Prison Yoga Dharma Library

Prison Yoga Dharma Principles

The10 Yamas and 12 Niyamas of Yoga

Join Sarahjoy and our prison yoga volunteers and prison yoga graduates in discussions on these dharmic principles. The 10 Yamas and 12 Niyamas are yoga's ethical precepts for living a life of dharma (wisdom, righteousness), seva (service), and karuna (compassion) was created as a course for our 200hr Yoga Alliance Registered Prison Yoga Teacher Training programs during the pandemic. In an unprecedented invitation from the Department of Corrections, we were uniquely authorized to provide this video training on Yoga Ethical Precepts: The Yamas + Niyamas for adults in custody.

The Prison Yoga Dharma Principles are also available to public students and yoga teachers who support our mission and vision for these life-changing programs. To have access to this vibrant learning library, please click the donate button below.

Our prison yoga teacher training program for incarcerated men and women provides a 200-hour teacher training for adults in custody to become certified yoga teachers on the inside. These resident yoga teachers then provide yoga and mindfulness classes for their inside community, specifically for those even more vulnerable than themselves: residents in the mental health, behavioral, and addiction treatment units within the prison.

22 Discussions

Yogic Precepts

For Living Your Yoga

On and Off the Mat

REGISTER VIA SLIDING SCALE DONATION.
All proceeds support our Prison Yoga Outreach Programs. We are the longest continuously offered prison yoga program in the USA, since 1998.

Prison yoga Dharma Library

View the Yamas & Niyamas in this course:

The 10 Yamas

The 12 Niyamas

Learn More about our PRISON YOGA TEACHER TRAINING

SARAHJOY MARSH, MA, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT certified yoga teacher, yoga therapist, and author, is a vibrant, compassionate catalyst for transformation.

While fundamentally informed by the teachings of yoga, Sarahjoy also masterfully integrates her training in Western therapy and mental health, interpersonal counseling, neurobiology, reciprocal muscle inhibition, and kinesiology. She has an unwavering belief in people’s innate goodness and their capacity to re-awaken to their potential.

Sarahjoy has a Masters in Counseling and certification in Interpersonal Neurobiology. She has been training yoga teachers, yoga outreach volunteers, and mental health providers, including clinical psychologists and socials workers, in the tools of yoga for 25 years. She is a student and scholar of yoga with 27 years of professional teaching experience and 31 years of yogic study. You can learn more about Sarahjoy's teachers at the bottom of this page. From her extensive background, Sarahjoy created “amrita yoga”, a form of vinyasa yoga that integrates Ayurveda, physical therapy, neuroscience, yoga philosophy and psychology, pranayama, and mindfulness.
Sarahjoy designed 200-hr Teacher Training Programs, a 300-hr Professional YogaTraining, and an 800-hr Yoga Therapy Training. Sarahjoy is the creator and facilitator of the first 200-hour Yoga Alliance Yoga Teacher Training to be taught in prison in the US. She continues this work in Oregon with the DAYA Foundation. Sarahjoy has been a board member for the Yoga Alliance since 2017.

Committed to supporting marginalized populations and using yoga for social justice she founded two non-profits. Living Yoga and the DAYA Foundation. DAYA Foundation provides Prison Yoga Outreach Programs in 5 facilities in Oregon. DAYA has also provided yoga and mindfulness tools to those with addiction, anxiety or depression; to those with medical issues such as cancer, chronic pain, spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease; and to others who would not be able to attend yoga classes because of social, financial or physical constraints.
The combination of her ability to identify when a conditioned mind pattern crowds out clear thinking and to inspire the courage to bring insight into action, her knowledge of powerful yoga and mindfulness tools, her perspective on the terrain of the stages of recovery and the tools to use along the way make herYoga for Recovery methodology (outlined in her book Hunger, Hope & Healing: A Yoga Approach to Reclaiming Your Relationship with Your Body and Food) a comprehensive and effective healing modality.

Sarahjoy enthusiastically embraces her students’ well-being in a pragmatic yet passionate way, seeing them as their true self, filled with innate potential and a vital, necessary gift to bring to others – that is, their genuine, vulnerable, and radiant self. She masterfully creates authentic community on a deep level.