JANE O'CONNELL talks to former BT engineer Derek Lucas, who found the cure for his hair loss in the yoga discipline that he now teaches

When, at just 17, Derek Lucas discovered his previously thick hair was falling out he knew something was very wrong.

Countless hospital tests failed to pinpoint the reason why he would wake up every morning with clumps of hair on his pillow, other than the vague catch-all of stress.

Yet Derek, a keen judo and karate fan, was no more under pressure than the next teenage lad.

Various treatments, including a biopsy and steroids, failed to work at all. So when western medicine failed to give him the answers he required, Derek took up yoga.

Initially he did not begin with classes but learned about the subject through reading.

He began by concentrating on inverse positions - in other words hanging from a beam and standing on his head to stimulate the blood supply to the hair follicles.

This, coupled with gentle stretching and the relaxation that he found yoga brought him, led to his hair growing back within six months.

Today, at 43, an age when many men are resigned to the Sir Bobby Charlton comb-over, Derek still retains his luxuriant locks.

After years of practising the Eastern discipline, the former BT engineer, of Hamilton Gardens, Hockley, is a full-time yoga teacher, running classes all over south Essex.

Derek is refreshingly sanguine about its benefits. It can help relieve tension and aid well-being, but should not be regarded as a cure-all.

"Yes, yoga is helpful in managing stress, but so can talking to friends be," he says, sitting on the floor, legs in the butterfly position. "People shouldn't look at it as being the be-all and end-all."

Ask him how he manages to avoid the stress of, say, being in a traffic jam and running late for an important appointment, and his answer is simple. "I'd use breathing exercises," he says. "But I'd try and avoid being there in the first place."

There is no doubt, however, that he gets an enormous amount from yoga. He practises every day apart from Sunday and says he feels out-of-sorts and stiff-limbed if he is forced to miss a day.

Demand is so great for his classes, particularly in Leigh (he operates from Leigh Sanctuary, off the Broadway), that Derek says he hopes one day to set up a teacher training centre for yoga in the Southend area with a three-year course on offer.

Another dream is to run a residential centre, based in south Essex, for anyone interested to learn more in an intensive environment.

"People seem to be seeking that little bit more," he explains. "They seem to be spiritual. I know I'm much calmer since I started."

The appeal of the discipline is such that its followers range from women anxious to keep or get fit and lose weight to sufferers of multiple sclerosis who find the gentle stretching helps ease the constant pain that is the lot of many who endure this degenerative disease.

One such follower is Eileen Wolrich, who has been attending Derek's classes at the Friday Club, a branch of the MS Society, held at the Freight House, Rochford, for about a year. Eileen, of Manchester Drive, Leigh, first developed MS in 1963 although it was nine years before she got a firm diagnosis.

Now 71, and confined to a wheelchair on outings (although she can move around the house unaided), Eileen says the weekly sessions, during which Derek sometimes helps to manipulate her legs into the correct positions, do help to ease the pain.

"It seems to relax my muscles and it's very helpful," Eileen explains. "It's so relaxing that I feel tranquillised after a class and it helps with my breathing."

As well as teaching MS sufferers, Derek runs power yoga classes, similar to those publicised by Madonna, whose honed-and-toned physique at the MTV awards in 1998 was attributed to this particularly vigorous form of the discipline.

His students range from a nine-year-old to folk well into their 80s who find yoga a good way to keep supple.

Men, too, are increasingly attracted to classes. "When I started around 19 years ago I was the only man there," says Derek. "Now I teach plenty of them."

However, his two teenage sons, Tom and Robert do not share their father's enthusiasm. "They are very involved with rugby," he grins. "But maybe one day they will come round to it."

Shapely interest - Derek Lucas with Sharron Wallington during a class

(Left) Here in spirit - Derek Lucas instructs Pat Harrison, Margaret Fitch and Sharron Wallington in the gentle art of yoga. He also runs classes in power yoga, which claims the fame for putting singing star Madonna in super shape

Pictures: ROBIN WOOSEY

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