: From yoga to ballroom dancing, Tao Porchon-Lynch has done it all, and is not quite finished yet, at the age of 97.
Based in New York, Ms. Porchon-Lynch continues to teach yoga. She was named the oldest yoga teacher in the Guinness Book of Records in 2012, when she was 93.
She started practising yoga at the age of 8. Growing up with her uncle in Puducherry, Ms. Porchon-Lynch spent most of her childhood in this coastal town.
In an e-mail interview with The Hindu , she fondly remembers Puducherry as a place where she also first met Mahatma Gandhi and learnt the art of yoga with Sri Aurobindo.
“The memory of Puducherry which I hold very close to my heart is walking into my home, seeing someone sitting on a cushion on the floor and finding out that it was Mahatma Gandhi,” she says.
Hailing from a French family from southern France, Ms. Porchon-Lynch has travelled across the globe from the age of 12 with her uncle, who was a rail line designer.
“I live in White Plains, New York. I travel across the world. I have been to India, Montenegro, Turkey, Bali, Morocco, South America, Russia, across the United States, Canada, Prague, Hungry, England, France, Spain and Italy,” says Ms. Porchon-Lynch.
She adds: “I visited Puducherry only once. I took a young German yoga teacher back with me. I would like to visit again.”
She has had the privilege of meeting important historical figures, from Martin Luther King Jr. to Charles de Gaulle. Ms. Porchon-Lynch has learnt yoga with Sri Aurobindo, B.K.S. Iyengar and energetically imparts yoga lessons to thousands of students.
Her passion to learn new things was evident through her dancing skills in the reality show ‘America’s Got Talent’ in 2015.
“I was about to give a teachers’ training yoga programme at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio where I taught my yoga classes. It started to snow and no one turned up for the yoga class or the ballroom dance class. I was asked whether I knew dancing and I said just a little and that I would like to dance the tango before I die. They asked me why I don’t start now. Since then, I have never stopped,” she says. She has learnt bolero, tango, mambo, cha-cha, samba and swing dance.
Ms.Porchon-Lynch believes: “When you are in touch with your inner self, there is nothing you cannot do. I want to help my students to know that truth is one that’s within you. All the power of the universe can radiate through our lives.”
