The World’s Oldest Yoga Instructor: ‘I Have No Intention Of Ever Growing Up’
Many of us millennials struggle to make it to one yoga class, let alone teach eight of them in a week.
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Tao Porchon-Lynch, however, has no problem getting up in the morning and stretching it out. And she’s 98. (What’s your excuse?)
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The senior Master Yoga instructor from Westchester County, New York, was named the World’s Oldest Yoga Teacher by the Guinness Book of World Records back in 2012, and is showing no signs of slowing down.
In addition to yoga, she recently discovered her love of ballroom dancing at age 90, and even published a book about the experience called Dancing Light.
Porchon-Lynch says it all began in 1926, back when “girls didn’t do yoga.”
“I saw boys on the beach making shapes with their bodies and thought it was a new game,” she told ABC News. “My aunt said it was, ‘Yoga and unladylike,’ and I said, ‘If boys can do it, I can do it.’”
Aside from keeping active, Porchon-Lynch credits mindfulness, meditation and regular hand and feet exercises for her longevity.
“My life is my meditation. I’ll stop my car and watch a flock of geese go by,” she said. “At night, I often do a shoulder stand to reverse the circulation in my legs and I massage my hands and feet to move the energy. You age when the energy stagnates in your hands and feet.”
So what’s next for this robust 97-year-old on the go?
“I’m going to teach yoga until I dance my way to the next planet,” she said.
Are you feeling inspired yet?