The word yogi conjures different images: an Indian practitioner of an ancient art; a famous Yankee catcher; a resident of Jellystone Park. Yogi is also associated with a woman whose life proves that, despite advanced age, one can still dance with the stars.
The latest breed of star to emerge from social media is the “yogalebrity”—young, lithe, Lycra-clad—who appears in body-contorting poses. But there is one who is an exception to this trend: a 100-year-old who, unlike the majority of these water-bottle-toting, sheathed-in-athletic-wear yogis, is a centenarian who rocks big earrings, brightly colored nails, and sky-high heels (except when doing yoga), and whose beverage of choice comes in red and white.
Tao Andree Porchon was born two months prematurely on a ship in the middle of the English Channel. Her mother, who was from India, died giving birth. Her French father entrusted Tao to his brother and moved to Canada to start a horse ranch. Tao grew up in Pondicherry, India, bilingual in French and Hindi, where her uncle, a follower of Hindu monk Swami Vivekananda, raised her on a vegetarian diet and the principles of his guru. She recalled that he “instilled in me a sense of freedom and curiosity to explore the energy in all things and in myself.” His engineering job entailed building railroad systems throughout Asia and Africa, and his niece accompanied him, meeting Maasai tribesmen and Singapore merchants.
While her uncle encouraged her, others tried to extinguish her flame. At age eight, Tao was at the beach and spotted a group of boys contorting their bodies. She thought they were playing a game and wanted to join in the fun. Her aunt replied that they were practicing yoga, and such movements were “unladylike.” Tao’s rejoinder was if the boys could do it, she could do it as well. Another memorable occurrence took place when Tao was twelve; she came home and saw a little man sitting on the floor, and to her surprise, everyone was bowing to him. The stranger was Mohandas Gandhi, and a few months later, she and her uncle joined the Mahatma on his Salt March to the Sea, undertaken to wrest India from the yoke of the British Empire.
During the World War II years, Tao left for France after her uncle came under the Nazi radar for hiding British and French expatriates. There she met another aunt who initiated her into the world of wine and the Resistance. Tao helped her relative hide Jews in the cement wine vats at the Porchon vineyard in the Rhone Valley. On one of these missions, the Germans captured her partner, Joel Le Tac, who ended up in a concentration camp. Fearing she was next, Tao fled to England, where she continued the fight by working with General Charles de Gaulle. Despite the bombing of London, she worked in a nightclub, performing Indian dances for American troops, and befriending Marlene Dietrich and Noel Coward. Her seventeen-inch waist and impressive gams, described by the press as “the longest legs in Europe,” were attributes that helped her obtain work as a model for Chanel.
In 1948, Porchon toured the United States, signed a contract with MGM, and hobnobbed with Hollywood honchos such as Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Marilyn Monroe, and Fred Astaire. When Debbie Reynolds and Shirley MacLaine asked her to teach them yoga, she realized she had found her calling and returned to India where she resided for seventeen years to master the ancient art. The man known as the godfather of modern fitness, Jack LaLanne, gave Porchon her first paying job as an instructor.
In 1963, while travelling in New York, Tao’s friend introduced her to insurance agent Bill Lynch. Although they had led very different lives, a commonality was their love of vino, and in 1967, they founded the American Wine Society. (Tao drinks only two beverages, tea and wine.) The couple settled in Hartsdale, New York, and, being childless, they focused on civic commitment. Bill died in 1982 in a motorcycle accident, and his grieving widow, left without relatives, threw herself into her career and founded the Westchester Institute of Yoga. At age 100, she gives classes up to twenty hours a week and has trained over three hundred instructors. Unfortunately, after three hip-replacement surgeries, she can no longer demonstrate all the poses. Due to her injuries, her doctor explained that her yoga days were a thing of the past. Undaunted, she completed physical therapy, and afterward mailed her physician a photo of herself in a raised lotus pose. She explained, “What you put in your mind materializes. I don’t believe in fear and don’t allow my mind to dwell on the negative.”
News of the elderly yogi renowned for her suppleness and stamina spread, and workout guru Jane Fonda became an admirer. In class, Tao cuts a glamorous figure, and between adjusting a student’s back or fine-tuning a hand position, she weaves tales from her colorful life, such as the time she was in attendance at Dr. King’s historic address. One afternoon, at her studio, she recalled that when she had first arrived in London, her English was poor, and Noel Coward, in a Henry Higgins vein, taught her to repeat, “I presume that your presumptions are precisely incorrect, your sarcastic insinuations too obnoxious to be appreciated.” The encounter between the playwright and Ms. Porchon-Lynch had taken place forty years earlier. When class ends, Tao hurries from the studio—her appointment book is always full—a colorful vision in bright stretch pants, slinky top, and peep-toe high heels, and takes off in her gray Smart Car. When she is not teaching, she pursues her other passion, competitive ballroom dancing. In one event, her Tango partner was a twenty-two-year-old, and her Cha Cha partner was twenty-nine. Teresa Kay-Aba Kennedy, a co-author of a biography of Porchon-Lynch, Dancing Light: The Spiritual Side of Being Through the Eyes of a Modern Yoga Master, remarked that, although she is fifty years younger than her friend, Tao’s schedule exhausts her. The two women had travelled to California where the grande dame of yoga had headlined an event for Athleta, an athletic-wear company owned by Gap, at its store at the Grove in Los Angeles, where she also did a photo shoot. As a very rare elderly star on the yogalebrity circuit, she carries exceptional marketing potential. Athleta also featured Porchon-Lynch in its catalog for its “Power of She” campaign. Nancy Green, the company’s president, stated, “Tao aligns perfectly with our mission. We are working hard to break stereotypes of what youth and wellness mean.”
