Alejandra Miranda
contemporary dance artist
“Thank you Helen for your kind and beautiful teachings.”
Traci Foster
Fitzmaurice Voicework teacher
“Helen teaches with the rare combination of compassion, curiosity and directness. Her understanding of the body and how it works in both dance and functional movement is awe-inspiring. And she is a hoot! “
Ashley Johnson
Mitzvah Technique Teacher, Dancer, Dance Educator
“Leaving the studio after a private with Helen I had a sense of three dimensionality I had never experienced in my body before. The boundaries of my limbs expanded and my centre moved in perfect harmony with all parts. And this is after only one session!”
Darcy McMurray
Owner of Full Circle Pilates and Health
“I find this work invaluable….. it brings balance to the segmented stability that is such a strong focus in Pilates by teaching fluidity, efficiency and integration.”
Nathan Pylpuk
actor and musician
"Working with Helen has provided me with a deeper understanding of my body as a whole down to its functions at an almost cellular level.”
Yvonne Chartrand
Artistic Director Compaigni V’ni Dansi
“Helen’s teaching skills are exquisite…she has an integral logic of a purely natural and organic means.”
Kirsten Wiren
registered massage therapist
“Every direction and instruction Helen gives is filled with her vast knowledge, which allows my body to respond with efficiency and clarity.”
Rufino Rodriguez
contemporary dance artist
"After a weekend workshop with Helen Walkley, I left feeling more centred, coordinated, connected and in tune with my body than ever before. Inclusively, she added many tools to my choreographic toolbox…working with her was simply a delight! Go take classes with Helen Walkley. You won't regret it for a second!"
Emma Garrod
Registered Nurse, mover, teacher of yoga, lover of Helen’s work
“Helen’s work feels like a slow dive into the body, to emerge transformed. You are invited to access a depth of awareness through hands-on touch to integrated movement. I have never felt so fully in my body, physically and energetically. The freedom in expression I have found through this process is unparalleled.”
Juli Rees
dancer, social change instigator/artist
"I recently took an intensive with Helen and was blown away by her depth of experience, wisdom and artistry as a teacher. She has an amazing ability to sequence and layer gentle exercises that so fully awaken the spirit, desire and capacity of our body and imagination to move.”
April Russell
B.A, M.Ed, Ph.D candidate, dancer and arts teacher for life, actor/artist
“Helen Walkley is a master teacher! I have studied with her off and on for more than a decade and attest to her amazing skill.”
Molly McDermott
contemporary dance artist
“Helen’s teaching accesses a deep sensitivity and awareness of the body and the space that surrounds it. I always leave with a sensation of profound connectedness.”
Alisoun Payne
contemporary dance artist, yoga teacher/practitioner, outdoor guide/educator
“Helen takes great care to maintain a clear and professional learning environment. The depth of her embodiment and precision of her language makes this profound work accessible to all, regardless of their movement background or experience.”
Kelly McInnes
contemporary dance artist
“Helen's movement patterning workshop has brought me to a much deeper level of awareness in my body and led me to a whole new way of experiencing movement. I feel so fortunate to have had opportunities to learn from Helen. She is a master of movement and her teachings are thoughtful, personal and impactful.”
Renee Poisson
visual artist, filmmaker
“Helen draws out into the open the deepest most authentic movements of the participants. She is hugely generous with her energy and attention and able to meet each person in their unique potential.”
Gail Lotenberg
artistic director Link Dance
“Helen's classes offer a portal into the most satisfying improvisations. Each class progresses through a rigorous, inquiry-based warm-up, leaving my mind and body ready. I acquire a state of full knowingness. From this place I am free to act and, certain about my creative choices and offerings. I become confident to dance with sensitivity and curiosity. But I am not alone. A presence of mind is established among all the participants whereby we are joined in a reality or set of investigations, allowing us to navigate physical conversations with a sense of subtlety and force, composition and phrasing, and knowing, that what is transpiring has merit and meaning.”
Jean Gordon
mother, student, writer, community activist
“Through Helen's gifted teaching I have deeply experienced the plasticity of the body. I leave class more fully embodied, with an increased felt-sense that many of my corporeal limitations are habitual patterns of mind that can, and with this work, do change. This is delicious and profound work. Through my classes with Helen I have begun to tap into my body's potential.”
Rhonda Cooper
Physiotherapist, MPT, FCAMP, Acupuncture
“During the Movement Patterning, I experienced a profoundly increased awareness of my body that enabled me to witness how I initiate movement. This has informed my understanding of what drives me to move. Given my belief that the mind and body are one, this has led to some psychological, as well as physical, breakthroughs in self-understanding that have been enriching my life experience ever since.”
Caroline Filler
student in interdisciplinary studies in ethnomusicology at UBC
“I will definitely be finding you somewhere in the city in the future. I value your knowledge, you are a hawk of a teacher. I look forward to all I have to learn from you.”
