World's oldest yoga teacher Tao Porchon-Lynch started practicing yoga when she was 8, began teaching 45 years ago and now, 93, is t...

World's oldest yoga teacher

Tao Porchon-Lynch started practicing yoga when she was 8, began teaching 45 years ago and now, 93, is the world's oldest yoga teacher.(Photos:China Daily)

She's more than 90 years old and a living advertisement on human potential, Tao Porchon-Lynch has proven that her extraordinary reputation isn't a stretch. Photographer Keith Bedford records in New York.

Tao Porchon-Lynch, 93, was recently declared by the Guinness World Records as the world's oldest yoga teacher. While many half her age cannot even touch their toes while standing up, the fitness guru can effortlessly support her whole body on her hands or glide into a gravity-defying arm balance. Born in Pondicherry, India, Porchon-Lynch studied under yoga legends, B.K.S. Iyengar and Indra Devi.

She received her first paying yoga job in the United States with fitness icon Jack LaLane. The founder of Westchester Institute of Yoga has trained and certified hundreds of yoga instructors in the world. Porchon-Lynch was an actress in England, France and the US in the 1940s and '50s, wrote screenplays and made documentaries in the '60s and '70s. Her other passion is ballroom dancing and she is an award winning world-class dancer.