Tao’s students have become her surrogate family, and her career took off because of them. Joyce Pines, a retired schoolteacher, applied to the Guinness World Records, and in 2012, Mrs. Porchon-Lynch became “The Oldest Living Yoga Teacher.” Another pupil hired photographer Robert Sturman, whose work focuses on yogis, including unexpected practitioners such as prison inmates and wounded veterans, to do a photo shoot of Tao in Central Park. True to form, she showed up in a red flamenco dress and high heels. When Sturman questioned her choice to wear stilettoes in a park, she told him that is the only kind of shoe she wears, because they “help elevate her consciousness” and because she has a very pronounced arch. As a perk of his profession, Mr. Sturman, in Sir Walter Raleigh fashion, got to carry her through the muddy grass. He posted images of the occasion on his Facebook account that went viral. Kelly Kamm, a yoga instructor, shared her opinion as to the reason behind Ms. Porchon-Lynch’s celebrity status: “It’s like being a rock star; it’s a one in a hundred-thousand chance. I think that people were so hungry for someone to look up to who wasn’t a young, skinny, blond yogi in a bra top. Then came Tao.” With her social media cred firmly established, Mrs. Porchon-Lynch is fielding invitations to yoga festivals from Bosnia to Dubai. She gave a class to fifteen thousand people in Times Square and released a DVD. Joann Burnham, a founder of the annual Nantucket Yoga Festival, states, “At this point, you can’t have a yoga festival and not invite Tao. Being in her presence and seeing the expectations of what someone would think about someone her age and seeing all those expectations squashed is so incredible.” Tao also works with the United Nations to bring more yoga into the world, and in 2011, she attended a world peace summit.
Tao is no stranger to the small screen. In 2015, Porchon-Lynch performed the samba and salsa to a standing ovation on America’s Got Talent. Her partner, Vard Margaryn, was seventy years her junior, and the YouTube video garnered nearly one million views. Howard Stern, a judge on the show, called the performance “too mind-blowing for words.” Tao recalled of the event, “My partner was seventy years younger than me, and he was throwing me around his neck!” A subsequent dance partner is even younger: Anton Bilozorov said, “I teach her about dance and she teaches me about life.” Two years later, Carl Reiner showcased her on his HBO documentary If You’re Not in the Obit, Eat Breakfast, which showed that depression does not have to walk hand in hand with those born before the Great Depression. Some guests were crooner Tony Bennett, actress Betty White, and yoga enthusiast Tao Porchon-Lynch. A non-fictional Peter Pan, Tao stated that, in her heart, she is forever in her twenties and has no intention of ever growing up.
In contrast to the show that celebrates the positive, Tao has encountered those who are ready to throw in the proverbial towel. She recalled an experience where a room full of seniors viewed the prospect of attempting yoga with a defeatist attitude. They were all sitting around, hunched over with despair, when she pranced in, wearing high heels, and asked if they were going to join her. Their response? “What? At our age!?” They were her juniors by many years. Porchon-Lynch’s philosophy, “You haven’t seen enough of this earth and there is a lot more to see that is beautiful.”
Embraced by big names in the spirituality world, Tao met Deepak Chopra in 2011 when he took part in a panel discussion with the Dalai Lama. Tao, who had been sitting in the audience, and is not of the shrinking-violet ilk, introduced herself. Dr. Chopra said, “All these gurus from India who have come and gone—Pattabhi Jois, Iyengar—she has met them all. It’s incredible. Even His Holiness was totally impressed by her.” Chopra hosted her for a Facebook chat, and within a day, the video had received 115,000 views and 1,500 shares.
Tao sums up her secret to her longevity as adhering to a diet where she never eats anything that once lived, and grabbing life with octopus hands. She says, “When you believe in something go and do it. Don’t spend your time on useless thoughts and say, ‘I’ll do it tomorrow.’ Tomorrow never comes.” Ms. Porchon-Lynch, a poster child for being a kick-ass senior, proves that age does not mean taking a back seat to life. In recognition of her unstoppable spirit, let’s make a toast—-compliments of The American Wine Society—to the yogi who interacted with more icons than Forrest Gump and gets men to carry her over rough patches: Namaste.