About — Jacqueline Valk

Where It Started

I'm Jacqueline Valk, though most people just call me Jacki. I built a construction business, The Pod, from the ground up, earned my builder's certification, and ran it for eight years before selling it.

Working with builders and customers every day taught me things no dance floor ever did, how to carry responsibility that doesn't clock off, how easy it is to keep telling yourself "after this job" instead of making time for your own life, and how much people in that industry carry quietly, with nowhere to put it down. I sold The Pod eventually, but what running it taught me never left.

And Then There Was Dance

Long before The Pod, dance was already mine. I was dancing before I could really call it that. No one in my family danced, there was just something in me that knew I had to. I grew up in Canberra, started at a local studio young, moved into teaching hip-hop at sixteen, and at seventeen I found Latin dance. That's where I found my passion.

By seventeen I'd already opened my own dance company with Ben Brilliante, while competing and performing in Sydney. After school, I moved to Sydney to train under Oliver Pineda, a ten-time world salsa champion, and his company, Latin Motion, home to some of the most technical dancers in the country at the time. I was a sponge. It took four years of relentless work before I finally got a compliment out of him, but it was all worth it. That's how tough he was.

Teaching is what I always come back to, and it's where I learned the thing that now shapes everything I do: watching adults try something completely unfamiliar, usually self-conscious, often certain they'll be bad at it, and seeing what happens when they do it anyway. Confidence doesn't arrive first. It gets built, badly, in public, by people who decided to move before they felt ready.

The World Stage

In Los Angeles, I was once told I "didn't have the look" for Latin dance films. In Mexico, I heard the opposite, "I've never seen a white girl move like that." I competed in Los Angeles alongside Rodrigo Guzman, world number two in salsa cabaret at the time, taught internationally on Spanish-language television, and built my own choreography, before finally coming home to Sydney to earn Oliver's respect. It was all worth it.

The Fall, And The Comeback

I go all in on everything I do, which means my highs are high and my lows are low. The lowest was Vegas, where I moved for a relationship and, somewhere along the way, lost myself. I still danced there, corporate salsa gigs, work alongside dancers from Dancing With The Stars, but that isn't why I went. When I came home, my family barely recognised me. Vegas taught me to be tough, to use my voice, and to never let myself be run over again.

"I wouldn't change any of my experiences, because I've met incredible people and learned so much along the way. But I'll certainly enjoy helping others understand the lessons I learned the hard way, so they can learn them a little more kindly."

You find your true friends at your most vulnerable. For me, that was Nichole, Anna and Gustavo, three friendships that got me through the hardest moments and are still close today. I once called Gustavo, who was choreographing for Ricky Martin or JLo at the time, and asked if he wanted to come to Cuba with me the following week. He said yes. That's the kind of friendship it is.

Life is funny. When you want something, it doesn't come. When you don't have something, you want it. And when you don't want something, it comes and bangs down your door. I've competed and performed in Los Angeles, danced in Mexico with some of the best dancers lining up to partner me, and found my spiritual home in Cuba, the birthplace of the salsa that started it all.

Finding Home

After Vegas and years of travel, I eventually moved to the Sunshine Coast to be near family, and found paradise. Today I run a small dance company purely for the joy of it, and I coach and speak to business owners about burnout, using the same movement-based principles that built my own comeback, and everything running a business for eight years taught me.

Somewhere in between it all, I also picked up my recreational pilot's licence, because if I set my mind to something, I finish it.

You shouldn't have to lose yourself to build something successful.

Movement, learning and connection are how I bring more life back into the week, and that belief is what everything else on this site is built from.

Credentials

Background & experience

—

3rd, Australian Salsa Classic National Titles

—

1st, NSW Social Dancer Competition

—

3rd, Australian Salsa Open

—

Danced Mambo (New York), Cuban Salsa (Cuba), LA-style Salsa (LA & Mexico)

—

Taught & performed for Latin Motion, alongside Dancing With The Stars performers Csaba Szirmai and Luda Kroiter

—

Taught Salsa congresses; performed at Sydney Salsa Congress

—

Author, 76 Percent, on dance, brain health and reducing dementia risk

—

Working With Children (Blue Card) certified

You can build a business and still have a life.

Background & experience

Trained in the room, not just around it.

Giving back through movement.

Bring this into your world.