Title: Yogabeatnic

Gender: Male

Age: Ageless

Sun Sign: Libra

Chinese Sign: Metal Rat

Location: London / LA / Israel / Palestine / Spain / Greece / Egypt

David Sye, Yoga Elder, YRT, MAYA, BSYA, NAPT , BWY

I've been practicing Yoga for over 24 years. I'm of Russian descent, the son of a scientist mother and artist father. I began my practice of Yoga as a direct result and in response to suffering from ulcerated colitis and a spastic colon. I tried Tibetan Yoga and after ten sessions the doctors could find no tumours. I felt better than I could ever remember and this completely changed the course of my life. From then on yoga became my life's focus.

In 1990 I 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 I found myself caught up in the middle of the Bosnian war. This resulted in the emergence of my practice, ‘Yogabeats'^TM, a unique style of Yoga, born out of an environment where the possibilities of death and (the stress of this) were always close at hand. I began teaching Yoga and in classes I used music to drown out the conflict. I taught soldiers Yoga often just for food and appeared on Serbian TV broadcasting Yoga across a war torn country.

From Yugoslavia I travelled to India and studied/ practiced Yoga in a variety of locations and ashrams; Varanasi, Pune (B.K.S. Iyengar), Madras (The Theosophical Society), Kovulum, Mamalapuram.

When I returned to the UK in 1995 I continued teaching Yogabeats as a distinct Yoga style in its own right, as I felt there was an undeclared war in the west, but this was a silent war, a war of stress, which decimates just as many lives as in a real war.

My studies of Yoga drew me to the work of Erich Schiffmann and David Swenson, where I expanded abilities in their fields, particularly Astanga Vinyasa. I became a great devotee of Angela Farmer's work and student (USA), as prior to this I had adopted shifting movements (micro moves), into my own practice after observing how children naturally utilise spontaneous movements when teaching them Yoga. Back in the UK I began studies of Vini Yoga (T.K.V. Desikachar). In 1997 I was personally invited by P. Jois to come to his ashram in Mysore, but at the that time I met my (now) late teacher Clara Buck and instead stayed and studied with her to the end of her life in 2004. She was a student of Krishnamacharya, BKS Iyengar and a close friend of Vanda Scaraveli, Angela Farmer and Shandor Remete.

In the past 4 years I have taught Yogabeats to the Israeli Yoga Teachers Association, the Zurich Bikhram Association, and teacher associations in Italy (Rome, Naples, Milan), the Zurich Yoga Teachers Association, Yoga Mosaic (Jewish Yoga Teachers Association). Through Yogabeats pioneering work it is now taught to Palestinians in Jericho and the Territories. For the last two years we have been having yogabeats sessions with Palestinian and Israeli women together. Its amazing. This community work is developing a life of its own and is now being recognised and acknowledged by peace makers at governmental level.

Member Since: Tuesday, April 08 2008

Last Visit: 182 days ago.

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