I was able to feel a level of self-love that I have not been able to channel for myself or just tap into in a very long time.Ashley RodriguezOSUN-ology “DECOLONIZE THE PELIVS” workshop participant
I had the technique. But when my teacher asked me to embody the dance, I froze. That moment changed how I learned to trust myself.
At 29, I traveled to Cuba for a month of study in Afro-Cuban Rumba, Yoruba/Orisha dance, timba, and salsa. During a private Rumba lesson, my teacher told me that I had learned the technique. Now it was time to play with the movement. She invited me to explore the playful, flirtatious conversation inside the dance that I had witnessed in Cuban Rumba social settings.
Instead, I froze. It felt as though I had hit a wall and every brick had landed on my chest. I could not bring myself to move toward the sensuality or feminine expression the dance was asking of me. The tension rose until I broke down and cried. My teacher walked to the fridge, handed me a canned beer, and told me to relax. But I knew this was more than nerves. The moment exposed how disconnected I felt from my own body, sensuality, pleasure, and womanhood.
That private lesson became the point when I stopped accepting the discomfort that had kept me tense, absent, and unfulfilled. In the year that followed, I devoted myself to the practices that helped me soften, return to my body, and rebuild trust with myself: dance, breathwork, meditation, EFT tapping, journaling, mirror work, self-hypnosis, and transformational coaching. When the people closest to me began asking what had changed, I started a pilot program. In OSUN-ology’s first year, I served 121 women through three live five-week small-group programs, one-to-one coaching, teaching at ten retreats, and hosting my own retreat.
I am a Howard University graduate, with formal study at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy and The Ailey School, and two dance internships with Ronald K. Brown’s EVIDENCE Dance Company.
“When I hit a wall in my own body, I knew I could not ignore the disconnect any longer. I refused to enter my thirties disconnected from myself, so I sought every practice that helped me understand my mind, body, and spirit from the inside out.”Aminah “Mintah Tumbáo” Jackson, founder of OSUN-ology · @MintahTumbáo
