Yoga to the beat

I like going clubbing. And I enjoy my weekly yoga classes. But I've never seen any reason to combine these two things.

So when I was invited to enjoy a night of 'healthy hedonism' at the Cobden Club in Westbourne Park, involving yoga, a DJ and a live tabla player, I'll admit I went along full of cynicism.

Only in West London could you throw some beats at a yoga class and charge £27 for it, I sneered.

I was late, arriving breathless and hassled after a Tube delay. But I had to admit that the flickering nightlights on the staircase leading up to the room where Yogabeats is held were soothing.

And walking in to the room itself, with its gentle music, candles, fairy lights and pretty projected visuals, was like stepping into a warm bath.

But a yoga class is only ever as good as its teacher - and David Sye is the reason Yogabeats attracts everyone from ultra-fit yoga addicts to clumsy beginners, such as myself.

Sye is 43, but looks 10 years younger and can do things with his body I've only seen done before in the circus.

But this is not his talent. Keeping up a relaxed, almost hypnotic commentary throughout, his skill is that he made everyone feel comfortable in their own bodies, celebrating our differences and encouraging us all to go as far as we could - but not a fraction further.

The DJ followed his movements and tempo perfectly, starting with calm, meditative sounds then picking up the pace in the more energetic ashtanga yoga section at the end, while the tabla player was tucked up on a sofa, eyes closed, adding his own rhythms to the mix.

Even the visuals were perfectly matched - live - to his voice.

Perhaps it was the relaxing effect of the music. Perhaps it was Sye's clear but playful instructions and his constant reminders to listen to and enjoy our bodies, but I found myself in a couple of positions I'd never dream of even trying in a normal class.

And instead of feeling embarrassed when I lost my balance and went tumbling, I simply laughed, got up and tried again. The two-and-a-half hours flew by and, surprisingly, the next day there was no stiffness at all.

'Why does yoga have to be sacrosanct silence, with everyone trying to be silent and spiritual? Why can't it be happy and joyful and lots of fun?' said Sye, a few days later.

'When you get too serious with your body, the muscles get tight, the chemicals respond. You can measure it.

'The body is an amazing pharmacy, and we make all the right type of drugs. So when you're doing yoga and you're having a good time, you're making some fantastic drugs.

'That's why a lot of people who come to me go from taking drugs to cleaning up their act. It's a lot cheaper - and it's legal.'

The son of singer Frankie Vaughan, Sye got into yoga 20 years ago, while suffering from a serious illness.

In desperation he turned to channel clearing - a Tibetan form of yoga healing - and it worked. 'I felt so healthy and well, I just wanted to stay with that feeling,' he says, explaining that he doesn't do yoga out of self-denial. 'I do it because I get extremely happy and high from it.

'I get a lift from it that I don't get from anything else. And everybody wants to feel that way. If we can't find it naturally, we'll find it any way we can.'

Ten years ago, he was working as a radio journalist in Belgrade. Most of the station's staff left when war broke out in Yugoslavia, but he had a girlfriend in the city and he stayed on, running the station and practising his yoga to music to drown out the sound of gunfire.

'War is an amazing master, because you don't know how long you're going to be here for. This may be the only day you've got. So my attitude towards yoga became very different.

'It wasn't so much about getting a perfect posture, or what I might achieve in a week or a month. It was, "I've got to feel good today. I need to feel great now."' His yoga changed, and he began incorporating movement within the classic postures, shifting to wherever his body felt it wanted to settle.

Two other things came of his time there. Every time he felt he'd cheated death he had a new tattoo, returning to the UK with a body he cheerfully likens to a patchwork quilt. 'I think we're all tattooed, on the inside,' he explains.

'Life tattoos us. I just happen to wear those incidents on the outside.'

He also decided that if he survived the war, afterwards he'd make his living purely by teaching yoga.

Which was not an easy task in the UK in the mid-Nineties, especially when his use of music and movement led the established community to shun him. 'They said I was a lunatic,' he laughs.

'But my classes were full of people who'd never usually go to a yoga class. And seven years on, I'm now being acknowledged by the yoga community as one of the top 10 teachers in the country.'

After his session at the Cobden, vegetarian food is served, the mats are rolled away and the room becomes a more conventional chill-out club.

At the bar I met a couple of people I haven't seen since the heady, ecstasy-fuelled nights of acid house, and one of them had the same beatific grin -caused, this time, by a session with one of the massage therapists.

We agreed that enjoying a night like this was a sign of getting older. But when it's this much fun, who cares?

Yogabeats, Cobden Club, 170-172 Kensal Road, W10 (020-8960 4222). Sun 1 Feb , 6pm-11.30pm, £27, includes vegetarian meal and chill-out club.

David Sye runs yoga events all over London. Visit www.yogabeats.com for details.