Tao Porchon Lynch, at the grand old age of 96 years, holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest yoga teachers. She has been practicing yoga for 70 ears, and teaching it for 56 years. Lynch has been traveling the world for 45 years, giving yoga classes in France, the United Kingdom and the United States. Now though, she has settled down in New York and teaches at the Winchester Institute of Yoga, which she established 32 years ago.
“I’ve been like this since I was a child, there’s so much to do, and if we spend our time just sitting there like this, it’s not going to help at all,” Lynch has said in an interview. “Nothing’s impossible. What ever you want to do in life just tune in to know within you is the answer to everything. And just don’t let anybody tell you, ‘You know that you’re getting old.’” Lynch was born just after the end of the First World War, but was not allowed to learn yoga because it was considered inappropriate for a girl to do so back at that time.
Lynch also enjoys ballroom dancing and took it up in 2012. Before she got into the yoga teaching line, she worked in the film industry and was an actress in England, the United States and France in the 1940s and the decade that followed. She was also a scriptwriter and worked on documentaries as well.
“It’s hard to capture the essence of the ‘Tao experience’ in mere words,” says Andrea Kurtz, a student of Lynch’s in a testimonial on Lynch’s website. “What happens when you’re in her presence is the transformation of your untapped possibilities into actuality.”
Many of Lynch’s students are inspired and awe-struck by her focus. Brenda Boulas, a 70-year-old herself and a nurse, says that she has seen many nonagenarians lying in bed, unable to talk or walk, and to contrast them with Lynch’s active lifestyle is quite a shock. Lynch of course, was not the only 96-year-old teacher of yoga even a week ago, but now with the death of BKS Iyengar, she really has no competition!