ABOUT FRANKIE | Mysite

FRANKIE WALKER

A fluid and embodied practice which challanges and nourishes.

Teaching since 2008 Frankie is one of the U.K's Senior Yoga Teachers.

Frankie has been leading classes and workshops at some of London's top studios, delivering courses in yoga and offering a Somatic Yoga Training.

Regular classes currently cover different styles and paces: from challenging flow to slower and more reflective, therapeutic classes, so you can find one that suits you.

Expect playful and innovative sessions with knowledge, creativity and exploration. Classes are infused with warmth, encouragement and a deep understanding of the postures, practices and philosophy of Yoga.

Frankie has specialised in teaching pregnancy and post-natal yoga, Scaravelli inspired yoga and somatic approaches to yoga and movement.

She is known for her 1:1 work, in the post-natal field, with performers and with those rehabilitating from injury and surgery.

She has worked for many years with adults affected by autism, delivered several programs of low cost yoga at community centres and in housing association venues across London and has worked on many occasions with young people and children.

Several years after beginning a regular yoga practice her initial training was immersed in an ashram on one of her visits to India, a country she has spent many years in. She has been teaching full time ever since.

Over the years Frankie has found many incredible teachers, traditional and non-traditional, to continue her practice with and she continues to be influenced by the work of Vanda Scaravelli, somatic movement and embodiment practices and is currently a student of Body-Mind centring with EmbodyMove UK. Building on her background in Ashtanga and Iyenger methods she now focus's on intelligent alignment in line with functional anatomy and freedom and embodiment within the practice.

Having originally trained as an Artist, specialising in performance, contemporary dance and movement and performance writing, Frankie has worked within the creative field for over 20 years. Her work has found her in the UK, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, India and Australia working as a live performer, dancer, artist, director and facilitator. She bring this unique flavour of curiosity and playfulness to her approach to teaching.

Her interest is in the way we relate to ourselves , how we can be inquisitive and aware of our experience. How we can become interested in what sits under our skin, under our usual movements, under our day to day patterning. How beneath the uniqueness of each of us there is some sort of universality to, in moments, be experienced and nourished by.

testimonials

TESIMONIALS

Private & Studio

clients.

I've had four weekly sessions of movement therapy with Frankie following back surgery, towards the end of my recovery. The whole experience has been hugely beneficial, Frankie took the time to completely gain an understanding of what was going on for me physically and fine tune her treatment to everything I had going on. Frankie's knowledge and confidence on the subject of the body and movement as therapy is outstanding and so interesting to witness as a client, I learnt so much! Some of the improvements were instant and others I have to build on myself.

Frankie left me with exercises to go away with so that I can continue my recovery at home and I'm confident in her instruction to do so.

Following my four sessions I treated myself to a day retreat with Frankie, a day of yoga and somatic movement. The whole day was pure luxury and more learning, spending so many hours focused on only the body is quite an experience.

I thoroughly recommend Frankie as both a yoga instructor and practitioner and look forward to working with her again some time.

Joanna Houseman

I found Frankie after a car accident in search of a gentle way of mobilizing my body again. Although I was not seriously injured I had lost confidence in moving and stretching. Through 1:1 classes Frankie guided me through some very daring postures and taught me to trust and listen to my body and what it needed.

These sessions have enabled me to attend classes and feel sure I can try things without further injury which is what I wanted. However I have got so much more from Frankie's teachings. I've found a way of weaving peace into a very full and busy life and I feel sure yoga will be a part of my life forever now.

I'd recommend lessons from Frankie to everyone. She's knowledgeable, genuine, experienced and delivers the theory with enough tongue and cheek to allow me to indulge in it all without fear of seeming pretentious. she doesn't care if you're not dressed in the right gear or don't know what a yoga strap is. She is the original 'pop up' yoga teacher and I'm extremely pleased I found her.

Nadia Paczuska - Head Teacher

Frankie's gentle explorative approach is both supportive and encouraging, she assists you to experimentally understand how fluids in your body affect movement and affect sensation. The approach is refreshing and welcome in a world where focus is often on the musculature of the body. I found it to be very grounding and made some learnings through these sessions that continue to live on and grow in new ways all the time in my physical yoga practice and in my life.

Lisa Carmody - British Wheel of Yoga accredited Yoga Teacher

Frankie is a teacher of vast integrity and understanding. She lives the practice and so brings not only a deep practical knowledge but the ability to translate that knowledge into a map, a pathway for me to practice with. I find myself able to follow the vision and philosophy of yoga and emerge, always, empowered, deepened and opened when I practice with her.

Eleanor Buchan - Storyteller, Performer & Teacher

Frankie is a lovely teacher - highly experienced and knowledgeable, generous and down to earth. Her classes are relaxing, challenging and restorative and have made such a huge difference to how I feel in body and mind.

Melissa Herman

Thank you to Frankie for a dream-like Scaravelli-inspired yoga workshop last night. My experience was poetic. We made fantastical physical forms, like sea creatures, shadows on the wall, were treated to story telling and rich visualisation. I entered another realm for an evening.

Charlotte Preston - Yoga Teacher

Frankie is a brilliant combination of kindness, rigour, challenge and patience. She understands that everybody is a different person and every day is a different day so no session is every going to be the same for you. Her approach is holistic and detailed and I admire the way she constantly challenges her own practice and brings new discoveries to each session.

