Yoga as a Path to Freedom: The Journey of Tien Nguyen

By Tien Nguyen, Prison Yoga Project Facilitator and Family Bridges Instructor

I often say that yoga found me when I needed it most. My name is Tien Nguyen, and I am a yoga facilitator with Prison Yoga Project and an instructor at Family Bridges Inc. in Oakland, California. My work focuses on bringing trauma-informed yoga and mindfulness to those often forgotten: the incarcerated, the recently released, and the underserved. But my path as a teacher didn’t begin in a studio. It began within the walls of California State Prison–Solano, where yoga became my anchor in a place that offered little space for peace or reflection.

Beginnings Inside

When I first encountered yoga, I was searching for something, anything, that could quiet the chaos around me and within me. Prison is filled with noise: metal doors slamming, people shouting, a constant hum of tension. Yoga offered silence.

At first, I came to the mat out of curiosity. But what began as simple movement soon became a lifeline. Through yoga, I found stillness, awareness, and a sense of freedom that could not be taken away, even behind bars. I began to realize that yoga wasn’t about poses or flexibility. It was about learning to meet myself honestly, to breathe through discomfort, to forgive. Over time, yoga became my way of remembering who I was beneath the layers of fear and guilt.

Becoming a Teacher

As my practice deepened, I started sharing what I learned with others. I saw men come to class heavy with anger, pain, or despair, and leave with a little more lightness than they came in with. That shift moved me deeply.

I watched my friend Don Favorita lead classes inside Solano. Don was my first teacher, and his example showed me that teaching yoga in prison wasn’t just possible. It was transformative. I wanted to learn how to do it safely, how to teach yoga that heals.

When Yoga Bridge, led by Anna Proctor, offered a 200-hour yoga teacher training inside Solano, I didn’t hesitate. I applied and was accepted. That training changed everything. We studied anatomy, philosophy, and trauma-informed practice, but the heart of it was learning presence. It meant learning how to hold space for others in pain while staying grounded ourselves.

Anna guided us with grace and compassion. She saw our potential even when we couldn’t. Under her mentorship, I completed the program and eventually became a co-facilitator for yoga classes in the prison gym. Teaching among my peers in an environment where vulnerability was rarely safe was humbling and sacred. It taught me that yoga is not about perfection. It is about permission, permission to feel, to breathe, to begin again.

The Work Continues

Tien Leading Class

When I was released in 2023, I carried yoga with me not as an identity, but as a way of being. I began teaching wherever I could, often volunteering, eager to share the same tools that had helped me rebuild from the inside out. Today, I teach weekly yoga classes for staff at Family Bridges, supporting a street mediation team as they navigate vicarious trauma. The practice continues to ripple outward in ways I never could have planned.

In early 2024, I began practicing yoga each morning in Lincoln Square Park in Oakland’s Chinatown. The air was cold, and the mornings were quiet. It was a perfect time to be grateful for my freedom. At first, I practiced alone. Then I began to notice people watching, community members, many unhoused. I invited them to join. They didn’t at first, but soon I saw them trying poses from a distance. Later, they asked questions. Eventually, I brought extra mats.

What started as a solitary practice became a quiet act of community. It reminded me of yoga inside and how showing up with authenticity and consistency opens doors. You never know who is watching, or who might be healing beside you in silence.

Healing Across Generations

Tien & Anna at Family Bridges

Not long after my release, my mother, who had only known about yoga from my phone calls while I was incarcerated, began requesting yoga from me. She gathered her friends for late-night sessions, sometimes at eleven o’clock at night. I was tired, but how could I refuse?

For years, my mother and I had been separated by walls and time. Now she was calling me, asking to breathe and move together. Those late-night sessions were more than exercise. They were healing across generations. They gave us a way to reconnect through something that had once kept me grounded in moments of chaos.

Eventually, I had to set boundaries (a lesson yoga taught me well), but those moments with her remain precious. What once began as a way to survive had become a way to return, to family, to community, to love.

A Practice of Return

Yoga offers what the prison environment often strips away: dignity, choice, and connection. Through mindful movement and breath, people learn to regulate their nervous systems, to notice rather than react, and to find peace in the smallest moments.

Inside, yoga isn’t about escape. It is about returning, to the body, to the breath, to one’s own humanity. It plants seeds that continue to grow long after release.

Freedom Redefined

From a prison gym to a family living room, from solitary reflection to shared community, yoga has been my bridge from confinement to connection, from guilt and shame to gratitude.

These days, when my mother calls and requests yoga, I smile. I remind myself: I get to do this. I get to be present. I get to serve. I get to share what once saved me.

That, to me, is freedom.

Prison Yoga Project extends our sincere gratitude to the Omer G. Voss Foundation for their support of the Yoga Bridge Program, founded and run by Ana Proctor, and for their generous support of yoga teacher training scholarships.