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G et w ith th e
y o g a b e at
How one yogi is taking yoga as far off the mat as it can go, into conflict and war
zones and the world’s meanest streets. By David Holzer
A
t one point in my interview with yogi and creator of
Yogabeats David Sye, he says something especially
blunt and I start laughing. I tell him I’m imagining what
my editor will think when he reads some of Sye’s more
outrageous comments about modern yoga, yoga
teachers and yogis.
“Print what you want,” he says. “I don’t care.”
That strikes me as brave. Which it is, of course. But then it occurs
to me that Sye has taught yoga in Palestine and to street kids in
places like Glasgow’s notorious Easterhouse housing estate. The
possibility of putting a few yogic noses out of joint is not going to
faze him.
Sye is also a flamboyant character with a showbiz background.
His father was the singer Frankie ‘Mr Moonlight’ Vaughan. Amy
Whitehouse was a cousin. He knows the value of publicity.
But Sye is absolutely serious about what he does. While his
website might describe his Yogabeats practice as “Unapologetically
sexy, empowering and provocative”, it’s also the driver for his
humanitarian work. In late 2015, for example, Yogabeats took over“I know all about being an egomaniac.
Most yoga teachers are. That’s why I
always put myself down. There’s nothing
wonderful about me but I do things that
make me feel wonderful.”20 Palestinians from the West Bank to finish their yoga training at a
yoga retreat in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands.
As you can probably imagine, Sye is a great person to interview.
My biggest problem was choosing what to leave out.I began by asking Sye how he got into yoga.
Yoga cured me. I was dying. This was in the 1980s. I had a spastic
colon, ulcerated colitis and tumours in my colon. The medical
profession wanted to give me a colostomy bag. But I met some
Tibetan healers who said they could heal me. I got better.
I started with Tibetan yoga then moved on to Hatha, Iyengar andWorldmags.net