“I wake up in the morning and I tune into the inner breath, and I tune into the life force that’s in everything,” says Porchon-Lynch (101), who owns an Institute of Yoga that she opened in 1982 when she was in her 60s.
“I think, ‘This is going to be the best day of my life.’”
This woman radiates with joy, happiness, and inner peace and she can do a headstand while being propped on her elbows.
She says that her success and her radiance come from her ability to remain physically active and working in her 100s.
Porchon-Lynch dedicated herself to yoga when she was 9 and was living in her native India that was a French colony during that time. Before moving to Hollywood, she joined the French Resistance in World War II. After moving to Hollywood, she started working as an actress and a model while also being a yoga teacher to Golden Age Hollywood actresses like Kathryn Grayson and Debbie Reynolds.
Today, she is still actively teaching yoga. Her posture is flawless. “Always know that energy moves upwards—it doesn’t move down into your feet,” she says. “All of you who do a lot of desk work, you want to make sure you’re in alignment,” she said. Don’t slouch into your chair.
Yoga also helps her in achieving the perfect balance so that she can prevent falling down. Broken bones can be extremely debilitating for elders as many of them never fully recover after breaking a hip.
On the other hand, Porchon-Lynch broke her hip last year. And while she apologized to her class for being “a bit one-sided” because of her injury, she has fully recovered.
Today, she is training for a ballroom dancing competition together with her partner who is 70 years younger than her.
She finishes every class with a smile and tells her students that there is nothing they can’t do.
She believes that what you put out in the Universe; the Universe brings it back to you. Therefore, her mantra is: “Smile at the world and it will smile back at you.”
