Jail House RockMATI VARGAS-GIBSON - 5Rhythms Teacher
I began volunteering with the Resolana Program at the Dallas County jail when I was a 5Rhythms teacher-in-training and as part of my service commitment to the community. I will never forget my first impression of the intense physicality of imprisonment: large imposing fortress, metal detectors, being searched, giving up my id, heavy steel doors opening and closing, clanging in our ears. That evening all my notions of “not being free” were challenged and my students gifted me with realizing, once again, that the experience of freedom lives in our perceptions and is never more than a sweaty, authentic dance away. After two years, the dances with the women inmates always teach me more than I can ever imagine about humility, resilience, and strength. I am also grateful that many of our community’s 5Rhythms dancers have become Resolana volunteers.
We often arrive without knowing what is happening in the prison. There can be joy and sadness at some of the women being let go, there can be changes happening due to Pod assignments, tension from strained relationships, always stress and anxiety as the women face themselves and each other in this intense container. To create physical and emotional space around their experience, I encourage them to move with whatever sensations and emotions are happening in them: the jittery-anxious-just-before-court dance; the sad-missing-my-kids dance; the sleepy-lethargic-up-all-night dance; the crowded-can’t-hide dance; the I-just realized-I-am-ok-and-have-hope dance. I always emphasize that the way they move is completely up to them. In a place where one has to follow instructions and regulations constantly, being able to move shoulder, elbow, hand, hips, or feet, in immediate and spontaneous ways soon reminds them of the simple choices they can make and that the choice to keep moving and changing is always theirs.
