We did yoga with New Lynn’s 93-year-old instructor

What’s her secret? Olivia Sheehan says there isn’t one – except, perhaps, squats.

It was nearing the end of our yoga class when the teacher told us it was “time for sun salutations”. We had already stretched, strained and sweated. As a train rattled past the New Lynn gym we were in, she began bouncing through a complicated series of moves, from roll downs to runners’ lunges to downward dogs to planks, encouraging us to do the same.

One by one, more than half the class of 20 bowed out, laying back on their mats huffing and puffing. After nearly an hour and a half of free-flowing yoga poses, this teacher had found their limits. “She won’t ask you to do anything she can’t do herself,” one disciple told me before the class. This I found to be entirely true. Unfortunately, her limits were beyond mine. 

I’d come to experience an Olivia Sheehan yoga class for myself after hearing whispers. “Did you know,” those rumours suggested, “that a New Lynn yoga teacher still hosts regular classes at the age of 90?” I listened, disbelieving. I tried Googling her but couldn’t find any reference to this wonder woman. So I started cold-calling West Auckland gyms.

Soon I received confirmation from Pawan Kumar, the gym manager at Margan Avenue’s Focus Fitness. Yes, Kumar told me, there is a remarkable yoga instructor still teaching two popular active ageing classes a week, every Tuesday and Thursday. But Kumar told me my information was wrong. Sheehan is not 90 years old – she is 93. I had to know her secrets.

“Have you done yoga before?” inquired the calm, measured voice on the other end of the phone. I thought about a recent football injury that left me with a clanky knee, and my yoga mat, a lockdown purchase now in the back of the cupboard. Before I could tell her all this, Sheehan said: “You should come. My class lasts an hour and a half. You can leave whenever you want.”

I agreed, but first, I had a proposition of my own: would Sheehan join me for coffee? She suggested we meet at her favourite New Lynn cafe, so, a few days later, she parked up, walked in and greeted every customer and staff member with a smile and a wave. Sheehan tried to buy me lunch, ordered herself a salmon quiche, took a bite, then leapt up to fetch something she’d left in her car.

While Sheehan was gone, a woman sitting next to us leaned over. It was Annette, one of Sheehan’s yoga regulars. She’d heard I was a journalist and wanted me to know some things. “Olivia and her husband sailed a yacht down from America,” she told me. There were stories about flying planes, being a lifeguard, shark-spotting. Also: “She used to be a top model … beautiful, stunning.” 

My mind was already blown, then she said something that truly flummoxed me: “Olivia just had a skiing holiday.” When Sheehan returned, she confirmed she visited Cardrona last year to hit the slopes. While she was away, Sheehan’s yoga class still wanted their fix, so instead of requesting a fill-in teacher, they played a back-up recording of Sheehan’s voice.

Sheehan confirmed everything Annette had told me, and much more. She was born in America, sailed to Aotearoa with her ex-husband, and lives in Karekare Beach with views out over the water. She teaches four yoga classes a week: two in Karekare and two in New Lynn. She also volunteers every Tuesday at the Citizens Advice Bureau, where she helps people solve life issues. She also volunteers at Age Concern, which is where she was heading after our interview. 

Then there are the bees. Sheehan keeps bees, and as she was telling me about her second-favourite hobby, an actual bee buzzed in and began fluttering around her head as if it recognised her. A man sitting near us passed me a rolled up newspaper and indicated for me to squash it. Sheehan was having none of that: she leapt up, grabbed a glass and a tissue, captured the bee and set it free outside. “You can’t kill my best friends,” she said.

Sheehan then ordered us spicy chais – again, she refused to let me pay, instead using her “yoga money” – and told me more about her crazy, wild, adventurous, inquisitive life. There have been two husbands, one who, according to this Woman’s Weekly interview, pushed her off a yacht in Australia. She’s been teaching yoga since 1990, taking over from a friend. She was a psychiatric nurse until just a few years ago, giving up her profession at the age of 89. She’s been to India four times, and her last overseas trip was to Cuba. When she turns 95 in early 2028, Sheehan is planning a "huge party".

When I asked Sheehan for more detail about these stories, like dates and ages, she waved me away like she had no time for my pesky questions. It was “years and years ago,” she told me, like she was referencing another lifetime, one she wasn’t all that interested in because what she’s really interested in is today, and now, and the people around her, and the interactions she was having, and that bee, and her chai, and the joy she was getting from all of that. 

She pulled out a twin pack of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups to share with me as I sat there and soaked all this up. This didn’t resemble a life I pictured for myself at 93, when I expect various injuries, setbacks or health concerns will have left me miserable and barely able to walk – if I’m alive at all. Yet here  is a woman living a life that is in many regards fuller than my own is right now while nearly twice my age. 

I asked Sheehan why she never retired, or chose to do absolutely nothing for a bit, or why she had no desire to take it easy when she’d already accomplished so much. She stared at me for such a long time I thought I might’ve offended her. “As long as I've got it, I might as well use it," she eventually said. There was another pause, then Sheehan gave me another reason: “I can’t let people down.”

The benefits of exercise in old age are thoroughly researched and well-documented: increased fitness and energy, improved mobility and quality of life. This seems to be something you become more aware of the older you get. In the recent New Zealand Seniors Silver Dollar survey, 49 per cent of those over 50 prioritised their discretionary spending on healthcare or wellbeing, but this figure rose to 61 per cent among those aged 80+. 

Can regular exercise extend your lifespan? Again, the research points to yes – and when I asked Sheehan this, she agreed yoga plays a part in her lust for life. When I asked for the rest of her secrets, she shook her head and said there were "no secrets". Instead, she counted out some basics on her fingers: “Eat well. Exercise. Sleep well.” Also, sadly, squats are crucial, and something Sheehan does “most days”.

But it’s not always just about the exercise. Sheehan pointed to the thing we were doing – talking and enjoying each other's company – as a crucial wellbeing factor. That same Silver Dollar research says 29% of over-50s are doing less socially or for leisure than they'd like because of financial pressures, and 36%are spending less on social engagements than they were a year ago. Sheehan says socialising is too important to ever give up. She told a story about seeing a group of kids in a McDonald’s all sitting on their phones and said: “That’s so sad.”

A few days later, I pulled my yoga mat from the cupboard and carried it into a New Lynn gym. Kumar greeted me with a smile at the door, Annette gave me a cheery hello, then Sheehan introduced me to her class. There were hugs, catch-ups and laughter, with no phones in sight. Socialising was clearly a huge appeal to those who come to Sheehan’s classes. Instead of a stranger, I was greeted like I’d been going for years. On my way in, three different people told me Sheehan – the oldest person there by a decade – was an “inspiration”. 

Then Sheehan pressed play on a chill soundtrack and everyone lay on their mats. “Remember to listen to your body today. I don’t know how you feel – you do,” she said. “If I suggest something you don’t want to do or don’t think you ought to do, don’t do it. You've got choices. It’s your own body. You’ve got to live there.” For 90 minutes, she took us through a series of poses, some of which I could do and some of which I couldn’t, but all of which Sheehan did at the front of her class on her bright orange yoga mat.

After it was over, all those conversations picked up where they left off. Sheehan moved around the room, checking in with everyone. I overheard her talking to someone who, like me, was new to her class. “I loved it.My body felt like concrete. Now I feel so free," the new student said. Sheehan smiled at her and nodded. She had another convert. “You should come again,” Sheehan told her. “I’m here every Tuesday and Thursday.”