Jennifer Tan

Frankie is calm and precise when she guide us through the world of yoga. What's special about her classes is that suits perfectly people on a performing arts career as it gives tools that you can incorporate in your everyday practice as a performer. As a Butoh dancer myself and after one year of attending Frankie's classes I have discovered a wide range of my body's potentials across space and time

Eliza Soroga

I've been going to Frankie's classes for the past five years and cannot recommend her teaching highly enough. Frankie has a calm and focused approach - combined with her warmth as a person and knowledge of yoga and the body, this creates an incredibly peaceful, personal and inspiring practice. A very talented instructor.

Kathryn Partridge

q&a

Q & A -THE WELL GARDEN

London Yoga Studio.

Q :What inspired you to become a yoga teacher?

F : After practicing yoga for many years and travelling in India many times I found myself standing on the banks of the great river Narmada watching a Yoga Sadhu practice at sunrise (whilst i had a terrible case of dysentery). This moment stayed with me, helping me unpack my own experiences of practice; a sense of contentment, the sense of balance between agency and acceptance, a kind directing of the will and perhaps a willingness to meet self. It became clear the refuge that the safe space of my practice had offered me over the years. A couple of years of travel and work later I went to live in an ashram to begin to study and eventually teach yoga in the hope that some of the great and very relevant benefits could be shared.

Q :What do you love most about teaching?

F : I love the courage of people who come to practice. That might be the challenge of a physical posture, it might be the release of some emotion through the practice or it might be learning to approach themselves and life in a different way. I love to sit with a group of people who are not trying to be anything other than themselves. To be with the beautiful, turbulent and vibrant experience of living and moving.

Q : Who are your classes aimed at?

F : Every Every Everybody! I believe that everyone can practice yoga and that it' my job as a teacher to make these practices available to everyone.
Yoga, for me, is an endless journey of discovery. It's a vessel which can hold me in all of my complex and colourful emotions and constantly connect me to my body, my breath and therefore to this moment. Yoga is an ancient tool which can connect us back to a more primary way of being, allowing for a deep reorganisation. It allows us to let go, to breathe and to see ourselves and our lives with a clarity, in doing this we often find that old habits and conditioning begin to fall away.

Q : How has yoga changed your outlook on life?

F : Yoga has definitely changed my outlook on life, it's given me the understanding that I have the power to decide how I move through this world and it's given me the strength and flexibility, both physical and mental, to weather the storms. It's also taught me that if I feel something the likelihood is that you feel it too, there is something not only reassuring about that but that develops a real sense of empathy and compassion. I teach from my own practice, I only teach what I experience in my own body and being and in this way we connect.

Q: What do you find is the most difficult thing about yoga?

F :All sorts of things at different times! Sometimes finding time to practice in a busy life of London, working, mothering etc. Getting on my mat if i'm in physical or mental discomfort, letting go of wanting to be able to do a posture because i've seen someone else do it! It's the most delicious thing when the body opens and almost spontaneously does a complex posture but its torture when you're trying to attain or chase a goal that feels out of reach.

Q :Have you been to any yoga retreats, events or festivals that you would recommend to your students?

F :My friend and colleague Catherine Annis offers wonderful retreats and intensives in Scaravelli inspired yoga, I hugely recommend her.

I also highly recommend London based teachers: Aki Omori, Tanya Love, Tim Cummins, John Stirk and Leila Sadagee to name just a few.

ASANA LAB - TRIYOGA

London Yoga Studio.

Warrior One

A good way to start is to stand feet hip distance apart, heels dropped in line with the ball and socket joints of the theighbones to pelvis.

Step one foot back to as longer pace as you feel comfortable in, the front knee will bend now. Try keeping the hip distance width between the feet and think about the outside edges of the feet staying paralell. The base may seem broard and slightly shorter than usual in order to keep the back heel down, the broardness will lend a stability which may bring some more freedom into the exploration of the pose.

I find it helpful to glance down at the back foot and spin the heel out if i find (which i often do) that the back foot is not paralell the the edge of the mat.

Have a look at the front knee, it will make for a happier long term practice if the knee follows the line of the second and third toes, or even the third and forth toes for some of us. Imagine the hip knee ankle and middle toes were on a train track. Another thing to observe is keeping the knee above the ankle, if yours tracks further forwards you may need to lengthen your stride slightly.

Feel how the hips square to the wall in front of you and then lean the weight of the upper body forwards ever so slightly, as if you were making a long line from base of the back of the head to the back heel bone.

Can you imagine that you are pouring the weight of the head down the spine, along the back leg and out through the back heel, like a cascade of water.

Maybe it feels good to raise the arms, drifting them soft and wide into the air avove you and slightly forwards of your face. I like to turn my palms to face each other and shrug my shoukders away from the ears, this helps me find space and ease in the shoulders. I imagine it like taking an old fashioned landline phone off the hook, for those of you who remember that!

You might enjoy the grounding as the weight cascades from the upper body down the spine and out through the back heel.

We could also add a direction to the back heel bone, rolling this large round (ish) heel bone back and down into the ground behind you. The bone rolling back and away deeply into the ground.Back and down and away. You might find that the spine recieves a ripple that feels opening through the joints and discs. Perhaps the upper body unravels into a more upright position as it in turn recieves the opening beginings of the backbend here. Perhaps there are other sensations, other observations that draw you deeper into the practice.

When you decide to step the feet parallel take some time to feel the difference between the two sides of the body and effects that you may notice. Then explore the other side.

Thanks for reading, I hope its sowed some seeds.