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Eli Walker

Get Over Yourself
Engage Community
Spark Belonging

WORK WITH ELIQuote sign

Hi! I’m Eli - As a professional speaker, author, wellness entrepreneur &  facilitation expert, I playfully provoke the unexpected to curate interactive keynotes, workshops, courses & wellness experiences to help you build belonging in the modern world.

Eli Walker

Eli walker

Challenge convention.
The rules you follow may be the very things holding you back.

from executive boardrooms all the way to badass girls in rural ghana, I curate leading-edge, interactive keynotes, yoga experiences and belonging-building trainings that empower you to get out of your head, into your bodies and discovering deeper connection.

Whether you engage in my immersive experiences as an audience member, active participant, or student, you can expect the unexpected through boundary-breaking play, thought-provoking storytelling, and laughter-inducing interpersonal engagement to enliven very-outside-the-box mindset shifts, deepen belonging and inspire positive action towards a happier, healthier & more connected world.

Let's rewrite the rulebook to connect us to what matters: each other. 

Keynote Speaking

equal parts performative and informative, Eli's Interactive talks challenge social norms to teach belonging-building tools that actually work.

Interactive Wellness
Experiences

Get you out of your head and into your body through playfully provocative yoga-inspired experiences designed to foster camaraderie

Workshops

Using my signature P.L.A.Y. method, I have helped thousands of organizational leaders increase team engagement through play and connection…and fall in love with their jobs all over again in the process.

Belonging Consulting

Whether you’re a leader, entrepreneur, event planner or facilitator, I provide the expert guidance and accountability you need to create engaging live that take your community-building goals to the next level.
Book Eli to help you build belonging
Eli on ipad ini a roof yoga class

The Uplift Center
Rethink the context in which you gather with Eli's dedicated school for belonging.
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Learn more.

Break the 4th wall

#communitycare is the new #selfcare. Break barriers into the unexpected to re-meet your people in new ways.

leverage the power of play

Get off autopilot and out of your head to ignite discovery, allow authentic expression and have more fun doing it.

rewrite the narrative to cultivate belonging

Set up conditions for yourself and others to create agency, take ownership and build a sustainable community. 
Break the 4th wall.

Keynotes & Facilitated Workshops To engage community & cultivate belonging

building belonging means intentionally creating experiences you want to have. Often, what we want, is to feel real and to see each other authentically. Enter: Interactive Play and Provoking the Unexpected. 

Click here to view speaker reel.

01

Learn it.Speaking Engagements

Eli's signature talk, "The Art of Getting Over Yourself," demystifies "belonging," inspiring leaders to build community with more ease from an approach they can actually control: their choices.

02

Practice it.Workshops & Leadership Trainings

‍"Work Hard, P.L.A.Y. Harder" allows leaders to put "the art of getting over themselves" into practice with tools to create more engaging gatherings. The result? Better collaboration, higher retention and more joyful workplaces.

03

Experience it.Interactive Wellness Experiences

Eli is the world's leading expert in curating immersive, social wellness experiences designed to foster camaraderie through play & storytelling, artfully infused into mindful movement practices.

“

Eli added so much value to my community. Her ability to connect everyone in our group—virtually, nonetheless—through her storytelling and meditation exercise is unparalleled. She’s so creative. I’ve already booked her again!

- Nancy Rhodes

FOUNDER, OF ALTERNEW
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Eli in action

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Yoga class in front of an industrial background

Make it Fun

Pink yoga mattress

The Uplift Experience Interactive Wellness to Spark Belonging

As the creator of the internationally-acclaimed Drunk Yoga®, Eli is the leading expert in facilitating playful yoga -inspired experiences designed to uplift your people through feel-good movement + meditation, cultivate camaraderie, and make them laugh (a lot!) in the process. She is famous for infusing practical mindfulness tools with interactive games to enliven joy through communal wellness.
Learn more

“

Jaclynn Brennan, Co - Founder of Fyli
Eli Walker led an interactive yoga experience for our female mastermind community, Fyli, and it was unlike anything we have experienced before. The levels of engagement, collaboration, fun, and camaraderie were off the charts! It’s really difficult to get people to connect virtually, and Eli has a magical way of bringing people together that feels authentic and nurturing for community building.

- Jaclynn Brennan

Eli Walker

Why work with Eli?


Because, honestly? She's a delight.

Her talks, workshops and wellness experiences engage community in what matters: each other. A joy to partner with from start to finish and a reliable rockstar on stage, she captivates her audiences with epic (+ hilarious) stories, expert insight, interactive games and mindfulness practices to help you challenge social norms and rewrite the rules that hold you back.

