A 98-Year-Old Yoga Celebrity Tells All
By KATHERINE ROSMAN NOV. 26, 2016
In the World War II years, she landed in London, having fled India after her family came under Nazi suspicion for hiding British and French expatriates. There, she said, she met Noël Coward when she was working as a dancer in nightclubs.
“I didn’t speak English that well and he taught me to say, ‘I presume that your presumptions are precisely incorrectly, your sarcastic insinuations too obnoxious to be appreciated,’” Ms. Porchon-Lynch said, sitting on a bench in the yoga room at the Fred Astaire studio. She then repeated the line, verbatim. “That was in 1940,” she said.
She joined a dance troupe that entertained soldiers in Europe, and from there made her way to Hollywood. She worked as a contract actress for M.G.M., teaching yoga to other actresses and traveling back to India when she could to study with yogis including B. K. S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois.
Wine and High HeelsWhile traveling in New York, she was introduced to an insurance salesman, Bill Lynch. They married in 1963 and eventually settled in Hartsdale, N.Y., a suburb in Westchester County. They had no children, focusing on civic involvement and drinking wine. (Together they founded the American Wine Society. To this day, Ms. Porchon-Lynch drinks only two beverages: tea and wine. She does not drink water.)
Mr. Lynch died after a motorcycle accident in 1982, and in the years that followed, Ms. Porchon-Lynch recommitted to her yoga practice. For decades, she has maintained two gigs: teaching yoga three times a week at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Hartsdale and twice weekly at the Jewish Community Center in nearby Scarsdale.
“She sees things in people they don’t see in themselves,” said Susan Douglass, 61, a trademark lawyer who began studying yoga with Ms. Porchon-Lynch in 1999. “Her students love her. She has a large band of students who would do anything for her.”
Ms. Porchon-Lynch’s career really took off thanks to the strategic thinking of a few devoted students. First, Joyce Pines, a retired schoolteacher who has become something of an attaché of Ms. Porchon-Lynch’s, applied to Guinness World Records for special designation. In 2012, Ms. Porchon-Lynch became “The Oldest Living Yoga Teacher.”
Around the same time, another student hired Robert Sturman, a photographer, to do a photo shoot of Ms. Porchon-Lynch in Central Park. Mr. Sturman’s work focuses on yogis, including many unexpected practitioners like prison inmates and wounded veterans.
Ms. Porchon-Lynch showed up for the shoot in a red ballroom dancer’s flamenco dress and high heels. He questioned her choice to wear spikes to a park, and she told him she only wears high heels. “She said they helped elevate her consciousness,” said Mr. Sturman, who ended up carrying her through the muddy park.
After the shoot, he posted images on his Facebook page. They went viral and continue to spread more than four years later. (Mr. Sturman now photographs Ms. Porchon-Lynch twice a year, and Ms. Pines maintains her accounts on Facebook and elsewhere.)
With her social media cred firmly established, Ms. Porchon-Lynch began fielding invitations to yoga festivals and retreats from Bosnia to Dubai. “I am invited all over the world!” she said.
Joann Burnham, a founder of the annual Nantucket Yoga Festival, asked Ms. Porchon-Lynch to lead workshops at the event in 2014, after she heard about her from James Miller, who had hosted her at the Iowa City Yoga Festival.
“At this point, you can’t have a yoga festival and not invite Täo,” said Ms. Burnham, who dedicates a whole weekend to “Täo workshops” at Dharma Yoga Nantucket, the studio she owns with her husband. “Being in her presence and seeing the expectations of what someone would think about someone who is 98, and seeing all those expectations squashed, is so incredible.”
Though Ms. Porchon-Lynch lives by herself, she most often travels with companions.
Ms. Douglass accompanied her on several trips to workshops in the last few years. Almost always, she said, Ms. Porchon-Lynch is recognized by strangers on the street and in airports by people who ask her to pose for cellphone snaps. “It’s like going around with a celebrity,” Ms. Douglass said.
Ms. Porchon-Lynch has been embraced by big names in the spirituality world. Deepak Chopra met Ms. Porchon-Lynch in 2011 when he took part in a panel discussion with the Dalai Lama. Ms. Porchon-Lynch, after sitting in the audience, approached the men and introduced herself. “All these gurus from India who have come and gone — Pattabhi Jois, Iyengar — she has met them all,” Dr. Chopra said. “It’s incredible. Even His Holiness was totally impressed by her.”
Dr. Chopra and Ms. Porchon-Lynch meet from time to time. He hosted her at his apartment earlier this month for a Facebook Live chat. Within a day, the video had been viewed by 115,000 users and shared more than 1,500 times.
And yet the lines of lived experience on Ms. Porchon-Lynch’s face, and the expression of peace and vivacity in her eyes, are powerful reminders that the practice is about more than clicks.
“The celebrity yoga world can be a competitive place,” said Kelly Kamm, a yoga instructor who travels around the workshop circuit and is a muse of Mr. Sturman, the photographer.
“It’s like being a rock star, it’s one in a hundred-thousand chance,” Ms. Kamm said. “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. There is just so much of that. Then came someone who was the opposite of that. Then came Täo.”
