Max Strom and Tao Porchon-Lynch
Over the years I’ve had many different influences as a yoga teacher, but there are two people whose approach to yoga has particularly stayed with me: Max Strom and Tao Porchon-Lynch. They are completely different teachers, but both represent something I believe very strongly myself — yoga is about so much more than being flexible or performing impressive postures.
I first became interested in Max Strom through his wonderful book A Life Worth Breathing. Even the title says so much about his philosophy. This isn’t really a book about how to perfect your Downward Dog. It’s about how we live, how we breathe, how we deal with our past and how we find greater meaning in our lives.
Max has been teaching yoga since the 1990s and has become particularly well known for putting the breath at the centre of his work. His teaching combines breathing, movement and ideas around emotional wellbeing, which is probably why his work resonates with me so much.
One of the things I’ve increasingly understood through my own yoga and breathwork training is that the breath isn’t simply something happening in the background while we perform yoga postures. It can become part of the practice itself.
My other great yoga inspiration couldn’t be more extraordinary.
Tao Porchon-Lynch discovered yoga as a little girl growing up in India in the 1920s, at a time when she was told that yoga wasn’t something girls did. Her response was essentially: if boys can do it, why can’t I?
That attitude seems to have followed her throughout her life.
Tao’s life extended far beyond yoga. As a young woman she marched with Mahatma Gandhi. She later worked as a model and actress, became a yoga teacher and continued ballroom dancing into extraordinary old age. At 93 she was officially recognised by Guinness World Records as the world’s oldest yoga teacher.
What inspires me most is that she didn’t seem to become preoccupied with the idea of being old.
She kept moving.
She kept teaching.
She kept dancing.
She kept breathing.
At 101 she was still teaching yoga and taking dance lessons. I find that incredibly inspiring as a woman and as a yoga teacher.
I don’t practise yoga because I want to be able to perform increasingly complicated poses. I practise because I want to keep living fully inside my body. I want strength, mobility and balance. I want to be able to breathe well and calm my mind. I want to remain curious and connected to life as I grow older.
That’s what connects these two teachers for me.
The breath.
Max Strom teaches us to pay attention to it.
Tao Porchon-Lynch demonstrated what a lifetime of movement, breath, curiosity and engagement with life could look like.
Neither inspires me because they could perform a particular yoga posture.
They inspire me because of the way they understood yoga as a way of living.
And that’s the kind of yoga teacher I want to be.
I want to teach people strength and flexibility, of course. But I also want to teach people how to breathe, how to slow down, how to listen to their bodies and how to understand that yoga can continue changing with us throughout our lives.
Perhaps one day we’ll be practising differently at 70, 80 or 90.
That’s perfectly fine.
The important thing is that we keep moving, keep breathing and keep participating in our lives.
Because ultimately, as Max Strom’s beautiful title reminds me, what we’re creating is a life worth breathing.
Watch My Yoga Heroes
Max Strom – Breathe to Heal | TEDxCapeMay
In this talk Max explores the relationship between breathing, stress, emotions and wellbeing. It’s a wonderful introduction to why he believes learning how to breathe consciously can be such an important part of our lives.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Lb5L-VEm34
Tao Porchon-Lynch – There Is Nothing You Cannot Do | TEDxColumbiaSIPA
Tao was 95 when she gave this extraordinary talk. She shares stories from her life, including Gandhi, yoga and her refusal to allow age to dictate what she could and couldn’t do. If you ever need some inspiration about growing older, watch her.
Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTmaTD5H0iM
Selena
Personal Trainer, Yoga Teacher & Wellbeing Coach
In Flow Wellbeing Studio, Cheltenham
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