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Lilian is my teacher in Yoga and in life as she is my mum. 

I am often asked what it was like to grow up with yoga but I am the wrong person to answer that question, as I was first introduced to yoga at the age of seventeen. That was when my mum found yoga. 

We had a very loving and active life whilst I was growing up in a family of five children. Mum and Dad had both been racing cyclists and were the top riders in Yorkshire, so naturally we all had bikes as kids. We also went camping and walking regularly and were taken to swimming lessons, dancing (ballroom variety!) and gym club. It was the gymnastics that caught my attention and I continued training to the age of eighteen. 

During this time Lilian had found “TV Yoga”. She would work along to Richard Hittleman’s series each day. I think she began this as a way of keeping fit and losing weight. As I grew up I remember that she was always on a diet. Having five children in just over six years meant that she was never at her optimum size in her eyes, although not in mine. 

I remember when I was taking my A' levels that my mum and dad decided to go to evening classes for badminton and they took along my Aunt and Uncle. When they got there the badminton class was full. So mum, noticing that there was a yoga class on offer, suggested that they all join it as she assured them that it was good exercise. That was her first introduction to yoga outside the home and she was hooked. As soon as my exams were over I went to some classes with her. That was my introduction to yoga but it was only for a short time until the end of term. 

In the July following, my dad died quite unexpectedly in his sleep leaving mum with five teenagers. An event that was devastating for all of us saw my mum emerging with a greater strength as she had to “keep it all together for the sake of her children”. With our encouragement she enrolled on a teaching course with the British Wheel of Yoga and was soon qualified to teach. Lilian had by now found “Light on Yoga” and it was at a weekend seminar that she noticed a class being taught called Iyengar Yoga. The class was full but I am delighted to say that she gate-crashed the afternoon session – it was her first experience of Iyengar Yoga and there was no turning back. Before long she had found a class and was able to enrol on an Iyengar teacher training course. 

By this time I was studying at Birmingham University. I had given up my gymnastics and was a bit at sea, with no real direction in my life. My saving grace was a parcel that arrived from my mum in February 1974 – it was a copy of “Light on Yoga”. 

I began to practice twice daily, following the programme in the Appendix. When I went home mum and I would practice together and compare what we had learnt. From that time my mum has been my yoga teacher, although since she qualified, we have never lived under the same roof for more than the university holidays. I left home after graduating, as I married and moved south with my husband. 

We still talk yoga over the phone and I remember when I was taking the Intermediate Junior assessments I would ring mum on a Sunday evening for about two hours and ask her about any asanas that I was having trouble with. We regularly did the poses whilst on the ‘phone she in Bradford, me in High Wycombe and that was before we had cordless ‘phones! 

Although we have lived apart for all the time that I have been practicing yoga (now 29 years) my mum has been my teacher throughout. I have been to other teachers, notably Jeanne Maslen who trained me during the run up to the Intermediate Senior Assessments but mum has always been there for me, to give help and as the best example I could wish for. 

When my children were small, it was difficult for me to get away to regular classes, so we organised for Lilian to come down to High Wycombe three or four times each year to take classes in order that I too could have a whole day of her teaching. Often we didn’t make enough money to pay her but she said she didn’t mind if it meant that I could get a class, and that she could see her grandchildren. Those classes have continued for about fifteen years. She still visits us to teach three times each year. Perhaps you have been to one of them. 

Sheila Haswell