What a Community of Practice Looks Like at Yoga Behind Bars
- Jun 12
- 2 min read
There's a difference between a program and a practice. Programs have start dates and end dates. Funding cycles. Outcomes reports. A practice is something else — it changes the person doing it, and the person doing it changes the people around them, and that keeps going.
Yoga Behind Bars is a practice.
The Seattle-based nonprofit has been bringing yoga to incarcerated people since 2008, building something most organizations in that space don't even attempt: lasting connection. Not a six-week curriculum. Not a checked box on a reentry plan. A community of practice that follows people through the hardest years of their lives and stays with them on the other side.
Faraji Bhakti is what that looks like in a person. His life was shaped by the program, and today he's a vital part of the Yoga Behind Bars staff — working with groups inside, in the community in Seattle, with a base in Tacoma. A tireless community leader, spoken word artist, and educator, Faraji embodies something we keep coming back to in this work: what you receive, you become able to give. The care doesn't get used up. It multiplies.
That's the story Thriving Communities set out to film.
Thriving Communities' film director Jerry Millhon, cinematographer Ross Monagle, and film production assistant Bow Jones filmed a documentary about Yoga Behind Bars and the people whose lives it has shaped. Filming wrapped at the end of May, and we're grateful to everyone who let us into their work — Faraji, Dr. Joye Hardiman, the YBB team, and every person who trusted us with their story.
The film asks the questions that matter most: What does it take to sustain this kind of work year after year? What happens when a community of practice takes root in a place most people have written off? And what does it tell us about the regenerative power of connection — that the bonds built in the hardest circumstances are often the ones that hold the longest?
The film will debut at the Thriving Communities Gathering in October, with a public screening in Seattle planned for this winter. Details to come.
In the meantime — get to know the organization at the heart of it. Learn more and support their work at yogabehindbars.org.
Community isn't only built in the places we expect. Sometimes the deepest practice starts where no one's watching.
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