Today is the 4th International Yoga Day. The whole world became Yoga enthusiastic for this day. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, you could find posts flooded with Yoga poses and tags like Yoga is life, Simple Living etc. Then come these ladies who re-defined Yoga teaching and that too without unnecessary hype.
Amma Nanammal: India’s Oldest Yoga Guru
Nanmmal is the oldest Yoga teacher in India at 99 years of age. People half of her age are on medicines and unable to do a single asana, she has reportedly mastered 50s and is doing and teaching the world with ease.
Amma’s son V Balakrishnan runs a Yoga Centre called Ozone Yoga. Due to this center only, she has transmitted her aura of Yogic knowledge to more than 1 million students. Out of these over 10000 of them are spreading the knowledge of Yoga as instructors themselves.
Amma learnt the art of Yoga from her grandparents, who would work an entire day on the farm, but return home in the evening and start performing various Yogic asanas.
A resident of Coimbatore, Amma is one of the oldest recipient of Padma Shri award. Amma has also won the Nari Shakti Puruskar award in 2017 from the President on International Women’s Day. Amma has also been bestowed with a Yoga Ratna awards from the state government of Karnataka.
Her key to success is the simple living including simple diet of porridge made with millets for breakfast, greens and rice for lunch, and milk and fruits for dinner.
Tao Porchon-Lynch: World’s oldest Yoga Instructor
Tao Porchon-Lynch, born as Täo Andrée Porchon on August 13, 1918, continues to teach yoga and ballroom dance even after scoring a century. She is the current Guinness World Records holder for being world’s oldest yoga instructor at the age of 93 in 2012.
Born to Manipuri mother and French father, found yoga at the age of 8. With this new found passion, she started learning from Sri Aurobindo and B.K.S.Iyengar. Post World-War 2, she became an actress and a cabaret dancer.
Later in 1962, she married Bill Lynch. As love for Yoga became deeply etched inside her, she quit acting in 1967 and became the practitioner and a spreader of this ancient knowledge. Since then, she has never looked back.
