons to learn alongside their incarcerated fellow students), and the spectacular documentary “Dhamma Brothers,” which follows the establishment of a prison meditation program (it’s available on Netflix). You can donate to the Prison Yoga Project here.

Emily Easton would like to thank the other wonderful yogis who will join her on this exciting journey to bring movement, calm, connection, freedom, and humanity to people too often written off in this world: Ann, Jennifer, Juli, Kandace, Karing, Lisa, Martha, Sarah, and Taylor. Thanks, too, to the Yoga Center for its comprehensive training and progressive, inclusive vision of health and wellness.