Extraordinary and Joyful Yoga in London
I was introduced to Yoga Beats with David Sye through my first yoga teacher. The first time I met David was when my friend and I were driven by him to his Tuesday night class. We drove in his jeep listening to Jazz as David talked about being authentic and not getting bogged down in other people’s shit and that we are here to love being ourselves. I found it a bit pretentious at first but after doing his class I realized that he really means it, and not only that but this is a man who lives by what he teaches. David started teaching Yoga in an incredibly interesting circumstance. To quote from David’s website:
‘In 1990 he (David) moved to Yugoslavia to work as a Radio journalist on a non-political radio station, whilst also teaching Yoga to classes in Belgrade. Circumstances conspired to the point where he found himself caught up in the middle of the Bosnian war. This resulted in the emergence of his own unique practice, a style of Yoga, born out of an environment where the possibilities of death and (the stress of this) were always close at hand. He began teaching Yoga and in his classes he used music to drown out the conflict. All of his classes used music which he initiated primarlity to drown out the sound of the conflict, both “overt” and “covert”.’
What has resulted is the most uplifting Yoga class you can imagine, done to hip hop and Jazz. David takes regular asanas or postures and makes them fluid and playful. David is well known for starting a class by saying “Can I tell you a secret? I don’t like Yoga. I’m so bored of it. But what I love is having a great time. Do you wanna have a great time?” Through the class you will go from deep relaxation to jumping around, shaking the body out to Beyonce, to assisting someone in a back bend and then finally resting again. As you’re doing this David will be cracking jokes, reminding you how not to take life too seriously, that you’re here to have a good time and enjoy being you. I remember in the first class I went to he said: “What date is it today?” Someone replied and he continued: “Oh my God! June the 23rd?! I’ve been waiting all year for this date! I can’t believe it! It’s now!” and then if that wasn’t enough he reminded us of all the people in hospital or all the dead people who don’t have bodies any more to enjoy right now. It’s not a gimmick, he wouldn’t be able to do it at this level of energy for this long if it was, he really means it and you feel it. I don’t want to say any more so as not to ruin the experience but this is without a doubt the most unique teacher and Yoga class in London if not the world. David is a man unto himself, someone who achieved all the ‘advanced’ postures and realized that the only real important things are love and enjoying being you (he recently famously gave a lecture entitled ‘the absurdity of advanced postures’ which wound a lot of people up!) This is what he teaches and he teaches it well! He teaches most Tuesday evenings in Abbey Road at 7:30pm. Make sure you go there to meet this dude for yourself and experience Yoga in no way you’ve ever experienced it before.