Kelty McKerracher
Flamenco Dancer, Massage Therapist
“The first class I took with Helen, I could almost feel the new neural pathways forming in my brain. It was a peak experience in my years of movement study.”
Augusta Lokhorst
Social Worker, Registered Massage Therapist
“Three years ago I broke some ribs. The injury affected my paraspinal muscles and ilio-psoas. Physical therapy helped my recovery but, it was the sequential spinal processes we worked with in Movement Patterning that gave me the sensation my spine was finally healed.”
Kathleen McDonagh
Dance Artist, Movement Instructor, Certified Gyrotonic® & Gyrokinesis® Teacher
“Engaging in the pursuit of a fuller understanding and experience of movement with Helen is a most enriching process. Her guidance and direction are clear—I found the time to embody, reflect and embrace new found depths of physical resources and capacity within her classes. This experience has been so nourishing for both my practice as a dance artist and a movement teacher. ”
Thomas Hicks
Registered Yoga Teacher, Teacher Trainer
“[Helen’s] work could be included in Yoga Teacher Training and by teachers and practitioners alike. It is amazing how much my body opens after a session, how much more range of movement I have.”
Thecla Schiphorst
PhD, Associate Professor, School of Interactive Arts & Technology: SFU; Director: MovingStories research partnership
“Helen is a genuinely wonderful facilitator and mentor: responsive, potent, intelligent and discerning, she invites her workshop participants to open to their movement awareness and agency, while providing safety, sensibility and deep inner connection. Her ability to prepare the workshop space and the participants’ own embodied space is palpable.
Helen combines incisive clarity, sensitivity, wisdom, deep embodied knowledge and flexibility in style that enables her to move between light yielding touch and strong gentle direct containment. Helen embodies a clarity of sensing, intuiting and acting that responds to and works with expanding her students' experiential processes.”
Deanna Peters
Contemporary Dance Artist
“Part poetry, science and worldview, training with Helen has given me insights, language, tools, skills and confidence to go deeper into my ideas, my sensations and my dreams.”
Carrie Abresch
C.S.T., C.P.I., Diamond Healing Arts
“I came to Helen's classes as a mother needing personal time with my body; a movement and craniosacral therapist looking to dive deeper into awareness-based movement principals; a meditation practitioner and instructor wanting further inquiry into the profundity of being fully present. All of these aspirations have been met with this work. I continue to recommend Helen's classes to colleagues and clients alike.”
Olivia Shaffer
Contemporary Dance Artist
“Helen offers students a full spectrum of knowledge encompassing her extensive training in somatic and bodywork practices; her work is expertly interwoven with the Laban theories and the fundamentals of movement-based expression. Helen’s mindful, systematic teaching module integrates the process of developing body-awareness from the inside out and cultivates expressive freedom in movement. With each opportunity that I work with Helen I find the expressivity and expansiveness of my movement is enriched. Helen’s insightful and generous guidance encourages trust within the body and mind.”
Amy Teper
Occupational Therapy Student
“[Helen] works at integrating the mind, body and spirit into a conscious whole that has the capacity to move through space in light, easy and diverse ways.”
Anita Seiz
Certified Movement Analyst, Pilates Instructor
“That she takes such pleasure in movement and has the curiosity to continually discover is an inspiration for me!”
Sara Coffin
Interim Artistic Director—Mocean Dance
“Helen's profound understanding of the Laban/Bartenieff work presents her students the opportunity to awaken their inner landscape to their fullest potential, providing support for daily function and full expression of self... she has helped immensely in the broadening of my movement palette.”
Ilze Bebris
Sculptor, Installation Artist
“I have found [Helen’s] structured and analytic way of describing, presenting and discussing movement very helpful in my practice as an artist. Helen’s insistence on a sensitivity to the plasticity of space awakens me to the ever-changing qualities of space in my own work.”
Jacob McGill
Pilates Instructor, Ortho-Bionomy practitioner, rock climber, Aikido practitioner
“The material has a depth that continues to reveal itself long after the series has passed. I can clearly remember being in the middle of a long climb and finding a movement pattern surfacing that had been practiced long ago.”
Leslie Ewen
Actor, Director, Playwright, Producer
“Learn to use your body and soul deeply, with skill, and you will touch others in the place where they hold their secrets. Helen’s teaching will help you to learn how.”
Colleen McGhee
Dancer, Farmer, Gardener, Poet, Editor
“[Helen’s] teaching evolves along a dance of its own which she attends to amidst theory, example, dialogue, physical experience, hands-on work, and questions. A dance we witness, sense and gradually find our way alongside.”
Marc Arboleda
Clown, Dance, Theatre Artist
“[Helen's] knowledge is invaluable to anyone interested, not only in developing and cultivating fundamental performance skills, but also in attaining the skills necessary to more fully experience his or her body/mind in motion with awareness and subtlety. My work as an artist has greatly benefited from this knowledge, both in terms of artistic expression, and, in terms of personal expression through the moving body.”