Source: http://nyti.ms/2g2OCTG
“I didn’t speak English that well and he taught me to say, ‘I presume that your presumptions are precisely incorrectly, your sarcastic insinuations too obnoxious to be appreciated,’” Ms. Porchon-Lynch said, sitting on a bench in the yoga room at the Fred Astaire studio. She then repeated the line, verbatim. “That was in 1940,” she said.
She joined a dance troupe that entertained soldiers in Europe, and from there made her way to Hollywood. She worked as a contract actress for M.G.M., teaching yoga to other actresses and traveling back to India when she could to study with yogis including B. K. S. Iyengar and Pattabhi Jois.
Wine and High HeelsWhile traveling in New York, she was introduced to an insurance salesman, Bill Lynch. They married in 1963 and eventually settled in Hartsdale, N.Y., a suburb in Westchester County. They had no children, focusing on civic involvement and drinking wine. (Together they founded the American Wine Society. To this day, Ms. Porchon-Lynch drinks only two beverages: tea and wine. She does not drink water.)
Mr. Lynch died after a motorcycle accident in 1982, and in the years that followed, Ms. Porchon-Lynch recommitted to her yoga practice. For decades, she has maintained two gigs: teaching yoga three times a week at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio in Hartsdale and twice weekly at the Jewish Community Center in nearby Scarsdale.
“She sees things in people they don’t see in themselves,” said Susan Douglass, 61, a trademark lawyer who began studying yoga with Ms. Porchon-Lynch in 1999. “Her students love her. She has a large band of students who would do anything for her.”
Ms. Porchon-Lynch’s career really took off thanks to the strategic thinking of a few devoted students. First, Joyce Pines, a retired schoolteacher who has become something of an attaché of Ms. Porchon-Lynch’s, applied to Guinness World Records for special designation. In 2012, Ms. Porchon-Lynch became “The Oldest Living Yoga Teacher.”
Around the same time, another student hired Robert Sturman, a photographer, to do a photo shoot of Ms. Porchon-Lynch in Central Park. Mr. Sturman’s work focuses on yogis, including many unexpected practitioners like prison inmates and wounded veterans.
Ms. Porchon-Lynch showed up for the shoot in a red ballroom dancer’s flamenco dress and high heels. He questioned her choice to wear spikes to a park, and she told him she only wears high heels. “She said they helped elevate her consciousness,” said Mr. Sturman, who ended up carrying her through the muddy park.
After the shoot, he posted images on his Facebook page. They went viral and continue to spread more than four years later. (Mr. Sturman now photographs Ms. Porchon-Lynch twice a year, and Ms. Pines maintains her accounts on Facebook and elsewhere.)
With her social media cred firmly established, Ms. Porchon-Lynch began fielding invitations to yoga festivals and retreats from Bosnia to Dubai. “I am invited all over the world!” she said.
Joann Burnham, a founder of the annual Nantucket Yoga Festival, asked Ms. Porchon-Lynch to lead workshops at the event in 2014, after she heard about her from James Miller, who had hosted her at the Iowa City Yoga Festival.
“At this point, you can’t have a yoga festival and not invite Täo,” said Ms. Burnham, who dedicates a whole weekend to “Täo workshops” at Dharma Yoga Nantucket, the studio she owns with her husband. “Being in her presence and seeing the expectations of what someone would think about someone who is 98, and seeing all those expectations squashed, is so incredible.”
Though Ms. Porchon-Lynch lives by herself, she most often travels with companions.
Ms. Douglass accompanied her on several trips to workshops in the last few years. Almost always, she said, Ms. Porchon-Lynch is recognized by strangers on the street and in airports by people who ask her to pose for cellphone snaps. “It’s like going around with a celebrity,” Ms. Douglass said.
Ms. Porchon-Lynch has been embraced by big names in the spirituality world. Deepak Chopra met Ms. Porchon-Lynch in 2011 when he took part in a panel discussion with the Dalai Lama. Ms. Porchon-Lynch, after sitting in the audience, approached the men and introduced herself. “All these gurus from India who have come and gone — Pattabhi Jois, Iyengar — she has met them all,” Dr. Chopra said. “It’s incredible. Even His Holiness was totally impressed by her.”
Dr. Chopra and Ms. Porchon-Lynch meet from time to time. He hosted her at his apartment earlier this month for a Facebook Live chat. Within a day, the video had been viewed by 115,000 users and shared more than 1,500 times.
And yet the lines of lived experience on Ms. Porchon-Lynch’s face, and the expression of peace and vivacity in her eyes, are powerful reminders that the practice is about more than clicks.
“The celebrity yoga world can be a competitive place,” said Kelly Kamm, a yoga instructor who travels around the workshop circuit and is a muse of Mr. Sturman, the photographer.
“It’s like being a rock star, it’s one in a hundred-thousand chance,” Ms. Kamm said. “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. There is just so much of that. Then came someone who was the opposite of that. Then came Täo.”
Source: http://nyti.ms/2g2OCTG