Lyle Povah

Lyle Povah is a musician, team building drum circle facilitator, researcher and workshop leader, as well as a yoga teacher, with particular interest in the areas of health and community building. He worked for 2 years in China and Japan, leading various therapeutic music and drum circle programs, including corporate team building sessions with IBM China and Joy International. Across 5 of 7 continents, he has utilized drumming, rhythm, the voice, and movement to promote all aspects of wellness.

Lyle offers programs at conventions, retreats, hospitals, festivals, and correctional facilities. He presents at national and international conferences, works in health care centres, eating disorder and psychiatry wards, and works with the underprivileged. He also leads yoga and drumming programs for women and men with Corrections Canada at medium and maximum security prisons.

Connect with Lyle

Lyle and his company Drumming and Health have conducted groundbreaking research into the health benefits of drumming for eating disorder patients at St. Paul’s Hospital Inpatient Eating Disorders Program. He has also worked at British Columbia Children’s Hospital one day a week for 25 years, runs programs for InspireHealth Supportive Cancer Care, and the BC Cancer Society.  Corporately, he works regularly with UBC’s Sauder School of Business and many other organizations, banks and universities.

Lyle led a drumming and rhythm motivational event for 900 attendees at Lululemon’s International Leadership Conference in Whistler, Canada, then led the week long “Embody your Expansive Spirit - a Yoga and Drumming Retreat” in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica and delivered a powerful onstage energizer performance at  for TEDxStanleyPark for 2,700 people at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Lyle has had the honour to have collaborated in this work with First Nations groups (Northwest Territories, Northern Manitoba and BC) such as the Dene, ,Stó:lō and Katzie Nations.

Lyle was part of an international team of facilitators in a week long teaching retreat in Austria, working with participants enrolled with the Wellbeing Project, a global initiative that assists social change leaders and organizations focus on inner wellness. Lyle brings transformational drumming and Kundalini yoga to this project.

As an international marathon runner, Lyle has participated in runs on the Great Wall of China, in Maui, in hometown Vancouver and in Boston, to name a few. In the Spring of 2023, our newly incorporated non-profit, the Rhythm of Life Society, in association with Drumming and Health will launch Drum Run, a running and drumming adventure tour that combines distance running from city to city throughout BC with healing Community Drum Circles in each of those communities on the tour, all to benefit local charities. https://www.drummingandhealth.com/drumrun/