Eli’s approach is playful and accessible. Participants leave her experiences with a new understanding of themselves, and of course, renewed appreciation for their peers' perspectives.
contact eli's team to learn more

Need to call in
a Belonging & Facilitation Expert?

We run on autopilot, living within systems that keep us “safe” and unwittingly follow oppressive structures and values of individualism that hold us back from our power and from each other.

But by changing just one aspect, taking one step outside the memorized societal dance, the system crumbles and we experience ourselves and each other in a whole new way. Whether it’s changing up seating at a meeting, asking an unexpected question, or introducing a glass of wine to a yoga class (true story), we branch off into unscripted territory where community and connection can arise.  

Organizations & event planners across the globe hire Eli for her performative & informative facilitation expertise. She'll help you create an action plan that optimizes your next live event, meeting or gathering for community engagement, productivity and belonging by tapping into the intersection of playfulness, purpose, and practicality.
Learn more
Eli Walker with a tabletEli Walker on Macbook screen

“

Eli has great energy and is very knowledgeable. She has a unique and wonderful spirit and is a talented performer and instructor. Having Eli lead her interactive wellness experiences for us in-house is an amazing corporate perk, making it easy to attend and destress/stretch/laugh/reground after a long day at our desks. She’s outrageously funny, kind, and inspirational in her storytelling abilities. By the end, everyone felt a personal connection to her, as well as each other.

- Lina Krivyan

TRUSIGHT SOLUTIONS, LEGAL OPERATIONS MANAGER

Eli Walker

Meet Eli

hi! I'm Eli, and I'm so glad you're here. I come to you as a professional speaker, community facilitator, storyteller and wellness entrepreneur.

I love helping people from different backgrounds get on the same page. Bonus points if I can achieve this while inspiring them to live joyfully, empower them with new perspectives and make them laugh at the same time.

After earning a BFA in Acting from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and a decade of experience teaching yoga across the globe, I developed a knack—a super power, if you will—for making people feel like they belong within live experiences. Specifically, creating community engagement by making wellness events more interactive and playful. So, it was no surprise (to some more than others) that in 2017 I married my lifelong passions of storytelling and mindful movement to establish my first claim to fame: Drunk Yoga®—breaking the rules of yogic convention by infusing it with the social ritual of a happy hour.

As Drunk Yoga® grew to international acclaim, I discovered how to translate the very same theatrical devices I use to make yoga feel like a party into a methodology to create authentic communities, cultivate deeper connections, and inspire sustainable belonging.

Enter: The Uplift Center, where I teach my methodology to other belonging-curious facilitators like you!

Eli walker

In the press

“It is precisely this dogmatic tendency that Eli would like to challenge: ‘We are creating a safe space here for lots of fun. Here the yogis can let go completely, not take themselves and others too seriously. And above all: not to take yoga too seriously.’”
“Eli Walker, founder of the sessions, told Popsugar, ‘Drunk Yoga, which involves adding wine to a beginner yoga sequence in class that takes place in a bar, was just another idea I had to make yoga more accessible and less intimidating to a certain population who might not otherwise try yoga at all.’”
“‘It’s OK if you spill,’ says Drunk Yoga creator Eli Walker, 29, an actress and yogi who created the trademarked yoga brand in 2017.”
“Eli Walker, the yoga instructor who one day realized that the disinhibition of the bar was what it took to make people feel comfortable in yoga class”.
“Walker’s final rule for Drunk Yoga is that ‘you have to have fun and be happy by the time you leave.’”
“Walker’s manifesto is unlike any other how-to-yoga guidebook on the shelf, because not only does it pair the Ayurvedic practice with alcohol, it’s also layered with jokes and stories to really hone in on her overall message: that life on its own is hard enough, but yoga doesn’t have to be.”
“She wanted to create a safe atmosphere for newbies and veterans alike to make new friends over a glass of wine and just lighten the f*ck up about yoga.”
“Eli Walker founded Drunk Yoga because it meshed with her love for the practice and served as a reminder to never stop playing.”
“…it's actually more about the experience than it is about losing weight and as Walker says, 'Happiness is health.’”
“Drunk Yoga? The term itself feels like an oxymoron. But ever since Eli Walker founded her casual, pretense-free, wine-fueled yoga classes back in 2017, Drunk Yoga has become a full-on movement.”
“This roving series aims to lift your spirits and create community around the potent union of yoga and social ritual…”
“…yoga instructor Eli Walker decided to open up a “Drunk Yoga” series to help beginning yogis relax with the idea that your body will become more flexible with some liquid courage…”
“Eli said it best: ‘When you’re playing with your body in time and space in a new way, surrounded by friends in a bar with a glass of wine, it’s hard not to enjoy yourself.’”
“In addition to yoga, she [Walker] teaches storytelling workshops for kids and adults that combine movement and theater.”
“Still, while you'll probably get more out of yoga's focus on mindfulness with a clear head, Walker says whatever gets you to your mat is good enough for her.”
“Walker, 28, said she believed a jolt of liquid courage could help to make yoga more enjoyable for those too nervous to tackle it. “
‘‘That said, every yogi who has tried the class, and/or knows me personally, understands my mission has integrity, and my class is safe, effective and fun for the population of people I’m targeting,’ Walker says.”
“‘I've been a yoga teacher and a performer for a long time, and an entrepreneur at heart,’ Eli Walker – the woman behind the trend – told me when I approached her for this story.”
Rule-breaking performance artist, speaker and facilitator & founder to help you rewrite the narrative.

