By Rachel Lankester, Mutton Club Editor
“There is nothing you cannot do,” Tao Porchon-Lynch
Tao Porchon-Lynch, officially the world’s oldest yoga teacher having broken the record when she was just 93, was an inspiration. Sadly she died in 2020 at the age of 101. Just look what she could do in the video! She was born in Pondicherry in India in 1918 and her father was French and her mother Indian.
At age eight she witnessed a group of young boys doing yoga on a beach. Despite yoga being restricted to boys then, she was determined to do the amazing poses they could do and she began practising.
After school she worked as a model and became a cabaret performer in London during the second World War. When the war ended she moved the US and got a job as an actress. She abandoned acting in 1967 and became a full time yogi, setting up the Westchester Institute of Yoga in 1982.
She took up ballroom dancing in her 80s and won several hundred first place titles in competitive dancing. You can see her dancing in her recent America’s Got Talent audition here, wowing both audience and judges. Oh, and she had three hip replacements!
In her book, Reflections. The Yogic Journey of Life, she synthesizes the most positive aspects of Indian, European and American thought, something she is uniquely positioned to do.
You can read about the time I met Tao and joined one of her yoga classes in Life Lessons From 98-Year-Old Yogi Tao Porchon-Lynch. I was so overwhelmed, I cried!
What a life and what an inspiration!
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Rachel Lankester is the founder of Magnificent Midlife, author, host of the Magnificent Midlife Podcast, a midlife mentor and editor of the Mutton Club online magazine. After an initially devastating early menopause at 41, she dedicated herself to helping women vibrantly transition through the sometimes messy middle of life, helping them cope better with menopause and ageing in general, and create magnificent next chapters. She’s been featured in/on BBC Woman’s Hour, The Huffington Post, The Sunday Times, Thrive Global, Authority Magazine, The Age Buster, Woman’s Weekly, Prima Magazine, eShe, Tatler HK and Woman’s Own amongst others. She believes we just get better with age. Get her book Magnificent Midlife: Transform Your Middle Years, Menopause and Beyond which was recommended in the New York Times.
Last Updated on January 24, 2023 by Editorial Staff