My renegade empire

UplifTV

Eli’s online library of yoga videos designed to help you ritualize and embody a sense of belonging for yourself, your people and your purpose.
With curated Katonah Yoga®-style asana, breathwork and meditation digital classes, consider UplifTV your personal belonging buddy, here to recharge you with like-minded community-cultivators, refine your relationship with your body, and reignite a passion for engaging in the world around you with joy, curiosity and ease.
Learn more
Eli Walker

“

Eli has found a spirited way to introduce people to the magic of a yoga practice through community and camaraderie work. Her techniques are fun, sneaky, effective and effervescent.

- Nevine Michaan

CREATOR OF KATONAH YOGA®
Eli Wlaker smiling to the camera with a glass of wineDrunk Yoga book
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of my projects

Drunk Yoga®

At Drunk Yoga®, we connect communities and cultivate joy through fun, interactive yoga experiences.

So…what’s “drunk” about Drunk Yoga®? Only the way in which we “intoxicate” the convention of traditional yoga by making our events social and interactive. We do this by infusing uplifting games and icebreakers into our beginner-friendly classes with beverage in-hand—often wine, sometimes juice or coffee, and always fun. We invite you to let your hair down and enjoy this potent union of yoga and social ritual. Learn more. #namasteresponsibly
Book Eli for your next eventOr check out my at-home yoga videos

Social Impact

Empowering Girls in Ghana, Africa through community-based theater in partnership with the West African Youth Empowerment Organization in Kokrobite (W.A.Y.E.O.K.)

After a 2021 volunteer trip where she taught theater, meditation and sexual health workshops to school-aged girls in Kokrobite, a small fishing village in West Ghana, Eli continues to partner with a local youth organizations to facilitate community-based theater productions that promote awareness of gender inequality, as well as offer young women the opportunity to find their voice through performative storytelling. 
get involved

Want some tools for your joyful toolbox?
Get the best-selling Drunk Yoga® book: "50 Wine & Yoga Poses to Lift Your Spirit(s).

Buy it now on Amazon.

As featured in the New York Post, the International Business times, Refinery29, Glamour, ELLE, POPSUGAR, INSIDER Fitness, the Gothamist, and more...

Indulge in fun and laughter with the official Drunk Yoga® book by Eli Walker, the rebel behind the viral Drunk Yoga phenomenon!

Drink wine. Do yoga. Be happy.
Book Eli for your next event

One-Woman Shows

Eli writes and performs shows that inspire women to overcome the power structures that hold them back.

Eli has been an avid monologuist since age 8, when she wrote her first one-woman show--a feminist adaptation of the classic "Little Red Riding Hood." At 16, she uncovered a copy of Lily Tomlin's "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe," memorized it and performed it for anyone who would listen. Eli's previous original one-woman shows performed in NYC include "STEPS," produced at Wings Theatre in 2010, "COUNTING," at NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing in 2011 and "The Quarter-Life Crisis Monologues," at the PIT in 2017. Stay tuned for her next one-woman show entitled, "Kill the Buddha," directed by Jonathon Libman.
Book Eli for your next event

YOGA, BUT MAKE IT FUN.™

At-home yoga videos for everyone, everywhere. Connect to yourself, your body and to others in a whole new way through non-traditional yoga experiences.

buy or rent your next yoga party now.
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Performance & Informance

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Community engagement arises when belonging is felt.

Contact is currency.

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